The end result:

The process:

Here’s what I started with:

Flipped over and removing staples:

Seat sans vinyl cover:

Vinyl cover sans seat:

Plastic seat base separated from seat foam:

Filling in the crevices:

Extra padding:

Only two cuts in the material!

Now we’re stuck…

Top view, with some extra filler pieces:

Beveled edge:

Staple time!

Almost done!

Always use protection.

From Woot!:

Sometimes, when it looks like a democratically elected leader like Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan or Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe might get democratically un-elected, they decide that suspending the constitution and/or disbanding the legislature would be more fun than playing golf and giving speeches at the Kennedy School. It almost makes us wish Woot shipped to other countries – maybe our narcotic drip of cheap consumer electronics could smooth these tyrants’ way into a comfortable retirement, to the benefit of their suffering subjects. Your challenge:
Show us what a dictator, past or present, would buy from Woot, and how he would use it.
Use any past or current Woot product or products. Yeah, we meant to say “he” – not to be sexist, but the ladies have shown a decided lack of aptitude for despotism. And by “dictator”, we mean any authoritarian, undemocratic national leader – you can decide if the restricted, predetermined sham elections in places like Iran and Cuba count. Otherwise, you know a dictator when you see one, right? He’s usually the guy in the nice car with the gilded epaulets and way too many military medals. 

My entry, featuring the Infocus N1 Projector:

Sources after the more link…

My sources:
  

Black Pants:

Green Pants:

Kapkay from kipkay.com has a great tutorial on how to install a laser diode into a mag lite here.

The idea is to do the same thing with a toy laser gun.

Yes, fly. I have a serious fear of heights, perhaps because I’ve spent my entire life in Florida at or near sea level.  I think flying an ultralight would be a pretty cool experience, and you can do it without any sort of license.  It’s also relatively inexpensive.  I am thinking specifically of a powered parachute, because that seems like the option I’m least likely to die in.   I mean come on, it’s a parachute.  What could go wrong?

Sometime before Winter sets in, I want to try and get up to Sebastian go for an “Introductory Flight” with an instructor up there.  It’s only $55 for a 30 minute flight in a powered parachute, which is probably cheaper than a lot of things I could be doing on a Saturday, especially if you’ve seen any of the projects I’ve been working on.

There have been a lot of things catching my interest lately, and I’m having trouble keeping up with all of it.

I’ve decided to use this blog to keep notes on everything I (think I) want to do.

So I picked up the Logitech Buddy Cam 2-pack at Geeks.com a few weeks ago for $18.  Not bad, eh?  Well, they work great…except on the PC I need them to work on, which runs Windows Vista.

Luckily I found this awesome little page with instructions that worked perfectly for me.

The situation is this: the XP driver for (most models of) the camera works under Vista, but the bundled logitech QuickCam 8.x software does not.  The solution, you ask?

• Download the 8.x software package, and extract the driver from it (without installing the software).
• Plug your camera in, point Vista to the driver you extracted, and your hardware is installed.
• The final step is to go to the driver page for one of the newer model cameras and download the QuickCam 10.x or 11.x software (which does work with Vista) and install that.  It’ll pick your camera right up and use it.

Well, I finally got my sweet-ass Zune and it’s…well…frickin’ sweet.  When I have something original to say, I’ll post more.

By the way, this thing has been out for how long now?  WTF?!  Where are all the crazy hacks for this thing?  Goddammit they should have these things making toast by now.

Do it. Now.  Your only excuse to continue reading without shutting it off is that you don’t know how to.  Since you’re still reading, I’ll assume you don’t know how to turn off Search Indexing.  Well, according to this handy article, the steps are as follows:

To disable constant indexing:

• Click Start then Computer 
• Right Click the C: Drive or any other drive that you wish to prevent indexing of 
• On General Tab, Uncheck Index this drive for faster searching 
• On the subsequent dialog box, Select Include subfolders and files.

Ranting after the more link… 

I have been trying to figure this out forever.  Seriously.  I thought I was Mr. Super Nerd, and went in and disabled the Search Indexer thinking that would put the kabbash on things.  No result.  I looked in various other places, but for some reason it never occurred to me to look in the properties of the disks themselves.

There are so many reasons to do this:

• Performance – This is the obvious one.  Less activity on the disk from the Search Indexer means the disk isn’t busy with other requests when it’s time to retrieve the files you actually want.
• Wear on the disk – Think about it, this Search Indexer is keeping your disk running nonstop.  It’s gonna burn out in maybe half the time it normally would.*
• Power Usage – Think about how much faster your laptop’s battery dies when you’re running the CD drive a lot.  Exactly.
• That sound, that AWFUL SOUND – That soft ‘click’ sound that a hard drive makes as the heads swing back and forth over the platter. It’s fine normally, but when it’s just constant like that…makes me want to punch an infant.
• Seriously, how often do you search your computer for files.  Are you that unorganized?**

*I completely made this figure up.  Who knows?  Running the hard drive all the time could increase the lifespan.
**This isn’t so much of a reason to turn off Search Indexer as it is a personal attack on the reader.  Sorry.

Update: This sold in the first night on eBay!

I got a sweet deal on a Zune today, and I couldn’t pass it up, especially with the news that Microsoft will be putting out a software upgrade to add all of the Zune 2 features to the original Zune.  It’s a little bit clunkier (there’s no way that’s a word) than the iPod, but the bigger screen, wi-fi, and FM tuner make it worth it.

If you’re interested, you can bid on/buy it now on eBay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120169090055

Click the more link for some pics.

Below are some pics of the iPod and the accessories that go with the sale.  It’s in decent shape, never dropped or abused, never left in a hot car or anything like that.  It does have some scratches on the front, and light scratching on the back. Also, this iPod was personalized when I purchased it from Apple.  “DG” is etched on the back.  Awesome if those are your initials, hardly noticeable if they’re not.