Basically Assurance Search Results

How To: Light Up Your iPhone's Apple Logo in Old School Rainbow Colors

As far as logos go, few are as iconic and instantly recognizable as Apple's old-school rainbow emblem. No matter how sleek their products get, people are still nostalgic for the old, colorful logo, and this mod from Adafruit basically proves it. If you have some pretty decent soldering skills, you can make the Apple on the back of your iPhone light up like the old rainbow logo. In the video below, Becky Stern from Adafruit uses a kit with a replacement glass back, tweezers, screwdrivers, and ...

How To: Hack Your Mini-Fridge into a Vending Machine to Take Care of Freeloading Friends at Your Next Party

It always sounds like a good idea to throw a party... until the party gets there. Next thing you know, you're running around hiding anything breakable, and once everyone leaves, you're stuck cleaning up the mess. But the worst part is footing the bill for everything, and if you don't charge at the door, your chances of getting anyone to chip in are slim to none once the party starts.

How To: This DIY Illuminated Isomorphic Keyboard Changes Colors as You Play Music

An isomorphic (or self-transposing) keyboard is "a musical device where a grid of notes is displayed to the user and the interval change between notes in constant for any given direction." For those of you who didn't grow up playing the piano like I did, that basically means that it lets you move between keys easily without having to learn new patterns because the keys are laid out so that a chord is the same pattern in every musical key.

How To: Don't Have an Apple TV? Use AirPlay to Stream Content to Your Mac Instead

AirPlay is probably one of the most underutilized features in Apple products. It allows users to wirelessly stream photos, music, or video directly from their iPad, iPhone, iPod touch or Mac to their Apple TV or AirPlay-supported speakers. The Apple support page has a complete list of all the supported and needed devices. Mirroring is also available, but only for the iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, and iPad 2, all of which need to be running iOS 5 or later.

How To: Make Your Night Bike Glow in the Dark with Phosphorescent Paint

With gas prices constantly digging into your wallet, biking will always be a cheap and easy alternative for getting around—and it's a perfect way to get in a little exercise. But with the fall season about a week away, it is going to start getting dark a lot earlier and that ride home might be a little more dangerous. So to save yourself an unexpected trip to the ER, take a little time to make your bicycle impossible to overlook.

RoboDoc: A Kid-Friendly DIY Robot That Makes Doctor Visits a Little Less Scary

Remember going to the doctor when you were a kid? If the word 'traumatizing' comes to mind, you'll love the RoboDoc by MarkusB, a robotic doctor that makes checkups a little less scary (and a lot more fun) for kids. It all started when Markus took his 14-month-old daughter for a checkup. The finger clip that the doctor used to check her pulse terrified her, so Markus decided to build a heartbeat monitor just for kids that's much more likely to make them laugh than cry.

News: This DIY Passion Fruit Battery Can Power Lasers!

It's been proven over and over that you can make batteries out of fruits and vegetables such as lemons, potatoes, and even apples. Turns out, passion fruit is also acidic enough to power a battery, but Maui Makers member Ryan K decided to take it a step further by adding a laser. Passion fruit, or Lilikoi as it's called in Hawaii, is usually over-abundant in Maui, so Ryan decided to put it to good use. Using anodized bolts, copper pipe, wire, switches, and some LEDs, he built a battery that c...

News: Hacker Points Out iOS Security Flaw That Allows iPhone Text Spoofing

Security researcher and iPhone hacker pod2g has brought attention to a flaw in Apple's iOS that allows the user to change the reply address of an SMS message. This bug has been a part of the iPhone's SMS since the first iPhone in 2007, but Apple has yet to address it. Basically, there's a section in the text payload called User Data Heading (UDH) that controls some advanced features, one of which is the reply address. By changing the reply address of a text message, you can make someone send ...

How To: DIY Flanagan Neurophone Lets You 'Hear' Sounds Through Your Skin

In 1958, Patrick Flanagan invented the Neurophone, a device patented in 1962 that allows radio signals to be picked up by the human nervous system. The skin is the organ that receives the signal, converting it into a modulated molecular vibration, which the brain interprets into sound. Basically, it gives one the ability to 'hear' through the skin, making it sound like the audio you're hearing is actually in your head. It's kind of like having headphones in your brain. The only problem was th...

News: Inklewriter Lets You Write and Share Your Own 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Books

Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure novels? If your school was anything like mine, they were so popular you were lucky to find one to check out at the library. But there's no worries now, thanks to this handy HTML5 app, which makes it easy to write and share your own 'choose your own adventure' novels. inklewriter is a free tool designed to make writing interactive stories simple. Basically, you start typing and inklewriter helps you organize your story, making it easy to add, remove and...

News: Have an NFC-Enable Phone? This Hack Could Hijack It

Some of us use our smartphones for almost everything. Manufacturers know this, so they try to make their devices as convenient as possible to use, but sometimes that convenience comes with a cost to security. The very same technology that allows you to easily share music with friends and make purchases can also put you at risk. Photo by sam_churchill

News: Valve Turns Gamers into Moviemakers with Source Filmmaker Beta

If you're familiar with games like Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, Portal, and Team Fortress 2, then you've probably seen some of the cool animated movies that Valve has made for them using their Source Filmmaker moviemaking software. It's a tool built to make animated films inside their Source game engine. It's even been licensed to make the upcoming animated film Deep.

How To: UV texture in Houdini 9

This series of videos focuses on a typical UV workflow in Houdini 9. Learn how to create projections, edit UVs with a variety of tools, save out UV maps, and apply textures. Please download the project files below to follow along with these Houdini 9 texturing lessons.

How To: Make a Yami Yamauchi Pandora's Box with origami

In order to make a Pandora's Box, you first need glossy paper. The paper should basically be in the shape of a square, length 15 cm one side. Then divide the paper into 5ths. Now make 5 such folds on the paper and be sure that every fold is equidistant. Similarly, turn the paper around and start folding it from the other side too, in the same fashion. By doing this you will realize the folds have resulted in equal, similar sized boxes on the paper, 25 in total.

How To: Draw full body manga characters

If you want to draw full body manga characters you need to make sure you know how to draw legs. First you should draw hid lines in a box and then connect legs. Make sure you have a gap for the legs and that the legs as even. Draw two circles for the buttocks and then draw legs coming down with a space in between them. Make sure you draw circles to distinguish the ankle and the knee joint. Measure out the leg to make sure the knee to hip and knee to ankle are approximately even. If you want to...

How To: Open a coconut with meat cleaver

Step 1. Understand that opening a coconut requires a considerable use of precise force. Because you are using a knife or cleaver, it is very important that you keep your fingers and other body parts away from the blade. Step 2. Clear off a stable cutting surface. Step 3. Begin scraping off the white, sinewy upper layer around the pointed top of the coconut, using your knife. Scrape off the top layer until a brown ridge is revealed around the base of the pointed top. Right where this brown lay...

How To: Wallpaper

This video tutorial shows you how to wallpaper. 1. Set the mood: To wallpaper a room you need caffeine and music, it's best to get that first. 2. Prepare the space: Basically this step is set to gathering tools, patching holes, cleaning and sanding the walls, moving furniture and removing outlet and switch face plates. The tools are as follows: level, pencil, tape measure, step stool, wallpaper paste, paint tray, paint rollers and brushes, wall paper, squeegee, water bucket, sponge. utility k...

How To: Make a breakable baseball bat movie prop

There are plenty of films out there with baseball bats, but if you want your bat to explode on impact, you'll have to make it yourself. A smashable baseball bat is perfect for any gangster flick or sports movie. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to make a breakable baseball bat movie prop.