Carbon Fiber Briefcase Project: Updated

May 15th, 2009 Paul

This blog will chronicle my attempt at making my own custom Carbon Fiber Briefcase. This is something that I’ve wanted for years and years, but the only ones commercially available are ridiculously expensive. As much as I might want one, there is no way on earth I could ever justify $2000+ for one. And honestly, that’s a ludicrous price, as I know what the materials cost.

My goal is to construct a fully carbon case, similar to the “Zero Halliburton” one pictured here. I did not want to go the cheap route and simply “wrap” an existing case, or even worse just do flat panels and mount those in a standard shell. I wanted to go all out and make a proper fiberglass mold to create my case halves the right way. I’ve got most of my materials ready to go and started on some preliminary steps.

Hello. I moved this post to my personal site, where this content seems a bit more appropriate. Please click the link below to view the whole post at my new site. Thanks!

http://xmetal.me/index.php?id=13

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Western Digital TV HD Media Player - Brief Review

April 29th, 2009 Paul

Western Digital TV HD Media Player, link

I got a new little gadget for my birthday and my wife generously allowed me to open it up and start playing with it. The idea of the product is relatively simple: make a little box with a remote that can access your digital media and play it back on your TV.

The beauty of this thing is that its cheap (less than $100 most places, I got mine for $75 with some coupons), can handle full HD 1080p media, connects via the simple to use HDMI to your TV, and has no internal storage. Now for some, this last fact may seem like a bad idea, but with the cost of external storage falling nearly everyday, you can continue to add to/upgrade your external drives over time and not have to replace this device. I think it’s genius. It also has two ports that it can access at the same time, so you can leave your primary drive plugged into the back and add on another one, or use a USB flash memory stick for quick access. Read the rest of this entry »

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Linksys WVC54GCA Camera with Mac and iPhone

February 5th, 2009 Paul

I got a Linksys WVC54GCA camera recently to keep an eye on our baby while she is being watched at home. Most of the folks out there are on PC’s, but we have a Mac OS X network at home with a Linksys wireless router, so I thought it would be helpful to have a little set up information for folks with similar equipment. While you can probably complete these steps in slightly different orders, this might be the simplest way to get it up and running.

Hello. I moved this post to my personal site, where this content seems a bit more appropriate. Please click the link below to view the whole post at my new site. Thanks!

http://xmetal.me/index.php?id=15

Posted in How-To, Technology | 16 Comments »

PostiBoard.com Now Live

January 9th, 2009 Paul

Like many things on the web, I stated creating something to solve a minor personal dilemma, but as I got deeper into the creation I realized that what I was making might be useful for other people too. The result: PostiBoard.com

You can Beta test it now, and it’s totally 100% absolutely no-obligations free.

Silly Human Problem: Even though I sit at a computer all day, have dozens of programs available to me, and even have gadgets like the iPhone, I still found myself needing a way to jot down real quick notes, and invariably turned to the messy stack of Post-It note papers on my desk. I thought that perhaps it would be nice to have something in my browser that could accomplish something similar and avoid the issues of losing important notes.

Solution: A web-based “board” where you can put up sticky notes. Similar things have been done before, and the Mac and Windows have apps that do this, but how many times do you put something on a sticky at work and then need it at home?

Advantages: It’s free. It’s logical and easy to use (I hope) and looks nice. Works anywhere that you can use a web browser with Flash (so pretty much everywhere). Doesn’t rely on Mac or Windows-only installation of a program. Saves everything to a database as you work, so you never need to worry about “saving” things. Notes can be emailed to yourself, great if you have something like an iPhone and want to take a long note with you. If you are a Twitter fan, I built in a display of your home feed (posting updates to come later). You can share a non-editable version of your PostiBoard with friends.

Maybe you will find it handy too. Please check it out, and feel free to send it along to anyone that might also find it useful. If you run into problems, or have ideas please use the contact link on the homepage to send it along.

http://www.postiboard.com

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