For details on construction, read on.

Basically, a snoot is a tube or channel you fit onto the end of your speedlight (flash) to create a very directed beam. They’re handy for creating a tight, focused beam of light for flash photography, getting you effects similar to this one (borrowed from PositivePaul’s CC-licensed photostream):

Mine is really the simplest of snoots - a cardboard sleeve that friction-fits onto the end of my flash. The only improvement I made to mine is the inclusion of a “grid” of corrugated cardboard you can slip in or out to change the charecteristics of the snoot:

The results are that you get a tight, extremely focused beam with the grid in place:

And a larger beam with it removed:

Simple and really easy to build out of some cardboard and gaffer’s tape.

The results were quite good, and the whole process was much smoother than the last batch. I had very willing helpers for the boil (my parents) and for bottling (my girlfriend) which helped a lot. I also switched to a “pump-style” racking cane, which eliminated the painful siphoning process I struggled through last time.

I’m very happy with the beer itself, and my friends seem to love it as well. It came out a bit maltier than I was hoping for, I think primarily because the primary fermentation went a few days faster than I was planning. It did have a bit of hidden hoppyness to it, but I think next time I’ll pick a lighter malt than the chocolate malt I used and throw in an extra couple ounces of hops for good measure.

Read below for more instructions.

They’re really simple. Basically I just started with some foam rubber pre-slit pipe insulation from Home Depot:

And then I stitched up some ballistic Cordura covers with velcro from some leftover material I had:

Super simple, and I think the results are better than the ones for sale.

This is mine. Click through to Flickr to see the details of all the stuff I crammed into it. It started as a standard IKEA shelving unit that I decided to convert into storage, but when I discovered that they had discontinued the cabinet (and more importantly the doors) I bought the last set of doors they had and painted them flat black.

The final results (if you don’t look too close) are quite nice and fit in well with the rest of my apartment (and effectively hide my toys).

In a future post I’ll detail my “workshop” (slash office) as well.

One of the great things about the AdaFruit starter pack is that it comes with the ProtoShield, an easy daughter-board for prototyping. The ProtoShield also comes with two extra LEDs and a spare button you can wire up to use in your projects. They’re great to use as built-in status LEDs or mode buttons.

But there is no documentation anywhere on how to use them. Poking around at the board and looking at the schematic, I eventually figured out that there were just a couple spare holes on the board that you can use to access them. But they don’t lead to any of the onboard headers, so they’re hard to use.

Fortunately I had a left over three-position header from the kit, so I wired it up with jumpers on the underside of the board.

Its ugly, but it works. Now I can just run jumpers to my breadboard to take advantage of them.

Hopefully somebody else will find this useful.

Little did I know what I was getting myself into…

Of course I followed the instructions. I filled the sink with water, covered the backup drain with a wet rag, and pushed downwards on the can as if it were a plunger to force my pesky plug out of my plumbing.

And then my world exploded.

I live in an older apartment building. Older as in probably about 60-70 years old. Which means I have about 50-60 years of crud built up in my plumbing. All that crud, with the exception of the crud actually clogging the sink, chose exactly that moment to leave my plumbing. And exit promptly all over my bathroom.

As it seems, the extra large backup drain of my sink also provided an extra large exit for said crud, all of which promptly forced its way out past my carefully placed rag, and all over my bathroom. Covering my sink, my shower, my walls, and even myself. No innocent bystanders were spared.

The results? I was left with:

• A bathroom covered in crap that was older than me
• A sink fully of lemony fresh fizzy water
• A drain that is still completely plugged

And, while wiser for the experience, I’m still $9 poorer, and I still don’t have a completely working sink.

And for general purpose bags, I’ve accumulated a couple messenger bags, namely a Timbuk2 Laptop Messenger and a Patagonia Critical Mass bag. The Critical Mass, by the way is a great bag - practically indestructible and big enough for up to a week long trip. Big enough, also, to often be too big.

But I’ve always been craving something a bit more unique. Sure, there are companies like R.E.Load (an awesome Seattle-based custom messenger bag company), but I don’t feel like paying $300 for a full-on custom bag. And it would be much cooler if I made it myself. And I just happen to own a sewing machine. Yes, I’m a straight guy who owns a sewing machine. Don’t mess with me or I’ll sew you a pillow or something.

Fortunately there have been a lot of cool messenger bag designs popping up on the Internet lately. I picked out one of the more popular designs which has also been featured on Make Magazine’s blog. I especially liked his last design, the one based on the pythagorean theorem. Ignore all the mumbo jumbo about “perfect ratios” - what you really end up with is a bag with a nice wedge shape that you can pack full of stuff but still close tightly. And it’s very similar to other bags that I really find comfortable, like my Timbuk2 bag.

Read on for more details.

For my first version, I wanted to spend little or no money on materials, since I just wanted to confirm that I liked the design of the bag and that my sewing skills were up to snuff. I’d already purchased some webbing and buckles from the awesome people at outdoor-oriented Seattle Fabrics (about $10 in total), but I still needed material to craft the bag out of. Luckily I just happened to have a couple blue plastic tarps from a recent surf trip. Blue plastic tarps are not only dirt cheap (about $8 for a 10′x12′ tarp), but they’re also surprisingly durable and easy to work with. Eventually my goal is to build a bag out of heavy Cordura or even better something like North Sails “Gatorback” for some bulletproof Kevlar goodness. I have a rough commute…

I won’t get into too much terrible detail, since if you own a sewing machine, you probably are at least as good at using it as I am. Which isn’t hard, because I suck, despite two years of Home Ec. And even if you don’t own a machine, you’re borrowing one from a friend who is also quite likely to be better than me.

Plotting out the design

Starting with the measurements in the Golden Mean design, I applied my awesome 8th grade algebra skills and scaled down the design to about 13″ high. Basically I made it just big enough to fit my 12″ Apple Powerbook and some other goodies. No sense in making a bag any bigger than it has to be.

Then I laid the pattern out with a yardstick. Three years of high school drafting came in handy.

Cutting

This step is pretty obvious. One of the cool things about the Golden Mean design is that, given a big enough piece of material (like a 10′x12′ blue tarp), the whole bag can be built out of a single piece. This reduces the amount of sewing you need to do, along with the number of seams you’ll later have to seal or finish. Basically you fold it up like a big piece of origami and stitch the remaining edges together.

Sewing

Stitching the actual body of the bag together was quite easy. Only four straight edges to stitch. Remember to stitch the entire bag inside out, so the seams are on the inside. If this was a real bag, I’d have stitched in a ripstop nylon liner to make it prettier, and put some trim on the edges. But this is not a real bag, and it’s made out of cheap blue tarp.

Finishing Touches

After the body of the bag was complete, I still had to put some finishing touches on the bag. After flipping the bag inside out, I “trimmed” the closing flap basically by folding it over about 3/8″ and then stitching the flap down. For a more final version of the bag, you’d want to add some webbing to the edge as trim for a cleaner look.

You’ll also, obviously, need a strap. For my strap design, I decided to dead-end the strap at one end, and finish the other end with a “flip-buckle” style strap. To provide strength to the strap, so it doesn’t rip itself out, I folded a scrap of tarp four times to create a backing patch, and then stitched through the strap, bag, and then patch.

As you can see, I’m not the best seamstress in the world.

At the other end of the strap, I secured the buckle by a short loop of webbing using the same technique as the other end. Then I looped back the free end of the strap and secured back to the buckle itself. The result is quite clean, and I’m very happy with it.

Final Results

As a whole, I’m pretty happy with the results. The bag design I chose has a great wedge shape that feels quite comfortable and looks quite good. And it’s super easy to make. I’m looking forward to making something more finished.

Stay tuned for further developments on this project. The next version should be coming soon.

About a year ago I picked up a pair of Shure E2C headphones. Well worth their somewhat expensive price, I use them all the time. They provide a ton of isolation, so they’re great on the bus and when flying.

But, in my experience, the actual headphone plug leaves a lot to be desired. Within about 8 months of regular use, I started getting the traditional crappy connection problems you get with cheaper headphones. After a few months of constantly trying to tweak the connector in order to get a good connection, I finally decided to replace the connector myself.

The final product was quite impressive. For more details, read on.

Step 1: Acquire supplies

Obviously you’ll need a pair of faulty headphones. And a new connector. I picked up a gold-plated 1/8″ connector from Radio Shack for about $3.99. I could have bought the standard chrome one for a buck or two cheaper, but in this situation, “bling” is worth a few extra bucks.

Step 2: Strip off old connector

First step is to remove the old crappy connector and strip it down to it’s bare wires.

Strip off the main cover for an inch or so, and then strip the individual wires. They will be incredibly tiny. This is where it pays to be really good at soldering. I won’t elaborate, but I’m not that good at soldering.

Step 3: Solder on the new connector

Now solder on the new connector. This is where reading becomes important.

According to Wikipedia, the three connections on a headphone jack are as follows:

1. The “Tip” (the end of the connector), which handles the left stereo channel. For me this was the blue wire, which I connected to the shortest terminal.
2. The “Ring” (the first segment of the connector), which handles the right stereo channel. This was the red wire, which I connected to the middle terminal.
3. The “Sleeve” (the second segment of the connector), which is the common ground. For my headphones, this was the conductor with no insulation on it. This was the wire with no insulation, and it connected to the ground terminal.

It may or may not take you some experimentation to figure out what wire is which channel in your headphones. Once you figure it out, solder or screw the connections down to each channel.

Step 4: Reinforce the connection

This step actually came later for me. At first I just soldered up the connections and used the plastic sleeve that came with the connector, but after a week or two my connection was flakier than the original. The tiny wires were moving around too much within the connector. So I re-soldered my connections and then encased the whole deal within a protective layer of cheap two-part epoxy.

Afterwards I waited for the epoxy to dry, and then shaved it down small enough to fit into the screw-on connector.

I’m very happy with the final results. After the epoxy modification, I’ve got a connector that is rock-solid and as good if not better sounding than the original jack. And I get tons of great compliments on how cool the “bling” connector is.

There you go. About $5 and less than an hour’s work to save a $100 pair of headphones. I hope you find this as helpful as me.

Updated Update: FYI… As the weather gets hotter and more humid here in Seattle, my board has started to noticeably warp and it doesn’t lean nicely on my wall anymore. This obviously won’t be a problem if you mount the board directly to the wall, but if you want a freestanding board like me, you may want to look into using a stiffer backing board such as real plywood or OSB, or build a stiffer frame. I’m going to look at building a frame out of 1″x1″ on the back of the board to stiffen it up.

Update: Welcome, Makers! Hopefully this time I can keep my site from crashing too much.

Disclaimer: I can’t claim to have come up with this myself. I was actually inspired by a post in Cool Tools, an excellent blog full of excellent ideas like this. But I think its a cool project anyway, so I thought I’d write it up.

I’ll admit it, I’m a geek, and a very visually-oriented geek at that. I like to draw big pictures and lists and doodle. At work, I’m fortunate enough to be constantly surrounded by whiteboards. At home, I’m not so lucky.

Unfortunately, big whiteboards are expensive. A quick Google Products search finds plenty of 3′x4′ whiteboards selling for hundreds of dollars. Even a smaller whiteboard at Office Max will run you at least $30.

Fortunately, the same material that they make most commercial whiteboards out of is available at most big-box lumber stores like Home Depot for less than $15. “Showerboard”, which is basically cheap plywood with a waterproof white plastic coating on one side. Its the same stuff that they make cheap showers out of - four walls of showerboard plus a cheap plastic base makes a decent stall. It also makes a great whiteboard.

More details after the jump.

Step 1: Procure Your Supplies

Everything you need for this (except whiteboard markers, etc) can be found at your local big-box. Scout out the paneling section of the store, usually near the back, where you’ll find the tacky wood paneling that was in every finished basement when you were growing up. Look for the showerboard, also called “tile board” or other similar names, in big 4′x8′ sheets. I think my sheet cost $11.

While you’re at it, also pick up a matching 4′x8′ sheet of luan plywood. It’ll be the cheapest plywood you can find, usually around $8-$15 per sheet. They were out of the cheapest stuff, so I paid about $14.

You may want to cut your whiteboard down to a smaller size. I cut mine down by about 18″ because I planned to orient it vertically, and I didn’t need an 8′ tall whiteboard. You may want to cut it into smaller boards, funny shapes, whatever. Just make sure the luan and the showerboard are the same size and shape.

Also pick up a tube of Liquid Nails. I picked “Liquid Nails for Paneling”. Supposedly it’s designed just for paneling, so I figured it would be perfect for this project. If you don’t already have a caulk gun, you’ll want one of those too.

I also picked up some stick on felt pads so the board wouldn’t scratch the floor. You might want to pick up wall anchors or hanging stuff, depending on how you want to mount your board.

Step 2: Glue

This step is pretty easy. Pierce the Liquid Nails and load it into your caulk gun. Apply the liquid nails liberally to the back of the showerboard. The Liquid Nails only has a 10 minute work time, so work quick.

Avoid the edges so it doesn’t ooze out too much. Liquid Nails is easy to clean up before it hardens, but then it gets really difficult.

Step 3: Laminate

Match up the edges of the luan with the showerboard, and lay it on top. Be careful and try to get it right the first time, because you don’t have long to work with the Liquid Nails before it hardens.

Then weigh it down with random stuff to compress the layers. I used random stuff I found around my apartment.

Yes, that’s my wine collection and my dining room furniture.

Let it cure for at least a few hours, preferably overnight.

Step 4: Enjoy!

After leaving it out overnight, you’re ready to go. Mount your board as you see fit, and start drawing.

I just leaned mine up against the wall. If you’re fancy, you might want to wall mount it or hang it somehow.

My grand total was $28. Numerous improvements could be made, including a wood frame to stiffen it, or a nicer way of hanging it on the wall. But I’ve been using it like this for about a month and I’ve been very happy with it so far.

Well, I was holding out to see how the beer turned out. I was worried I’d messed something up and would be embarassed to find out that it was ruined and my efforts were all for naut. I bottled my first batch about two weeks ago and crossed my fingers.

Well, surprise suprise, it turned out excellent. I’m very satisfied. And not just because I made it myself.