Daily DIY

If you’re an audio engineer or record your own music, this seems like a pretty interesting book - it’s all about how the Beatles were actually recorded, looks like a lot of gear info too -

Never before has there been such an absolutely thorough and definitive look at how the Beatles’ albums were recorded. Years of research and extensive interviews with the group’s former engineers and technicians shed new light on those classic sessions. With a detailed look at every piece of studio gear used, full explanations of effects and recording processes, and an inside look at how specific songs were recorded, Recording The Beatles is a must-have for any Beatles fan or recording engineer.

Recording The Beatles - [via] Link.

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We here at DIY:happy would like to thank Elissa Englund for all her hard work here the last couple months. her work has kept DIY:happy alive. We wish her luck with her new job!
As for the future: DIY:happy will continue. I am going to come back to posting on a regular […]

Check it out, this project uses an old Intel digital microscope!

The topic of the project works between interactiondesign and the biology. It concerns the communication between animal and the machine. The animal represents the user of a system and has the possibility to intervene. The User of the System are the so-called „Daphnien”. These organisms are placed under a microscope and form an interface in the system cycle. Thus they have access to all processes in the computer and are able to manipulate them. The animal communicates with the computer and the borders between technology and the animal world blurs.

The system consists thereby of the animal, a microscope, an apperatur with LED`s, the computer and a digital aquarium.

Experimentelle Interfaces WS 06 » Blog Archive » Living Interface - [via] Link.

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Here are some photos of the kit and instructions of the game of life all wrapped up in a pdf. Link

You can buy the kit here: Link
Check it out on wikipedia here: Link
Try out a fun software version here: Link

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Windell writes -

Here is how you can put together your own extra-snazzy wine charms out of electronic components. They look great, are easy to make, cost next to nothing, and make great conversation pieces. For an added bonus, you can solder them in place, making them semi-permanent yet easily removable.

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories - Solder your own wine charms - Link.

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Web site XYZ Computing highlights the power of Firefox’s keyword bookmark feature, touting it as Firefox’s most underutilized feature.

If you’re not familiar with keyword bookmarks, they allow you to fire off your bookmarks, bookmarklets, and even keyword searches with a few simple keystrokes. For a quick example, I’ve got Lifehacker set up as a keyword bookmark using the letter ‘l’, so that I can get to the front page of Lifehacker with a few short keystrokes (Ctrl-L, l, Enter).

We’ve actually covered keyword bookmarks a lot on Lifehacker, but I always get the feeling that people don’t use them to their full potential. So, if you’re new to the whole idea, head to Gina’s 15 Firefox quick searches for a primer on keyword searches, and when you’re done there, check out Firefox and the art of keyword bookmarking, our masters class on streamlining and optimizing your bookmarks through keywords.

There’s always a bit of confusion when we start talking about bookmarks, so just remember - we’re not talking about creating keyword bookmarks for every site you you stumble upon. Del.icio.us is great for that kind of prolific bookmarking. We’re talking about the sites you visit every day. I keyword bookmark all of my most-visited sites, like Gmail (’gm’), Lifehacker (’l'), Google Reader (’gr’), Del.icio.us (’del’), etc. — Adam Pash

Windows XP: The open source software that’s been called Outlook for Linux has been ported to Windows XP and an easy-peasy installer is now available as a free download.

Like Outlook, Evolution is an email client (which can work with Exchange server, cool!), calendar, task list and memo manager. Unlike Outlook, Evolution does not look at all like a native Windows app. Windows users looking for an alternative to an expensive Outlook license would do well to check out Evolution, but brace yourself for the beautiful open source ugliness. Also, the Evolution Win32 installer hasn’t been tested on Vista, so the free download is XP only. Thanks, David! — Gina Trapani

Derek visited MAKE fest with a pole-mounted camera that captured video of the event and he processed it to create a time-lapse video in real-time at the event and here as an archive -

The Mobile Camera Tower at the Make Magazine event at etech2007. People seemed to admire our duct tape design strategies and 10 minute setup time. I used a Jitter patch to speed up the captured footage, so everyone could see a realtime time-lapse representation of the crowd’s movement in space.

Social Movement Laboratory » Blog Archive » Make Fest: Realtimelapse - Link.

Derek will also be at Where 2.0 (Thanks Brady!) - Link.

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This looks like a great paper kit, it taps its fingers as you turn the crank!

Pure distilled impatience, turn the handle and listen to the tappety-tap of impatient finger rapping! Now pre-cut and pre-creased! Simply pop out the pieces and glue together. Complete step-by-step ifully illustrated instructions are provided.

IMPATIENCE PAPER ANIMATION KIT - [via] Link.

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At every turn on the internet, someone’s offering a free software download for your PC. But separating the wheat from the evilware-addled chaff isn’t for busy users with better things to do than test applications all day long. That’s where we come in.

Today we’ve got our top picks of free Windows software downloads that will make your PC faster, stronger, more functional and productive. This list was tough to whittle down from a huge field of candidate applications, but that means our 10 choices are that much stronger.

Read on for 10 great free Windows downloads sure to make your PC experience that much better.

Step through Lifehacker’s Top 10 Free Windows Downloads>>

Or, get the whole list at a glance:

	10. 7-Zip (file archive manager)
	9. Foxit Reader (PDF reader)
	8. SyncBack (backup utility)
	7. Picasa (photo manager)
	6. Notepad++ (text editor)
	5. foobar2000 (media player)
	4. GAIM (instant messenger)
	3. Paint.NET (image editor)
	2. Launchy (keyboard launcher)
	1. Mozilla Firefox (web browser)

Now, we wanted to list almost as many apps on this list as an honorable mention, but I’ll leave that up for discussion. What would your top free Windows download list looked like? Let us know in the comments. —Gina Trapani