USB Tutorial: Make a USB LED Greenhouse
With “going green” such a big trend right now you might find yourself wanting to put a little green in your workspace – and no, I don’t mean that green. The following is a video USB tutorial on taking some supplies from around your office or home, LED lights and some USB power to create your very own USB LED Greenhouse. Video is 3 minutes. Continue ReadingUSB Tutorial: Turn VHS Tape Into Glowing USB Hub
USB Tutorial: Waterproof Your USB Thumb Drive
Waterproofing your USB drive is a good preventative maintenance procedure as you never know when it’ll end up in the wash. Below is a video on how to use epoxy and little skill to waterproof your UFD. Enjoy this USB tutorial: Continue ReadingUSB Tutorial: Home Brew USB Flash Light
Here is an illuminating tutorial for you. A simple “how to” on making a USB flash light. In just a few minutes you can have a handy flash light for peaking into your PC tower, under the desk or behind the office credenza for that lost business card. Continue ReadingUSB Tutorial: Cool Looking Sawed Off USB Key
With over 5,300 Diggs, I figure this would be a good article to report about on how to make a sawed-off USB key. Nothing about this project is too technical, but the idea is clever enough it’s gained a lot of attention.“Holy crap– somebody just went and TORE MY FREAKING USB CABLE IN HALF while it was still attached to my laptop!!! No– wait– sorry. That’s just my USB drive. My bad. Never mind.”Which I think is pretty funny. So besides getting a slim Kingmax USB drive (here is a 4GB for $15), you will need the following: USB cable, X-acto knife, glue, pliers, small screwdriver and some mad cutting skills. First thing you will want to do is cut open the female end of the USB cable so you can insert the memory for storage. It’s fairly straight forward in the process. Some additional pictures are available Continue Reading
USB Tutorial: Assign USB Drives To Folders – Get Organized
Here is a nice quick and easy USB tutorial. Swapping storage can become a headache in Windows as you never know or can remember which drive letter Windows assigns your drive. At Lifehacker, they posted a nice tip on assign USB drives to folders. This method not only keeps things organized, but adds one additional benefit most wouldn’t think of.- Click > Start > Run then enter diskmgmt.msc and hit enter. This opens the Disk Management configuration that should display all drives and devices currently connected to your computer.
- Pick an USB device from the list and right-click that entry. Select Change Drive Letter and Paths from the menu.
- This should open a new window that is displaying the current drive letter of the device and three buttons at the bottom which are named Add, Change and Remove.
- Click on the Add button, select Mount into the following empty NTFS folder and click on browse. Now navigate to the subfolder that you want to assign the usb drive to and confirm the assignment. The USB drive will from now on be accessible from that folder as well if it is connected to the computer.
Network Your External USB Hard Drive
Someone once asked the question if they could network their external USB hard drive so other computers could share and store information on it. Surprisingly it isn’t that hard. There is no need to build a NAS (Network Attached Storage) server or configure NAS software on a host computer. All you need is changing some privileges to the USB external hard drive.DIY: New Term For Video iPod (Hint: Projector)
I enjoy the Instructables weekly email about DIY projects. Occasionally you see one worth trying or sparks your interest enough to consider trying. This week we found an instructable for a DIY iPod Video Porjector. To turn your dream into a reality, you’ll need an iPod, mirror, lens and flat wall for projected image. Here’s the DIY video for the iPod video projector…and sure you could get a dock station and connect your iPod to your TV, keep the lights on and enjoy the latest Jon Stewart download…but where’s the sizzle in that? Source and full tutorial: Instructables video iPod. Continue ReadingUSB Tutorial: USB Telescope for Under $40
The guys at Instructables have come up with yet another great tutorial to add some USB gadgetry to your closet. This time we take a look at building a USB telescope from an old analog zoom lens, webcam and PVC piping for housing. Reading through the instructions, the USB tutorial is a seven step process. You will need some prep work done at the hardware store and have your zoom lens and webcam available (both items can be found on eBay for under $15 each). Here is a video summary:For the full USB Telescope tutorial make the jump. Continue Reading
USB Hack: Disable The AutoPlay Pop Up Window
The first couple of times I connected a USB drive to my computer it was nice to see the pop-up window asking me what I wanted to do with the drive. However, the pop-up window gets old. Here is how to disable the autoplay pop-up window for USB drives: Go to your Windows Start button and navigate to RUN… type in:gpedit.msc then click OKA Windows Group Policy window pops up. This is where you configure the pop-up window setting.