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Want it? Make it, DIYers

The annual Maker Faire, which lies somewhere between San Francisco's counterculture tradition and Silicon Valley's materialism, is set for this weekend in San Mateo, Calif.

Now in its fourth year, the event is organized by Make magazine and showcases the work of people who build everything from wooden bicycles to life-size robotic critters.

I've been making some fun things myself since I bought a small milling machine awhile back. Here's a titanium adapter I made to attach a small commercial USB flash drive to my keychain:

Not long ago I found some blocks of aluminum bar … Read more

iPhone not sweet on 'neat'

If you have an iPhone 3G configured for use in English, open up a new Note or Mail message and type the word "neat."

Your finger missed the "t"--didn't it? You typed "r" instead, for "near." That's OK. Backspace over the word and try again.

Oops. Missed it again, didn't you? Never mind, try again.

That "t" sure is difficult to hit, isn't it? Well, you can always try the tap-hold-drag method of typing. Backspace over the word again, type "nea", then tap … Read more

Living the Star Trek life

I saw the new Star Trek movie in its limited release on May 7, and enjoyed it a lot (although I did think giving the Enterprise the new hull number NCC-90210 was a bit much).

Anyway, the movie includes scenes set in Iowa, which got me thinking about what life is like for the average person in the Federation of Planets. I think it probably isn't very different from life here on our Earth.

For example, we don't have warp drives, transporters, food replicators, or phasers, but I don't think these are part of the daily life … Read more

BookSwim: Netflix for books?

A new Web-based rental service called BookSwim describes itself as Netflix for books.

After checking it out, that seems to be a fair enough summary.

The pricing doesn't seem to be quite as good a deal as Netflix; the fees are slightly higher and the average price of books is somewhat lower than for movies. But it's in the ballpark.

For example, BookSwim offers a subscription with three books out at a time for $19.98 per month. BookSwim covers shipping both ways via U.S. Postal Service media mail, though books over two pounds do carry an … Read more