Creating any object you want is as simple as point and click if you have a 3D printer at home. If you don't have one handy, there are a few companies that offer printing services online. But to help services realize your design in extruded plastic, you have to make a 3D computer model for the printing machine. For beginners, the free Google SketchUp application is the best choice of software. Using only a few tool bar buttons and a scroll wheel computer mouse, you can model literally any obje...
Microcontrollers are great. You can do anything from water your garden to catch wildlife trash diggers in the act—and on the cheap. I prefer to use the Arduino microcontroller because of the large and helpful community built around the website. Though it is my favorite, there are some drawbacks to using an Arduino board in every project. It gets expensive, the board can take up too much space, and the rat's nest of breadboard wires are a pain to repair.
When you're just a child, there's nothing better than a clown and a few balloon animals to make your birthday party one to remember. There's just something unforgettable about experiencing a balloon twisting in action—the contortion of the balloon, that rubber smell, and the inevitable high-pitched squeakiness that fills the room until a bunny or giraffe appears.
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server!
Welcome to Minecraft World! Check out our tutorials, post to the community corkboard, and come play on our free server!
Last Friday's mission was to accomplish solving HackThisSite, realistic 2. This second mission in a series of realistic simulation missions was designed to be exactly like situations you may encounter in the real world, requesting we help a friend take down a racist hate-group website.
Amazingly, a lot of people I know haven't even heard of SOPA or PIPA. Now, every English-reading person with an internet connection will finally have those two four-letter acronyms emblazoned in their minds. For the entire day today, Wikipedia's English-language site will be in total blackout in protest against the proposed legislation in the United States. And that's not all. MoveOn, Reddit, BoingBoing, Mozilla, WordPress, TwitPic and other popular websites are down today in protest.
Welcome, dear readers, to week two of Edit on a Dime, the community for inexpensive, and, dare I say it, free in many cases, editing software.
It's Monday, which means once again, it's time to highlight some of the recent community submissions posted to the Math Craft corkboard. In this post, we'll also make a flexagon, which is a type of transformable object.
Visit the charming historical town of Quimper in Northwestern France. Enjoy ancient architecture, cobblestone streets, a stunning cathedral, and world-famous crepes..
Reuben Margolin builds large scale kinetic sculptures based off of mechanical waves. Some of his sculptures contain hundreds of pulleys all working in harmony with each other to create sinusoidal waves and their resulting interference patterns. He designs them all on paper and does all of the complicated trigonometric calculations by hand. Everything is mechanical; there are no electronic controllers.
It's a question I've been pondering a lot lately. Technically, children under the age of 13 are not allowed to join Facebook. But according to a Consumer Reports in May, 7.5 million children 12 and younger are already on the site. Currently, federal law prohibits websites from collecting personal data from children without parental permission. The Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, as it is more commonly known, has been in effect since 1998, but has not been updated since.
I've been hell-bent on complete self sufficiency for a long time now. There was a point where I was living in a self-sustaining community in the mountains in Colorado, and we had a very large greenhouse there. Dragging the hose around to water plants was a real pain, and that stuck in the back of my mind even after I left the place. It would have been much easier to integrate watering into the frame at construction time than doing that hose dance every day.
Portal is game design milestone. Originally only available bundled in with larger cousins Half-Life 2 and Team Fortress 2 in The Orange Box, its creators, Valve Software, changed what first person gameplay could be. It's been a stand alone product for much of the four years since its release, but never an expensive one, usually available for $5 on Steam (also created by Valve). If that barrier to entry was too high for you, or you just never got around to trying it, there are no more excuses....
Giveaway Tuesdays has officially ended! But don't sweat it, WonderHowTo has another World that's taken its place. Every Tuesday, Phone Snap! invites you to show off your cell phone photography skills.
Game Developer Magazine is a prominent periodical for game industry folk to read up on their craft. For those who don't work in games, it can be a little dry, but every year they release a Game Career Guide devoted to welcoming other people into their world. Best of all, it's free! You can view the newest issue just released here in your browser, or download the PDF version.
Google recently unveiled the start of their new social network Google+, which is set to compete with Facebook and fix the awkward, broken aspects on online sharing they claim exist. It's currently only open to a limited number of Googlers during its "field trial," and if you weren't one of the lucky ones given an invitation, you can still sign up to be notified when Google+ is available in your area. You can also stay up to date on its Twitter page, GooglePlus.
If you liked the idea of cutting duplicate keys from a personal 3D printer, then you might be interested to know that researchers at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria have successfully designed the smallest 3D printer to date. The prototype device is smaller than a shoebox and weighs only 3.3 pounds. It uses stereolithography compared to the RepRap's extruding molten plastic, and it's not a self-replicating machine and costs a bit more, at nearly $1,800 each. But compare that to ...
Making Your Own Roman Shades Are you an everyday Martha Stuart? You know, one of those do it yourself creative people who can make better household items than you can find at the store. It so, I found a great (quick to the point) video that will help you design and make your very own set of Roman Shades.
Nintendo has already confirmed that the successor to the Wii will be on the market in 2012, but a lot is still unknown about Project Café, the codename given to the device. From all of the leaked information on the web, it seems like there's a significant design upgrade from the Wii, making it hard to imagine this gaming console being called or even referred to as the Wii 2.
The challenge of creating garments with unconventional materials has become an all too familiar gimmick for most first year students at fashion schools. The end result is more often than not a catwalk of garbage bags, zip ties, plastic bottles and cans, assembled into a menagerie of mediocrity. Enter Jum Nakao. But while the Japanese-Brasilian artist/fashion designer does use an unconventional and impractical material (paper) for his collection "A Costura do Invisivel"(translation: "Sewing th...
Everyone knows who Charles Dickens is—the famous English author responsible for such iconic novels as Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol and The Adventures of Oliver Twist. But what if this Victorian era novelist (who died in 1870) was resurrected into today’s futuristic world? How would you explain the concept of a technology he’s never seen before? Even something that perfectly fits his area of expertise—books? How would you elucidate the Amazon Kindle?
Choosing Draperies for Your Home is as Easy as 1-2-3 Determine the Color Scheme and Pattern
Digital distribution games are already firmly established on the PC, and they've infiltrated every present and next-gen console to some degree. Whether you like to play DOS, AAA, PC or indie games, there's a way to purchase most of them without leaving the comfort and warmth of your couch or desk.
When images of a rumored Ikea cookbook surfaced through the blogger grapevine, foodie and graphic design fetishists alike grew ecstatic. The leaked images from the 140 page coffee-table baking book presented pristinely assembled, OCD patterns of ingredients and the resulting desserts for 30 classic Swedish baking recipes. Forsman & Bodenfors, the Swedish agency behind the project took a different approach to the typical organization of the standard baking cookbook.
Microsoft has finally released Windows Live Essentials 2011, their suite of consumer applications designed to compliment Windows and compete against Apple's iLife software. Windows Live Essentials 2011 is only available for Windows Vista and Windows 7 and can be downloaded from the Windows Live website.
Nearly every kid wants a treehouse (as well as many grown-ups). Personally, it's one of my greatest unfulfilled desires.
In this clip, you'll see how to create custom shaped light sources using simple meshes and adding an Arch&Design shader to it to render the scene with Mental Ray. Whether you're new to Autodesk's popular modeling software or a seasoned 3D artist just looking to better acquaint yourself with the application, you're sure to be well served by this video tutorial. For more information, and to get started using shape lights in your own Max projects, take a look!
New Mexico native Amelia Coulter grew up amongst the rich creative community and natural beauty of Santa Fe. After attending SUNY Purchase as a sculpture major, Amelia settled in Brooklyn and decided to merge her love of patterns, architecture and design with her passion for food. Thus SUGARBUILT was born. Amelia seeks out the best ingredients available to create wonderful and unusual recipes. Starting with the basics of a tasty sugar cookie dough and royal icing, she transforms the classic c...
After 3,000 man hours and $100 grand spent, 49-year-old Randy Grubb of rural Oregon turned this old junker long-haul truck...
Video game ranking site VGChartz reports that Mike Leyde, a 56-year old steel contractor from Riverside, California, has broken Bejeweled 2's scoreboard with a score of 2,147,783,647.
In this how to video, you will learn how create an animated loading gif in Photoshop. First, open the design you want to use for the animation in Photoshop. It should be similar to the design shown. Go to window and click animation to view the animation panel. First, change the frame time to your liking. Now, set all the shapes to 50 percent opacity except for one. Press the new frame button, duplicating the frame. Drop the opacity of the area of the image and increase the opacity of the area...
This video demonstrates how to work with PowerPoint themes. From the people who brought you the Dummies instructional book series, brings you the same non-intimidating guides in video form. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to work with PowerPoint themes, For Dummies.
This video demonstrates how to use PowerPoint presentation slide masters. From the people who brought you the Dummies instructional book series, brings you the same non-intimidating guides in video form. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to use PowerPoint presentation slide masters, For Dummies.
This 3D software tutorial shows you how to use images to affect models in 3D Studio Max. Using the displacement modifier in 3ds Max we are able to use either image data or procedural texture maps to drive geometry in a design model. Modeling with images is a great way to model quickly and with details hard to get using other methods. See how in this 3ds Max tutorial. Model with images in 3ds Max.
Rollovers let your users know that they are interacting with the web page. In this software tutorial, we will use Photoshop to create images to be used in both states of the rollovers and Dreamweaver CS3 to create the rollovers themselves. Rollovers are a huge part of website design so if you don't know how to make them, and you are building websites in Dreamweaver CS3 this tutorial is a great place to learn. Create rollovers in Dreamweaver CS3.
Fireworks CS4 is bridging the gap between graphic design and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) with it's new CSS and images export script. Jim Babbage shows you how the CSS and images export script in Fireworks CS4 works in this Adobe CS4 tutorial. Let Fireworks CS4 do some of the work for you with the help of this tutorial and the new Export CSS and images script. Export CSS and images out of Fireworks CS4.
Rich Harrington demonstrates how to use After Effects CS4’s guides and device central tools to make sure that your video content will display correctly on whatever device your viewers will be using. After Effects CS4 has made it easier to design for special devices like high definition tv's and cellular phones. Learn how to work with these new guides and controls in After Effects CS4. Use guides & device controls in After Effects CS4.
SQL injection is a common web application attack that focuses on the database backend. WebGoat is a deliberately insecure J2EE web application maintained by OWASP designed to teach web application security lessons. I plan to use WebGoat for a few future videos. This first WebGoat video will show the basics of installing WebGoat and doing two of its SQL injection lessons. Hack websites with SQL injection and WebGoat.
Martha Stewart and kids editorial director Jodi Levine shares ideas for decorating Easter eggs with crepe paper. Crepe paper is one of my favorite materials. It's actually tissue paper that has been reinforced with sizing and "creped," a crinkling method that yields a medium that is incredibly pliable yet sturdy enough to iron and sew. Beautiful and durable, it lends itself to countless applications. In fact, I walked down the aisle with a bouquet of crepe paper blooms! I recently realized ho...
