• Modded C64 eye candy
“Everyone needs a hobby,” they tell us. For the blogger mysteriously identified only as “R,” that hobby would be an almost fanatical nostalgia for the Commodore 64 computer.
At first we thought this was a fan community site, but apparently it’s all the work of a single person. [R] has tweaked, extended, repackaged and resurfaced this 1980’s [...]
• GuruPlug, the next generation of SheevaPlug
Meet GuruPlug, an all-in-one server that is now available for pre-order. This is the next generation of the popular SheevaPlug that features some added goodies. The base model sells for the same $99 and appears to have the same specs as the original but for $30 more, the GuruPlug Server PLUS moves to 2 Gigabit [...]

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The previous method of getting free Battlefield Bad Company 2 (for the PC) beta keys no longer works because the event ended. Do not worry though as a new method is available. Check out: New How to Get Free Battlefield Bad Company 2 PC Beta Keys and enjoy playing the game right away! The game does have bugs, but what beta game doesn’t? Many who have tested this game already have enjoyed it so get the game now!

I just finished watching the anime series called Great Teacher Onizuka. Surprisingly, it was great! Unfortunately, it was only 43 episodes long. It’s available both dubbed and subbed and actually has good dubbing, something that some animes lack. It was very funny and just overall a great watch. Here’s the plot (taken from AnimeNewsNetwork):

Onizuka is an ex-biker and gang leader who has one goal, to become the greatest teacher. He learns of the power and respect possible as an intern teacher, using his strength and connections to get his students to respect him. Now, graduated, he gets a job at a prestigious private school to handle their ‘problem class’ that made the past few teachers quit. He must handle a different sort of trouble when the trouble makers include some of the smartest kids in Japan who prefer a more cerebral approach to torturing their teacher. Onizuka must slowly win his students over and deal with their mistrust of teachers while handling the distrust of his fellow teachers.

I haven’t decided on a new anime to watch just yet…but I’ll mention it here when I figure it out (as always).

• Putting on a show in the rain
Let’s face it, walking around in the rain sucks. [Matth3w] is trying to add a little whimsy to an unpleasant experience by adding an LED matrix to his umbrella. The array contains 80 LEDs that are individually addressable. This is a mutiplexed array that relies on a MIC2981 source driver for the eight rows (or [...]
• Performance oddities
[Mario the Magician] wrote in to let us know that he makes Hackaday a priority every morning with his coffee. Well, so do we. He also included a link to his homepage when submitting this revelation. The juicy details that are as much of a fix as the caffeine in the coffee are missing from [...]

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Recently, Gearbox released a new patch for the game Borderlands — patch 1.21. It fixes some of the game’s multiplayer glitches that users were experiencing. The newest, third DLC \ Addon \ Add-on Pack is called The Secret Armoury of General Knoxx. As mentioned previously, it promises to add a higher level cap and will be the longest of all of the DLC’s. A private twitter account will be dispensing information about the upcoming game. No information is available about what the account is so you must find out yourself. Here’s some of the updates listed by Gearbox in regards to what the newest game patch 1.21 does–

* Multiplayer connectivity has been improved; users should no longer be required to forward ports to host or join multiplayer games

* Players who experienced distorted shadows or graphical glitches after update 1.0.1 should no longer experience these issues

* The 3D Vision crosshair has been improved

• Running bleeding edge on Nexus One
We like to run the newest software available. We often encounter problems and things that don’t work because of this, but with open source that just give you the opportunity to contribute and make the package better. Now you can take the fun and daring of bleeding edge to your phone by installing the latest [...]
• Interfacing with an analog joystick
[Firestorm_x1] put together a tutorial about interfacing an analog joystick with a microcontroller. These analog sticks are easy to find; he got his from Goodwill but we’ve got a couple in our junk box right now. The stick uses variable resistors to report its position so it’s just a matter of reading and interpreting that [...]

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• Pre-spun hard drives
This device is lovingly called the SPINmaster. [Linux-works] built it to spin up multiple hard drives before the motherboard starts up. It detects the power-up from the PSU and uses a relay to hold the motherboard in reset, indicated by the red LED. Each of four relays then spins up a hard drive and illuminates [...]
• Pipe heating with an ATMega8
[Viktor] wanted a system to keep his pipes from freezing.  The common method of using heat tape works pretty well, but can be wasteful. Many people just turn it on for the entire winter. [Viktor] wanted to automate the heat tape’s power so that it only activated during times that the pipes could actually freeze. [...]

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• Guitar Hero as an instrument or midi controller
[Robert] wrote a program using Max/MSP that lets him make music with his guitar hero controller. There’s another video after the break where he walks through the various features but here’s the gist of it. This works on Mac and Windows and allows a sort of ‘live play’ or midi mapping mode. In the midi [...]
• Battery holder reuses blister pack
In need of a portable power supply, [Alastair] threw some batteries into an Altoids tin. The problem was he didn’t have a holder for these size A23 cells. Inspiration struck and he realized the blister pack they came in fits them snuggly and just needs some conductors to complete the circuit. He pulled some battery [...]

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• The mechanical diode
A diode allows current to travel in only one direction. With that in mind, [Alex] built a mechanical diode that will only allow gear rotation in one direction to be transmitted through the system. But wait, by connecting two of these devices together he’s built something of a mechanical rectifier. An electrical rectifier converts alternating [...]
• Leapfrog Didj: Followup
Yesterday we mentioned the Woot! sale of the Didj, and we had some comments and emails from readers who had purchased one. We couldn’t resist either, and ordered a couple to take apart and modify. We will probably be following the work laid out by [Claude Schwarz], who seems to be one of the leading [...]

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• USB HDD enclosure to DVD connector
This is a “why didn’t I think of that?” idea. [Alec] needed a way to connect an IDE DVD drive using USB. Rather than order a connector he pulled the circuit board out of an old USB hard drive enclosure and connected to his DVD drive. Bang, recognized and running.
This will prove extremely handy if [...]
• Our favorite XBOX to HTPC hacks
Let’s face it, the original Xbox is ugly. It might have looked cool when it first came out but now most would be embarrassed to display that old beast with the rest of their entertainment hardware. This is unfortunate because the old girl still has some life in her. If you have tools, time, and [...]

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