A large number of the greatest musicians to ever shape the history of sound first learned to play on cheap, dirty, and often times even homemade instruments. There is a very unique atmosphere that comes about when creating music with something made by your own hands—out of what was no more than garbage at the start. There is a sense of accomplishment that inspires the maker, and gives motivation to learn the limits of their creation. Those who have the desire to build an instrument are often ...
Null Byte is looking for forum moderators! Welcome to the ninth Community Byte for coding in Python and completing the challenges presented to us by HackThisSite. These sessions are created to bring our community together, to learn from each other, and grow together. Everyone is welcome, from novice programmers to aspiring hackers.
Let's face it: most commercial bathroom products are overpriced and loaded with weird chemicals. So how about a 2012 resolution to go completely DIY with two bathroom essentials many of us use on a daily basis: toothpaste and shaving cream?
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our advanced tutorials and come play on our free server. Sometimes keeping track of items in Minecraft can get out of hand, and it seems like there's never enough room in chests. With a redstone sorting machine you can easily keep track of your food, armor, potions, and more! No more rifling through chests to find the right item. The redstone sorting machine will help you categorize, find, and retrieve items at the push of a button.
It is always a bittersweet moment to find yourself looking back on the fond memories that seem to have taken place in the distant past. When your favorite song from 10 years ago comes onto the radio, or when a sudden scent reminds you of the summers you spent as a child—these types of moments tend to trigger the fondest of memories. For this week's challenge, we'd like to see a photo that captures a nostalgic feeling, whether it be your favorite childhood food, meaningful memorabilia you've s...
Astronomy World will be posting a weekly blog post that informs fellow observers upcoming interesting events in the sky. These will include:
Using an analog camera to create multiple exposures is a technique that has long been in practice throughout the history of photography. Pressing the shutter button twice will superimpose the exposure of two different images onto the same piece of film. Sometimes done in an artistic manner, sometimes by accident—you never know what you'll get until you develop your roll of film.
Creating your own video tutorials - part 2. In this second part of our tutorial series on how to create your own video tutorial for free we will go into editing your video using Windows Movie Maker, which is provided free with all new versions of Windows. Read the first article on video capture by clicking here!
Creating your own video tutorials. Over the last few years we have created a whole database of short video tutorials at helpvids.com - showing you how to use different programs.
eBooks are an amazing thing, especially with Amazon's Kindle. What's irrtating about eBooks as that you have an infinite selection of books at your fingertips, but they all cost so much! Well, as always, Null Byte has a trick up our sleeves for nabbing free ebooks from Google.
I've previously mentioned how saving browser passwords is a bad idea, but I never went into much detail as to why. Passwords that are saved in your browser can be carved out and stolen very easily. In fact, even passwords you save for instant messaging and Wi-Fi are vulnerable. Windows is very inefficient with the way it stores passwords—it doesn't store them in key-vaults, nor does it encrypt them. You're left with passwords residing in memory and filespace that's unencrypted.
DOTTREL 58 points (8 points without the bingo) Definition: dotterel; a shore bird [n]
Still reading? Either your kids are not in diapers anymore or you're just curious. Either way, on to the next category of scavenger hunters.
Nemo PDF to Word is a powerful but free tool to help us to convert PDF to Word with a few simple clicks. Even beginners who don't have much computer knowledge can easily manage it.
Security awareness seems to be a hot topic these days on the web, with developers making apps and devices that can hack networks and machines with just a few clicks. But these applications aren't only exploiting security flaws in systems and networks, they're being used by amateur and wannabe hackers who want to have a little fun, but don't want to learn how to actually "hack" anything.
While we're waiting for Google to sort out the mess over suspended Google+ accounts, it's a good reminder that you have the option to download much of your Google+ data with Google Takeout. Google Takeout, created by an internal Google engineering team marketed as the Data Liberation Front, is a free service that provides a handy and easy way to download data from your Google+ stream, your contacts and circles, and other information in a zip file.
You've seen the felt mouse, which made computer clicking comfortable and chic, now brace yourself for something a little more interactive—DataBot.
On the same day that Google launched their new social network, Google +, a team of Google engineers calling themselves the Data Liberation Front announced their first service on Tuesday—Google Takeout, a product that allows users to easily move their data in and out of Google products, including Buzz, Contacts and Circles, Picasa Web Albums, Profile and Stream (the equivalent of Facebook’s newsfeed).
When the New York Times paywall first went up, there was a whole lot of balking. The idea seemed egregious to most, and the digerati's overwhelming conclusion was that the system would fail. But interestingly enough, there is speculation that the NYT is actually experiencing an increase in their print subscriptions, which according to Business Insider founder Henry Blodgett, is due to users feeling less guilt over buying the print media if, after all, the digital version is no longer free.
Takoyaki, a very popular Japanese street food, is a spherical dumpling with grilled octopus. What's fun about cooking is that you don't always need to follow the classic recipe for things. I wanted to take this humble snack and turn it into something a little more decadent. Mine includes scallop, foie gras, dried mushrooms, and caviar. Here's what you'll need:
Oat bran has the ability to lower cholesterol plus it contains fiber, iron, calcium, and trace minerals, vitamins A, E, & K and several of the B vitamins. Here's the nutritional lowdown. But really, how many bowls of oat bran can you eat every day? Luckily it can be added to lots of the foods you already eat without changing flavor or even texture. Here's how:
PC-only users read no more, this announcement is for those who embrace all-devices-Apple. Are you interested in fully optimizing the use of your iPhone, Macbook or iPad? Are you looking to go paperless, find the best apps for all your iDevices, or easily automate your daily activities online? Are you interested in upgrading to more advanced keyboard shortcuts?
There are hundreds of websites that claim you can win cash or prizes by signing up and using their website. Sadly, most of these are scams but there are a couple out there that are legitimate. I have investigated many of these websites and tried them out personally, with many failures. The one that sticks out the most, for me and many other people, is beezag.com. Beezag is a website that hooks you up with companies that are currently offering cash or sweepstakes entries for prizes they are gi...
Kudos to student Tim Wheatley, who came up with this incredibly nifty DIY animation using a bicycle wheel, cardboard cut-outs, and wire to create a magical reinvention of the classic zoetrope, Earth's earliest form of animation (it first surfaced in China around 180 AD!). Simply give it a spin, and the animation comes to life. Inspired to make your own? First, learn the basic principles of the zoetrope here or here. Next, take a little advice from Tim to add the "cyclo" element:
Yes, I still put that hyphen in “e-mail.” Remember when e-mail meant “electronic mail,” and wasn’t all one word? I do, and I honor that time with a little hyphen. Also, it means that I can make up all kinds of names for things that have “e-” at the beginning. I’ve been playing this game since 1992.
Before last Sunday I hadn't been to a proper game store since I was in middle school. Over ten years ago. If you decide to stop reading right now because I obviously don't care enough about MTG to be writing this thing, I don't blame you. But I tell you, friends, as someone who has denied the utter awesomeness of their hobby for too long, that going to Emerald Knights in Burbank made me feel at home. I want to tell you about it and explain why I will be back many times in the future.
Now, I've already had the experience where I go to a Renaissance Faire and can identify the patterns used by various fairegoers to make their costumes. But I had an experience last week that I'm still wondering about.
Let’s say you have a MOOG keyboard you want to send into Logic. To set this up, there’s a few things to do in Logic.
You can see why Ralph's daughter Dylan may have conceived of the $15 grand gingerbread house. Below, images of the fashion King's exotic car garage, via Vanity Fair.
Imagine walking around and everyone looks awesome! Ok, maybe this beauty is only skin deep or shall we say AR deep. Coming soon to a pair of glasses near you, you will be able to put on glasses that actually make people look more muscular, have bigger boobs, look tan & blonde, etc... Now imagine that you can push a button or say a word and now all the people around you become brunette. Then another setting makes everyone slightly shorter than you. All of this in realtime!
Eric Abrahamson, a professor at Columbia University, writes in to Forbes on how to be the Michelangelo of work shirking. The article is intended to help managers better understand their team's lack of productivity, but it also provides 10 simple tactics for all the lazy asses out there. Introducing exhibit A, June, a total lazy ass who lasted almost a decade in her job before being laid off:
In every nerd, there is a 12-year-old boy just dying to get out. This week, we bring you the ultimate in indulging your inner kid.
Tricycle + simple plow blade = true yankee ingenuity. (Who needs a pricey snow plow vehicle?) Craig Smith recently submitted his custom contraption to MAKE:
As Theo Gray of Gray Matter demonstrates below, contrary to what the ads may say, diamonds CAN expire. Especially when attacked with a blow torch and liquid nitrogen. Gray says:
We all have friends and family who have added the FarmVille application at one point, played it for a while, then for whatever reason decided they didn't want to play it anymore. They may have hidden the feed posts and blocked the game requests, but we still see them on our gift lists and certain features still try to get them involved with posts that go ignored (like pregnant pigs or truffles).
The forefront of bike technology has delivered bikes without hubs, bikes as flexible as Gumby, and invisible steering. The latest to enter the field rethinks the bicycle chain. As in... who needs it?
Fashion designer Manel Torres has teamed up with scientists at Imperial College London and designers at the Royal College of Art to invent spray-on clothing, an instant, sprayable, non-woven fabric-in-a-can.
There are endless possibilities for eReaders, and lots of amazing things are already happening. But wow-worthy visual tricks aside, how can technology really change the way we consume books? In the video below design company IDEO presents three separate concepts for virtual consumption: Nelson, Coupland and Alice. IDEO groups their virtual experiences into three separate concepts: Nelson, Coupland and Alice. Core77 breaks down each concept:
Every day of the week, WonderHowTo curators are hard at work, scouring the web for the greatest and most inspiring how-to videos. Every Friday, we'll highlight our favorite finds.
