Daily DIY

There is a “Smartphone Smackdown” in NYC @ the Samsung Experience Center Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, a couple folks I know are speaking there so I’m going to pop by with the phones I roll with to see how bad they get smacked… If you’re in NYC stop by, there will be lots of gadgety stuff and I’ll have my maker-y phones with me (rotary and green linux) - Link.

The phones:

• Rotary phone - Link.
• Linux green phone - Link (this phone appears in our open source gift guide too).

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MrGAmba writes - “Every once in a while you get the problem of your cell phone running out of batteries just when you haven’t got a charger at hand.

So what do you do ? Build your own, in,…. 1 minute.” - Link.

Doesn’t work on all phones and this really is a “Macgyver” way to do it, so try not to kill your phone(s).

Related:

• Hamster-powered cell phone charger - Link.
• HOW TO - Make an iPod charger for your bicycle! - Link.
• Workout and charge your cell phone - Link.
• Cell phone projects @ MAKE - Link.

From the MAKE store:

• Charge just about any cell phone that uses USB with the MintyBoost charger - info & MAKE store.

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Myrtlebaggins uses this DIY turtle locator, a mobile phone - on Hannah the pet Tortoise to locate her on the nights when it gets cold… - Link.

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I seem to be obsessed with wet gadgets lately. Today, Cory at Boing Boing writes about the stickers inside of phones that turn red when dunked, alerting the Verizon goons to your jack-assery. That reminds me of this tip on how to save a cellphone once its drenched in Champagne and rubbed vigorously while still in your pocket. Oh, Vegas…Anyhow:

Remove the Battery. Use a towel to remove as much of the water as possible. [Then] set it on the back of your computer monitor or TV screen over the heat vents. This is usually the perfect amount of heat to fix your phone. The convection action of the heat vents will help carry away the moisture in your phone. Leave the phone on the heat for at least 2-3 days.

Of course, after 2 to 3 days, your handset will already be hopelessly outdated. Might as well toss it. –Brian Lam

How to Save a Wet Cell Phone [WikiHow via Consumerist]

Neat, it’s a rotary dialer macro… Modern Mechanix 1936 - “”Key Caller” Speeds Phone Service - MAKING telephone number connections three times faster than can be done with an ordinary dial device is the work accomplished by a recent London invention. The “key caller,” as machine is called, consists of an instrument resembling a small typewriter.” - Link.

Rotary action:

• Portable Rotary Phone - pre-review - Link.
• HOW TO - Rotary phone Winamp control - Link.
• Use a rotary phone as a cell phone handset - Link.

Related:

• Modern Mechanix: Yesterday’s tomorrow, today - Link.
• Phones @ MAKE - Link.

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Ani Od Chai entered this BIG PHONE in the MAKE & CRAFT Halloween contest, you don’t want a BIG 7 foot cardboard PHONE to win right? Get entering! - Link.

Related:

• MAKE Halloween projects - Link.
• MAKE Halloween archives - Link.

Enter the MAKE & CRAFT Contests!

• Makers and Crafters, it’s time to enter our ghoulishly fun Halloween contests! Anyone, anywhere can enter, and depending on what type of maker or crafter you are, you can enter all or just some of the contests - Link.

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Bay Area (CA) Makers, this looks like a lot of fun (tonight)… - “Radio Handi is hosting a happy hour for phone geeks. Tuesday Oct 10th at the Phone Booth, 25th and S Van Ness in San Francisco. This is a phreak potluck. We’re asking everyone to bring an interesting fixed line phone (rotary phones especially), and one person to bring a small KSU or PBX that can power rotary phone ringers. We also need lots of RJ11 extension cords. We’ll be setting up a temporary PBX with table to table and table to bar dialing. “ [via] - Link.

If any Maker attend, take some photos and send’em our way!

Related:

• Rotary cell phone! - Link.
• PBX projects @ MAKE - Link.

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Michael Gartenberg from Jupiter Research spotted this odd phone service for making free international calls, you call a number in Iowa (712-858-8883) and according to the site… “When the gateway answers, enter 011 then the country code and number you want to reach (mobile users, do not hit SEND - the call will go through on it’s own). Wait a few moments for your call to ring through and then enjoy your free call.”[via] - Link.

As Michael said, if there’s a catch, I can’t find one either (I called our MAKE Japan office, worked fine) - so, get your phone phreak on if you want to dabble and make some free international calls.

Here’s a how-to of sorts so you don’t need to pay for the Iowa call… use Skype to make a free local call to the Iowa # (in the USA calls are free within the USA) then just dial out internationally for free… Skype on a Mac sometimes has DTMF issues, but usually on a PC it works fine - try it out and post on up in the comments. I tried using Project Gizmo and it worked fine too…

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For those of you who have an EV-DO phone, here’s how to use its wireless connection with your PC and/or Mac, Ben writes - “In today’s How-To, we’ll show you how to share your HTC Apache’s EV-DO internet connection with your laptop. We’re going to focus on the XV6700 by Verizon, but one can re-apply some of these techniques to other devices.” - Link.

Related:

• HOW TO share EVDO from a PC, Mac and more! - Link.
• Sharing EVDO with other computers at the airport… - Link.
• HOW TO - EVDO on Gentoo Linux - Link.

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I like this simple cell phone protector made from paper, it looks like a little chemical or radiation suit for your cell phone and best of all you can draw your own buttons… - Link.

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