How To: USB Cigar With LED at Tip
How about a real Cigar that glows when connected and stores data on the USB memory? You can build this authentic smelling USB Cigar flash drive yourself in jest 10 or so easy steps.
How To: Make Favicon For Flash Drive
How To Make a Favicon for a Flash Drive
In the heat of getting a new site launched over the weekend, I needed an .ico Favicon for the website. I came across this free on-line tool which made everything a snap. No software download, no .exe to load…just down and dirty ico creator. Today I thought it would be a great review [from original post] to go over How To Make a Favicon for a Flash Drive. It’s just several easy steps. Lets begin.- Using a program to create an image file, make a jpeg for what you want the ico to look like. You can use something as simple as Microsoft Paint or something as fancy as Photoshop. When you make the jpeg, make the overal shape square. Try and keep the logo simple – simple will translate best into an ico file.
- Browse to Chamie and click the “Favicon from Pics” link. Upload your file. Chami will automatically generate your ico file. Chami gives you some great options for the USB favicon file. You can get a static image or an animated .gif file.
- Once you have the .ico file, save that image to the root of your USB flash drive.
- Next, open Notepad in Microsoft [or any plain text editor] and type the following:
[autorun] icon=favicon.icoSave this to the root of your USB stick as “autorun.inf”
F The DIY Solar Powered iPhone Charger – Just Buy One
Today I was doing some research for a good solar powered iPhone charger. I went the direction of a DIY [Do It Yourself] project then realized this is all a waste of time. Maybe there are a select few that would jump on a DIY solar powered iPhone charger project, but considering the complexity of the tutorials I found, very very unlikely my average reader would actually do it. So to save yourself the 30+ minutes of looking for a good tutorial, just spend 3 minutes and buy one that will A) work better, B) look better and C) be cheaper.
USB Tutorial: Charge Any USB Gadget With Your Bike
The world is going Green. This is your chance to keep those USB gadgets, yet charge them without consuming electricity and leaving your carbon footprint. The idea behind this USB tutorial is taking the kinetic energy of your bike and turn that into re-powering any USB gadget.
How To: TV Spy Remote To Wreak Havoc
So lets clarify exactly what I’m talking about here…a TV spy remote is a device that allows you to control someone else’s TV without being around, thus wreak havoc in their life. After all, what could be more upsetting then turning off the TV at your neighbors house during American Idol or watching Jack Bower kick a$$ in 24? I don’t think there is a greater pleasure. Since you can’t buy a TV spy remote at buy.com or Amazon, or anywhere else, check out this TV Spy Remote tutorial I found at Instructables.
How To: Make USB Volume Name Longer Than 11 Characters
By default the Windows operating system assigns the Volume name of a USB stick as “Removable Disk.” However, there are times when you need a different Volume name…and many times the USB Volume name needs to be longer than 11 characters. Using the standard Windows “Rename” function, limits you to only 11 characters. You can’t always get what you want with just 11 characters…so how do you make the Volume name of USB stick longer than 11 characters? It’s easy, with the help of an inf file. An INF file (or Setup Information file) is a plain text file used by Microsoft Windows for installation of software and/or drivers. Today we are going to use the .INF file to increase the length of our USB Volume name past 11 characters. For those of you who are familiar with .INF files here is the meat of the answer:[autorun] Label=type whatever you want hereFor those of you less familiar with .INF files they are extremely easy to make and use. For the USB Volume name this is what you do: Continue Reading
How To Make a USB Spy Camera
It’s not often you need a USB spy camera, but when you do, this is a quick and easy method. The setup is putting a USB camera into your hoodie pocket then running the camera from your laptop stuffed in a computer bag. The situation reminds me of a perfect setup for college days where you need to video a test or capture some funny footage at a party. Plenty of applications for this type of setup, check it out. Continue ReadingInstall Windows 7 From Custom USB Flash Drive
With the backlash and failure of Vista, Windows is quickly moving to Windows 7. This OS is focused on correcting all the Vista short comings, while providing a faster operating system and speedy USB enumeration. However, upgrading or installing Windows 7 from a DVD takes a long time. You can speed up the process by putting the Windows 7 ISO file on a USB stick and install from there.
USB Hack: Run USB Cable Through Phone Line
TinkerNut ran a great video on how to turn a typical phone line into an extended USB cable. Excellent DIY project for a security camera at the front door. Home brew a video baby monitor system or just extended some USB devices past the range of that 15 foot $30 USB cable you got at BestBuy. Source: YouTube. Continue ReadingCustom Flash Drive With Post-It Note Dispenser
This should really be a post about a DIY project. This custom flash drive stores your data and gives you a post-it note dispenser to write down what’s on the drive. You can buy the official version for about $30 overseas [here] or you could spend a few hours this weekend and create your own. What you need: Flash drive, wood, post-it note pad.
USB Tutorial: Home Brew USB Popcorn Maker
Here is a guy with a bit too much time on his hands and clearly in the need for a healthy meal. Check out this USB tutorial on making a USB popcorn maker: Source: YouTube. Continue ReadingUSB Hack: Turn a USB Stick Into a Hard Drive or Local Disk
USB Tutorial: Turn a USB stick into a Hard Drive or Local Disk
This is a very valuable tutorial, especially if you are looking to partition a USB stick. Another application for turning a removable drive into a local disk, is that now many software programs can be loaded directly to a USB drive. The first program which comes to mind is iTunes. I know you need My Documents and a Local Disk to install it, so after this tutorial, I’ll try installing iTunes and share the results.
The process of turning a USB stick into a hard drive is fairly easy. However, there are limitations. For example, this works best with Windows XP operating systems. You also need to update the drivers for the device for any computer you are going to use. Typically, this isn’t a big deal as you can easily do this for your work and home computers. However, this isn’t a great solution if you are trying to create a partitions USB stick for distribution to many possible users [say trade show give-away].
Couple of items you’ll need:
- USB_LocalDisk.zip files [download here]
- Windows XP
- USB stick
What we will do, is connected the USB stick, find the driver code, update the driver code and re-connect the device. Simple.
Here are the details: