Matt posted the steps he took to build a proper stompbox development platform -

Designing and building your own guitar effects is a great way to combine a passion for electronics and guitar.  However, when testing new designs, I found the fragile circuit on the solderless breadboard was difficult to connect to patch cords and control the potentiometers.

The answer was simple: build a guitar pedal just for prototyping!

A thoroughly sturdy design, including a custom cut/drilled & folded aluminum enclosure with standard hole sizes for swappable pots and switches. Check out the projects instructable for details.

More:

• FX pedal proto board MAX
• Guitar pedal prototyping kit

(Via MAKE Magazine.)

You’ve already forked out plenty for your iPhone or iPod touch, so why tax your wallet further by buying an expensive stand?

Whether you want to save money, keep your personal drain on the planet’s resources to a minimum, or are looking for a quick-fix solution at your desk, we’ve found five fantastic iPhone stand designs that require no more than everyday objects — and some MacGyver-style skills.

Have a look-see below at our homemade docks, then have a go at making your own and let us know the results in the comments box below!

1. The Paper Clip Stand

What you’ll need:

Overview:

This solution utilizes a large paper clip, cunningly straightened and then twisted to make an impromptu stand for your iDevice. Depending on how strong you are, you might need pliers to help manipulate the clip, but the principle is pretty darn simple — and pretty darn effective. Mods include wrapping a rubber band around the ‘legs’ to aid stability.

In the immortal words of MacGyver himself: ‘A paperclip can be a wondrous thing. More times than I can remember, one of these has gotten me out of a tight spot.’

MacGyver Rating: 5/5

2. The Cassette Case Stand

What you’ll need:

Overview:

We love that this takes (almost) obsolete tech and upcycles it into a useful object. You can use either a cassette case from an old camcorder tape, or an old audio tape (which, if you’re of a certain age, you’ve almost certainly got lying around at home).

Put the tape and the cardboard sleeve to one side, open the case, flip it around, and — presto! — a minimalist desk stand. To make it a super-stable solution in landscape, you might want to use a file to make a nice neat groove for the iPhone to better sit in.

This really works for us as an easy way to keep our iPhone out of calamity’s way on a desk surface.

MacGyver Rating: 4/5

3. The Pencil Stand

What you’ll need:

Overview:

This easel-esque stand can be created from five pencils and several rubber bands. It will require some dexterity to get the pencils in the right place, as you use the bands to hold it all together, and then a little more to get it to stand up straight. However, it is a strikingly simple design once made, and can be collapsed down to nothing again, should the occasion require.

Although this requires the most stuff to actually make, the Boy Scout-style binding process keeps it firmly in MacGyver territory.

MacGyver Rating: 4/5

4. The Sticky Tape Stand

What you’ll need:

Overview:

Perfect for those ‘I just want to catch ten minutes of [insert favorite show] while I eat lunch at my desk’ moments, this devilishly simple solution requires only a roll of sticky tape to work. Simply stick a bit of tape to the back of your iPhone or iPod touch — and voila! — your iBuddy is propped up at a nice angle while you consume both your lunch and choice of video-based media.

It’s not quite duct tape, but damn!

MacGyver Rating: 5/5

5. The Paper Stand

What you’ll need:

Overview:

The instructions call for the use of at least a 270 gsm paper or card stock, so assuming you have that, simply print out the template (available for both A4 and U.S. letter size paper), cut, fold, and faster than you can say ‘origami,’ you’ve got yourself a new dock.

And this one really is a dock (rather than just stand), as it includes space for the iPhone’s cord underneath. We would suggest that anyone not old enough to have a Facebook account should find a responsible adult to take care of the craft knife elements.

(Via Mashable!.)

I guess it’s true that there’s a first time for everything. After years of watching people doing presentations, I finally got to create my own.

I wanted my first time to be special, so I tried to find ways to make sure that mine was not going to be ‘just another boring presentation’. I noticed that most people paid too much attention to data and sacrificed the appearance. On the other hand, there are others who create a presentation that is too ‘flashy’ which distracts the audience from the real content.

The perfect combination would be to use related beautiful images to complement the content of the presentation. Then your audience can digest your content without getting bored.

Creating The Perfect Images

There are many ways to acquire perfect images that go along with the content of your presentation. You can create your own, or find and use somebody else’s.

If you are a good photographer with lots of stock photos, then the first option would not be a problem. But for those whose image capturing skills are below par, the easiest method to create your own image is to make the text itself as the image.

This is a trick often used by one of the greatest presenters out there: Steve Jobs.

The key is minimal use of text and extra time on tinkering with font properties and background. For example, I would like to present the statistic of blogs from Technorati. Some copy and paste routines would give me something like this:

To modify the data into text images, I cut out the fat and deleted most of the text. I also changed the written numbers with real numbers to add some drama.

Then I did a quick change of the font type, size and color using ‘Formatting Palette‘. I assigned white for the title and dark grey for the content.

You can also use the ‘Format – Font’ menu for more comprehensive options.

I added some shadow and reflection to spice things up a little bit.

Centered text is so static and boring, so I moved them around.

And the last step was changing the background using right click and ‘Format Background’

I chose a simple 90 degrees linear gradient color fill from dark to light to further emphasize the text.

I clicked ‘Apply’ and here’s what I came up with.

Be sure to add real life context to the presentation. Using the blog statistic example, I’d show my audience the stunning slides while saying something like this: ‘In 2009, Technorati said that there were more than 130,000,000 blogs out there. That’s as much as all Japanese people in the world.’

Adding Real Images

To take things a little bit further, you can also use real stock photo images. My favorite way to get free to use and free to modify photos is downloading them from Flickr. Just be sure to use the Creative Commons licensed ones.

To find photos within that category, you can use Flickr Advanced Search while ticking on the CC boxes.

Or you can use Quix and ‘fc’ command for faster results.

Use the downloaded image(s) for the background of your slide(s), and you can get something like this:

Using text images (and real images) is just one of the simple and easy tricks that will boost your presentation several levels above boring.

(Via MakeUseOf.com.)

Non-U.S. users frequently encounter the annoyance of geo-blocked content when trying to access popular sites like Hulu, but every now and then we feel the burn in the States, too. Reader hengehog details how to access BBC’s iPlayer from outside the U.K.More »

(Via Lifehacker.)

We’ve discussed numerous methods for making a cup from a glass bottle, but I don’t recall seeing anyone use the neck before. Brookelynn from CRAFT has us covered, though, with this guitar slide made from a wine bottle:

One interesting historical example of upcycled crafting is the bottleneck guitar- or as it is now widely known, slide guitar. The unique resonant sound of slide guitar was originally formed by playing with a glass bottleneck over one finger and running the slide up and down the strings. While the materials for making slides have evolved, bottles are still a popular choice of material. We were given one, and as it has been used over the years, the piece has developed some lovely scratches that give the glass beautiful character. Slideplayer.com has two great ideas for making your own, including a ‘Burning Twine’ method that sounds really cool (and drunkenly dangerous).

Read more

(Via MAKE Magazine.)

Apple’s Mighty Mouse (now also called an Apple Mouse) has a dirty little secret. While the scroll ball performs its duties as intended when the mouse is new, it can become clogged with dirt and grime over time.

Its performance then deteriorates dramatically, with the ball sticking and failing to scroll. There are a number of things you can do to try and free the ball, and return it to its full 360-degree scrolling glory.

First of all, try turning it upside down and rolling the ball around. Roll it on a piece of paper, hoping the debris and dirt will rub off onto it. Give it a blast with a can of compressed air, or a rub with computer-cleaning solution or a wet wipe. But if all else fails, a drastic course of action may be required.

Removing and cleaning a Mighty Mouse’s scroll ball isn’t particularly easy. A considerable amount of disassembly is required before you can clean the ball and its housing.

In this tutorial, we show you how to get inside your Mighty Mouse without damaging it, and how to clean and reinvigorate your scroll ball to get everything up and running again. It should take approximately 20 minutes, but be prepared to invest a little more time if needed, especially the first time you clean your mouse in this way.

A word of warning

Caution! Disassembling your Mighty Mouse involves breaking off a component that’s glued into place. It’s not easy, and if you make a mistake, you’re extremely likely to damage or even ruin the device.

We can’t take responsibility if your Mighty Mouse is broken while following this tutorial, and as a result we can only recommend that you attempt it if your mouse is in such poor condition that you feel you’ve nothing to lose, if you give it a go.

It is recommended that you read the whole of this tutorial before you start, especially Steps 2 and 3.

Quick tip

Apple has posted a guide to cleaning your Mighty Mouse without disassembly on its support website. Try these tips first, before you go ahead and take your mouse apart. Follow them regularly and it might never even require disassembly.

Disassemble a Mighty Mouse for cleaning

01. Gather your equipment Make sure you have a scalpel, a steel ruler or something similar to remove the base ring, and a Phillips screwdriver to unscrew the ball housing. We recommend you get some tweezers, cotton buds and a computer cleaner – either wet wipes or a spray bottle.

02. Unfasten the collar Slide your scalpel under the plastic ring that circles the body (not the base) of the mouse. As shown in the picture, above, it’s the collar that runs over the side buttons and the USB cable, not the ring around the outside of the base panel. Take care not to break it.

03. Remove the collar Here’s a picture of the collar after it’s been properly removed. It’s important to note that, before removal, this collar is glued and not clipped into place. The glued spots are broken by sliding your scalpel or pocket knife under the collar and twisting.

04. Undo the mouse shell The front section of the mouse’s body is now held in place by two easily visible clips. Gently prise them open and lift the body of the mouse. It hinges at the rear, as you can see here. Disconnect the hinges too, taking care not to damage the data cables.

05. Free the cables To remove the cables connecting the lid to the motherboard, lift the stays forming part of the sockets. With a fingernail either side of the plastic housing, raise it by a millimetre. The cables can then slip free from their housing, separating the mouse into two parts.

06. Unscrew ball assembly You now have easy access to the ball housing, which you should unscrew using your Phillips screwdriver. The cross-shaped white plastic housing that holds the ball in place comes free with a little lift, but be careful not to lose the ball or one of its magnetic rollers.

07. Clean ball and housing Now it’s time to get the cleaning gear out. Using ordinary computer-cleaning fluid, tweezers, wet wipes and cotton buds, clean out all the grime and gunk that’s accumulated around the ball. As the rollers are magnetic, use a pencil to push them into place after cleaning.

08. Reassemble the Mouse Follow the disassembly instructions in reverse. Make sure the stays are raised before you slot in the cables, then push them down again to hold them secure. Use an extra-strong glue or silicon sealant, to replace the collar. Use it sparingly – just a few spots are needed.

(Via TechRadar: All latest feeds.)

WordPress is arguably the most popular and the best blogging platform out there. You might have installed WordPress on your site, but you might be scared to experiment with WordPress worrying that you could break your site and WordPress.

Experimenting is one of the best way to learn new things and if you break your site, you probably might not want your visitors to see the fault as it might leave a bad impression. So, it is necessary to have the ability to learn WordPress and try new themes, plugins and other items without putting it online where people can see.

So, the best solution is to install WordPress locally on your computer. It will save you quite a bit of time since you can just put your files inside your WordPress folder without having to upload it to FTP. You can do anything you want with WordPress without a worry which surrounds you when you put it online. The possibilities are endless. Here is a step-by-step instruction on how to install WordPress in localhost using XAMPP. I hope it will become a great use to you.

1. Go to the official XAMPP website. We are going to use XAMPP as it is one of the best Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. It is very easy to install and use.

2. Select your operating system and which format you want to download. You can either choose a zip or a exe format. I would recommend the .exe file. There are also portable version such as XAMPP lite, but using XAMPP is just fine for what we need. There are also add-ons available such as Tomcat, but it but they’re not necessary for our use, may be something you want to experiment with at a later date though!

3. Open the installation file and you will be presented with a window. In, the destination folder, choose your destination. ‘C:\’ is recommended. Click install to start the installation (Won’t take more than a minute or two!)

4. When the installation is almost done, an MS-DOS window opens, You might think you have to type a bunch of codes, but that’s not the case. This window just helps you set your preferences. The answers are just yes and no.

First question it will ask you is whether you should add a desktop shortcut. Type ‘y’ for yes and ‘n’ for no.

5. The second question it will ask you is whether you want to locate the XAMPP paths correctly. Type ‘y’ for yes. I would recommend saying yes because XAMPP usually locates the paths correctly for you, much easier!

6. The third and last question it will ask you is whether you want to make XAMPP portable or not. You can choose which ever one you want, but i would recommend saying no if you aren’t going to be making use of the portable functionality (We won’t be in this tutorial) because it makes it easy for us to see the path such as C:\ and easier in the browser.

7. After this is done, XAMPP starts configuring and you will see this appear in the window. Press Enter and XAMPP will have been correctly installed in your computer.

8. Go the the destination folder you gave (such as C:\) and look for ‘xampp-control’ and open it. Now that XAMPP installation is complete, it is time for us to start using it.

9. You should see this open up. This helps us specify which services we want to start.

10. Click start on ‘Apache’ and MySQL. They are services required for running WordPress. XAMPP uses port 80 as a default port, so if you have any issues, try making sure no other programs are using the port (Skype occasionally tries it). It will say ‘Running’ next to the modules if they are started. The others don’t need to be started.

11. To check if XAMPP is working, open your browser and type ‘http://localhost/’ and you should see this. Yes! we are good so far. Choose your language for the list.

12. After that, you should see a page saying that you have successfully installed XAMPP on your system. Hoora!

13. Now that we have successfully installed XAMPP, it is time to get WordPress. Go to wordpress.org and download WordPress. Extract the folder.

14. Now, the steps get critical. Make sure that you do these steps carefully or the installation of WordPress probably won’t work. Go back to XAMPP folder (C:\xampp) and go inside a folder called ‘htdocs’.

15. This is where we are going to put the WordPress folder. Copy the wordpress folder that you extracted and put it inside the ‘htdocs’ folder. Note: Make sure that when you copy the WordPress folder, not the folder above it such as ‘wordpress-2.9.1″

16. We need a database for WordPress so that we can install it in our computer. Go to your browser and go to localhost (http://localhost/) and click on phpMyAdmin and you should see a page like this.

17. We need to create a new database for WordPress. Look for the ‘MySQL localhost’ section and you should see some boxes, and on top it says ‘Create new database’. That is what we need.

18. On the box on the left, your will enter a database name. You can name it whatever you want. I will call it ‘wordpress_test’. Then, on the next box, your will see a list of options. Scroll to the end and select ‘utf8_unicode_ci’. We are going to use this option because it supports expansions and ligatures. Click Create.

19. You will be notified that the database ‘wordpress_test’ has been created.

20. Now, go inside xampp/htdocs/wordpress (for example C:\xampp\htdocs\wordpress) . Then, we need to setup up wp-config. This is to configure wordpress to fit our database, username etc. Many people are familiar with this step.

22. Rename the ‘wp-config-sample.php’ to ‘wp-config.php’ so WordPress will recognize your config file (Depending on how you’ve set up Windows, the .php may or may not be displayed. If wp-config-sample doesn’t show it visibly, don’t add it on to the wp-config when you rename it). Open the file you have just renamed (wp-config) with your favorite text editor (e.g. Notepad, not Microsoft Word!).

23. Now you will need to change these parts of the wp-config.

24. So, inside the DB_NAME to the right you will see ‘putyourdbnamehere’. That is where we will put our database name. Delete the putyournamehere (without deleting the apostrophe) and put ‘wordpress_test’ (remember that is what we called our database in phpMyAdmin).

In the same way, put ‘root’ in the DB_USER part. Then on the next part (database password), leave it blank, since we haven’t set a root password for our MySQL.

We will also not change any part of the DB_HOST because localhost is what we want and it is already localhost. This is just a test site, so no other configuration is needed here. Now, we are done with the configuring. It will be easier to understand what I am saying by the illustration below.

25. Save and close the file (wp-config.php). Next, open your browser and go to ‘http://localhost/wordpress/’. Hooray! It worked. You will see this screen and once again, many people are pretty familiar with this process. Put your blog title and email and click ‘Install WordPress’

26. Success! You will be notified that WordPress has been installed. You will get your username and random password. Copy the password and click ‘Log in’.

27. You are now in the login page. The username is admin and paste the password. Don’t worry about memorizing the password as we will change it.

28. Success again! We are in the wordpress dashboard. The very first thing you might want to do is change the password. On the red bar, click on the ‘Yes, Take me to my profile page’.

29. Scroll down and change your password, then update profile.

30. Yes, now you are all set. When you go to http://localhost/wordpress. You should see your blog with the default theme Kubrik.

31. You are done. There are a few other things I would like to remind you. In the XAMPP Control Panel , Apache and MySQL have to be running. You don’t need FTP to change stuff in wordpress. Just go inside xampp\htdocs\wordpress and change everything there. For example, if you want to add themes, just go inside wordpress\wp-content\themes and put your themes there.

32. There you go. That wasn’t too hard. You can now master WordPress without worrying about breaking your website and you will also save some valuable time. Go celebrate!

Then, come back and you are free to experiment with WordPress any way you like. Try out new posts, themes, plugins and explore the wonderful world of WordPress.

If you have any problems or want to ask a question, feel free to comment below. I will try my best to answer your questions.

I would also appreciate it if you commented what you are going to use WordPress in localhost for. I hope you enjoyed this post!

(Via Pro Blog Design.)

Looking for a fun, functional, low-cost project to knock out during the holidays? Check out this clever repurposing piece from the pages of MAKE Volume 10, offered up by David Battino with help from George ‘the Fat Man’ Sanger.

The Sweet Sound of Particleboard
Beef up the tone of open-back amps with a little thrift shop help.
By David Battino

After transforming a record player and some plumbing parts into a spinning speaker (see MAKE, Volume 05, page 24), George ‘the Fat Man’ Sanger is back with a new way to enhance your guitar sound.

His Goodwill Amp Enhancer is a DIY version of the commercially available Enhancer, which beefs up the tone of open-back amps by redirecting the ‘lost’ sound to the front.

The nicely finished commercial versions start at $150 (soundenhancer.com), but the Fat Man built his enhancer out of a $15 computer desk he scavenged from a thrift shop. ‘It took just an hour or two,’ he reports, ‘and adds wonderful tone to my amp.’

How It Works

The Sound Enhancer site details the science involved, but in general, the Fat Man explains, an open-back amp is a design compromise.

‘In theory, a perfect speaker box would be a speaker mounted in the middle of a wall of infinite size, because that would let the sound from the front reach your ear without having been partially cancelled by the inverse sound from the back,’ he says. ‘Mom won’t let us build anything infinite anymore, not after what happened last time, so we approximate the infinite wall by putting speakers into sealed boxes, also known as infinite-baffle enclosures.

‘Unfortunately, infinite-baffle enclosures make it really hard for the speaker to move, so the sound is quieter. And of course, quietness is not very rock ‘n’ roll, is it? So designers make a lot of amps louder (and a little funny-sounding) by opening the backs.

‘This speaker stand bends the back sound around a corner, which makes it even less like the front sound, and then sends it out the front, where its slightly altered power is added to your already Majestic Volume in a rich and tonally pleasing way.’
In addition to reinforcing the sound, the Goodwill Amp Enhancer points the amp at your head, letting you hear yourself louder than, and before, your bandmates do. That helps you play better, and your bandmates don’t hate you for playing too loud.

MATERIALS

Donor furniture with big sides (e.g., a printer stand or computer desk, ideally with casters), taller than your amp (hip height is great), and 1¼ times your amps depth
Other wood (possibly salvaged from the donor), several pieces cut so their lengths match the width of your amp minus about 1′. Their widths must add up to approximately 1 amp depth plus 1 amp height. They need to be thick enough to take a ½’ screw.
Particleboard screws about 1½’ long
Saw Circular is good, but a handsaw will do.
Screwdriver
Caulking gun and caulk
Hot glue gun and glue
Weather stripping twice the amp height, twice the amp depth, and once the amp width
Weather-stripping adhesive

DIRECTIONS

Step 1: Ready the donor. Pull the sides off the donor, place them on the floor, and lay your amp on its side in the tipped-back position you want it to sit on the stand. The back of the stand needs to rise above the opening in the back of your amp to seal it off, but it mustn’t block any essential controls. The bottom-front edge of the amp will come right to the front of the stand.

Step 2: Make the side panels. Mark the outline with a Sharpie, and saw along the resulting L-shaped line. Now your side panels are done, and they should look something like that one particularly odd block
in the game Blockhead!

Step 3: Make the floor and back wall. Make a floor and back wall for the amp by hot-gluing the other wood between the two side panels. You may need one additional narrow piece to bridge from the top of this back wall to the spot on your amp where the open back stops and the controls begin. Don’t worry if you mess up; hot glue can be broken free and redone easily.

Step 4: Make it permanent. Once it looks right, make it permanent by sinking some screws in from the sides. Caulk up the cracks, then glue the weather-stripping to the edges that will touch your amp. ‘This stand will make your amp sound so much better,’ the Fat Man promises. ‘It has to be heard to be believed.’

Sound comes out the back of the amp and is forced out the front of the stand. Beyond that, the shape of the barrier isn’t too important. Be sure that the horizontal bit hits the amp’s back above the speaker opening and below any controls.

Hear the Goodwill Amp Enhancer: makezine.com/10/diymusic_amp

More from the Fat Man: fatman.com

(Via MAKE Magazine.)

We’ve all been there at some point, you’ve got a perfectly functional Ethernet cord that somewhere along the line had its tab broken off. Don’t buy a new one or re-terminate the cord. Fix it with zip ties.

While were no stranger making our own Ethernet cables—you can probably find a few RJ-45 connectors hanging out with the dust bunnies under our work bench—sometimes its not convenient or you dont have the tools to strip an Ethernet cable, strip and reposition the pairs, and re-terminate it. Its an even bigger annoyance when the only reason you find yourself having to do it is a missing plastic tab on the connector plug.

Over at the ever-growing tutorial blog Instructables they have a tutorial on how to fix a broken RJ-45 connector using two zip ties, a razor knife, and a pair of pliers—although if youre going full MacGyver you could skip the pliers. When youre done youll have a functional tab on your Ethernet cable. Check out full tutorial at the link below and if you have your own clever use for zip ties or other inexpensive tools—duct tape anyone?—we want to hear about it in the comments.

Repair a Broken Ethernet Plug [Instructables]

(Via Lifehacker.)

It’s the last day of an unusually long weekend, and there’s absolutely nothing on the schedule. Break out the tools and pull up one of these nifty DIY projects to improve your living space and boost your can-do cred.

10. Light up your yard with mason jars

Buy a mess of ground-staked, solar or battery-powered yard lights from your local big box store, and people might be impressed at your ability to space the sticks you plunge into the ground. Convert some run-of-the-mill mason jars into hanging votive lanterns, battery-powered backyard lights, or go the way of weekend editor Jason and make your own solar-powered sun jars, and you’ll get some real kudos, and have a nicer looking yard, to boot.

9. Make your patio a Wi-Fi hotspot

Three different solutions of varying DIY-ness can get your Wi-Fi out to your grassier spaces. A self-powered solar extender is the ultimate in techno/eco-cred. If that kind of cost, soldering, and circuit knowledge is a stretch too far, you can install DD-WRT or boost your household router with Tomato to boost its signal strength and, in the case of DD-WRT, turn an old or spare router into a dedicated repeater. That still involves a bit of installing, though, so for a casual shot at backyard Wi-Fi, try a tinfoil parabola, a wok-style strainer, or a dollar’s worth of extender parts.

8. Build a backyard pizza oven

If you’ve had wood-fired pizza before, you know it’s notably different and tasty, and almost always pricey. You can have the good stuff whenever you feel like building a fire, however, with two different Lifehacker readers’ brick-by-brick instructions. Kevin Lester showed us his fourth pizza oven build, while Mike Wilkie based his two-level oven on Forno Bravo’s extensive wood-fired guide. You can do the same, and become the grill party invitation nobody turns down.

7. Assemble an outdoor movie theater

Your couch can only seat so many people. Your yard or patio, however, can fit as many folks as feel comfortable, and offers a much nicer environment to eat, drink, watch, and enjoy the waning bits of summer air, whether for the kids or with friends. Wired.com has hit upon this project twice, once with a house-mounted sheet and DVD/projector. Then the Geek Dad tackled the idea with a stand-alone outdoor screen, built with PVC pipe, mounted in cement, and ready for easy setup and take-down. You’ll need a decent projector for either setup, but often times, nobody at work minds if the presentation room is a little de-stocked on weekends.

6. Power up your Wii

You can’t pull off the total renovation that you can with an XBox Media Center, but your Wii can do a lot more than let you play tennis against the in-laws. You can surf the web with the recently-made-free Opera browser, and once that’s installed, a free Orb software package lets you use your Wii as a media center. These days, opening your Wii to the Homebrew channel doesn’t even require the purchase of an (admittedly great) Twilight Princess game and extensive hacking, and once that’s done, you can back up and load games from a hard drive, play old-school games in an emulator, and much more.

5. Build yourself a serious knife block

Two or three good, sharp knives are really all you need, but you’ve probably got more than that. If you bought them piece by piece, or don’t want to shell out for a generic hunk of wood, consider making your own wall-mounted magnetic holder for easy access and visual appeal, or cut a holder out of a counter for super-quick access. We’re also partial to Chris DiClerico’s DIY universal knife block, which requires only a few bucks of wood, dollar store bamboo skewers, and access to a table saw.

4. Get creative with enhanced paints

Go beyond the color spread at your local paint store, and you’ll likely find a good deal of neat paints that can inspire some awesome projects. Dry-erase or ‘whiteboard’ paint lets you jot down your ideas anywhere, and that inspired reader Chris Burke to make this awesome wall-size speech ‘bubble’. He also layered some magnetic paint underneath, the kind that lets you hang posters without nails or tacks. If school-style chalkboards are more your speed, you can grab a bucket of chalkboard paint, or make your own, and then craft an erase-as-you-go wall calendar, kid-friendly table, or wall mural (sorry, original link is apparently dead). If they made tinfoil-based Wi-Fi boosting paint, we’d simply declare the whole house in need of a new look.

3. Fold and cut your own furniture

You only occasionally need an extra seat or two for groups of guests, or maybe you just need a cheap place to sit when working in the garage. The Evil Mad Scientist blog suggests buying a few sheets of paperboard or plywood and crafting some flat-packing but sturdy stools. If it’s little ones you’re looking to seat, and entertain while you do so, the FoldSchool tutorial site details how to help kids make their own stepladders, creative kids table seats, and much more. (Original post)

2. Add rope lights for cheap ambient improvements

Gina’s father-in-law used rope lights (and a nifty reverse circuit switch) to craft an automatic pantry light system. Jason added an eye-pleasing and light-improving touch to his extreme home office makeover with strategic rope lights. Other crafty folks have found rope lighting useful for kitchen looks and ridiculously awesome home theater setups. It’s inspiring, illuminating stuff, and fairly easy to get started with.

1. Spruce up a bare wall

Not every notably blank wall in your dwelling requires custom-framed artwork or expensive prints. Gina combined her Flickr account and a few dollars of craft store hardware to craft a sleek wire photo wall, inspired by this wood block example (original link down). Adam found his inspiration in used record stores and great album art, crafting an album art wall on the cheap. If great-looking books are what you want to show off, you can get by with very little by converting a colored wire hanger.

(Via Lifehacker.)