A lot of us skip breakfast in the morning, be it because we don’t have time to make something, don’t have the patience, or for some other reason. Yuri Suzuki and Masa Kimura are aiming to make your breakfast a little easier, a little quicker, and a lot more interesting. Their latest project is a Rube Goldberg-like machine that does everything from fry your eggs to brew your coffee. The coolest part about this project is it was built with the help of the public. The two designers put out an open invitation for people to come help in constructing…
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The incredible breakfast machine
Tech Support
A Handy Recording Tool for Work and Play
The digital voice recorders from Olympus are wonderful tools for the always pressed-for-time folks who desire to have a greater number of options than the traditional tape recorders to capture songs or ideas. Olympus Digital Voice Recorder offer distinct sound quality, longer duration of recording, as well as convenient file management.
The Olympus vn2100pc digital voice recorder offers wave software as well as a USB connection. This diminutive and accurately designed model of digital voice recorder produced by Olympus, makes it easy for you to move your files, index your recordings, and set an alarm. The style can be used…
Tech Support
A Handy Little Voice Recording Tool
The digital voice recorders produced by Olympus are great choices for the always pressed-for-time people who desire to have more options than the usual tape recorders to capture musical pitches or creative impulses. Olympus Digital Voice Recorder offer distinct sound quality, longer duration of recording, as well as convenient file management.
The Olympus vn2100pc digital voice recorder includes wave software along with a USB connection. This small and efficiently designed model of digital voice recorder created by Olympus, permits you to move your files, manage your recordings, and set an alarm. The model is compatible with Microsoft Windows 2000 professional,…
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Tiny GSM alarm system
We’ve covered this sort of thing before, but there is something to be said for the simplicity of this tiny GSM alarm system by [trax]. The alarm system is designed to send the owner a text message when a sensor is triggered. This alarm only works with Siemens phones, but it shouldn’t be too hard to find one. The alarm is configured via a dip switch on the board and can also be armed and disarmed by text. The brains of this system is a PIC16F84A. The code and schematics are included at the bottom of the page.
[Thanks…
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The wake up machine
Meet the Wakeup Machine. It is here to ensure that you are up and ready to go when the time comes. This machine will vibrate your bed, remove the sheets, make coffee, play music, even adjust the temperature in the room for optimal wake up experiences. We like the large heavy industrial look of it too, but after looking inside you’ll see it is only a prototype which could be made much smaller with its own pcb. This thing brings back fond memories of Rube Goldberg style alarm clocks from movies such as Pee-wee’s big adventure, Back To The…
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The Happillow project
[Harandi] wrote to us to let us know about a project he’s working on to improve our nightly rest. This is the Happillow. The Happillow is an alarm clock, as well as a snore relief system. We’re not sure that the snoring bothers us so much, but we’re sure our significant others appreciate that part. While pillows exist that are supposed to cut down on snoring, they generally have a specific shape to position your head properly, which should cut down on the snores. [Harandi] points out that this might be embarrassing to the user as it is obvious…
Computer
best softwares for your pc security
I am a regular visitor of Yahoo Answers and in the free time I help others in Computer & Internet section. I usually see people asking for which is the best anti virus ?? Which is the best firewall ?? Which is the best package I should use for Internet Security ?? and alot of questions regarding Internet Security.In the month of March I wrote a post about Internet Secutiy Tips. In that post I told you about how you can remain secure from vunerable attacks of viruses,spywares etc.But I get alot of mails asking me about best Internet…
Tech Support
WordPress 2.8.3 Remote Admin Password Reset Vulnerability
Researchers are sounding the alarm for a serious administrator password-reset vulnerability affecting the latest version of WordPress, the popular open-source blog publishing platform. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to compromise the admin account of any wordpress/wordpress-mu 2.8.3 and older.
The flaw, which can be exploited via the browser, gives an attacker a trivial way to compromise the admin account of any WordPress of WordPress MU (multiple user) installation.
The attack uses an ability of PHP to not only set values on variables, but also make them arrays. Basically a GET request can add data like: http://www.example.com?data
PHP takes…
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SparkFun open-sources latest kits
SparkFun has started to release some of their kits as open-source hardware. Projects such as ClockIt, a simple alarm clock, have their schematics, board designs, and source code released under the CC-by-sa license. Although most of their widgets and projects already had example code and schematics available, they are now using an open-source license. They are joining adafruit and EMSL and others in pushing OSH, but it is interesting to see an established company turn to this. Normally, startups do this to encourage early adoption.
[via adafruit]
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The Snow clock
Snow days are great, but generally you still have to wake up to find out if it is a snow day. [insingertech] decided to make a system to solve this problem. He made an alarm clock that would automatically de activate if school is cancelled. What a pleasant surprise it would be to just wake up and find that you had been allowed to sleep in. It is using an Arduino and a python script to control the state of the alarm based off of an online school closing announcement. You can download the software from the instructable.
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Parts: I2C real-time clock calendar (PCF8563)
The PCF8563 is a real-time clock/calendar/alarm chip with an I2C interface. This would be useful in projects where the primary microcontroller doesn’t have enough resources for an interrupt driven clock.
We demonstrate the PCF8563 using the Bus Pirate after the break. For a limited time you can get your own Bus Pirate, fully assembled and shipped worldwide, for only $30.
PCF8563 real-time clock calendar (Octopart search, $1.33). Datasheet (PDF).
The schematic above shows a bare-bones circuit for the PCF8563. It requires a simple external oscillator circuit with a 32.768khz watch crystal (Q1). The oscillator input pin needs an external…
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Pneumatic bed alarm clock
For four years, this guy has been using this Pneumatic bed alarm clock to wake up. Apparently “I’m a really heavy sleeper” is an understatement. It is computer controlled and runs from two seperate air sources. He entered it in a radio show contest and we’re guessing he won. You can see the test run at the radio station after the break. We really can understand the fun of building this. But actually using it for four years, without suffering any major injuries, is an accomplishment of it’s own.
