Hacks, Mods & Circuitry: Page 4

There are very, very few things better than a solid Hobbit songI mean, I was almost brought to tears when Pippin busted out this one in The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.

You can make Siri do all kinds of things it was never designed to do. From installing it on older jailbroken iDevices to using it to bypass an iPhone's lock screen, people have managed to come up with some interesting hacks—and that's only the beginning.

Since the introduction of the Nexus 4 to the Google Play Store last November, the phone's been in constant demand thanks to the low price and sleek design. Even today, the phone is still listed as sold out.

If you're like me (and everybody else probably), you probably have a few nights of reckless drinking that you wish your could take back, or at least turn down a notch.

At night, it can be pretty difficult to see what's inside drawers and cabinets, unless you have night vision or something.

Last week, the whole world ushered in the new year, celebrating the start of 2013 with family and friends, and of course, that little thing we like to call alcohol. But just because New Years Day is over doesn't mean the party is.

There are tons of remote controlled cars and boats out there that you can buy or build, and you can add remote control functionality to almost anything. But if you really want to stand out, there are few things more attention-grabbing than this radio-controlled watermelon boat by the folks over at Starting Electronics.

No matter how advanced technology gets, there will always be room for classic video games in the hearts of nerds everywhere. Mini arcades became very popular, as they allowed users to take arcade games on the go. As Game Boys and other mobile gaming devices appeared, the mini arcade slowly disappeared.

There's nothing worse than when you come up with a brilliant idea while you're busy with other things and then promptly forget it. Whether it's the perfect ending for your novel or a comeback you should've said during that argument with your roommate last week, it's always annoying.

You can use Twitter to print Instagram photos, track news and weather events, or even remotely shut down your computer, and if you're familiar with IFTTT, there's no shortage of ways your account can help automate your life.

Remember the 1960's American television series Batman, with Adam West as Bruce Wayne? It was waaaaay before my time. The caped crusader that I'm more familiar with is actually this one...

At one time or another, we've all enjoyed the visualizations that came stock in Windows Media Player. I remember spending hours listening to my favorite album, putting the graphic equalizer on full screen, and getting lost in the flurry of colors that would dance across the screen.

I have a pre-lit tree lit with mini bulbs at 125vac 5a 625w and i want to convert it to blue LED. I would prefer to just swap out the bulbs, but is that possible? Doesn't the power for regular bulbs and LED ones differ? I am not opposed to re-stringing the tree, but the wire has to be black, since my tree is black. Do i have to buy a blue LED string and tape off the bulbs and spray paint the wire black to achieve this, or is there an easier way to do what i want to do?

The Jetsons may not have gotten everything right about the future, but even though we may not have flying cars or live in the sky (yet), one thing they imagined correctly was our electronics eventually being able to understand us.

Keys are on the way out. They're clunky, take up precious space, and slow you down when you have tons of identical-looking gold ones on your keyring. Everything we can open with keys can now also be opened with wireless technology in just a click—so why use keys anymore?

Most of us have traded our desktop systems for laptops, tablets, and mobile devices, meaning there's a lot of outdated hardware sitting in attics. Want to give your old computer a new purpose? Matthew Chappee turned his iMac G4 into an HDTV using the guide by Dremel Junkie.

For this project, I decided to rip apart a microwave I found in my neighbor's garbage can to see what was inside. With permission, of course! True story!

Please visit my Instructable for an introduction to the 555 timer, pinouts, and several applications for the 555 in astable mode: http://www.instructables.com/id/Hack-Your-Snap-Circuits-a-Minimalist-Very-Few-Co/?ALLSTEPS

Want to learn how to build a robot out of Snap Circuits? I'll show you how to combine Snap Circuits parts from three different sets (the Snap Circuits rover, Snap Circuits Micro, and the Snap Circuits motion detector) to make a simple programmable motion activated robot. For a complete step-by-step build of the robot, visit my project at Instructables: http://www.instructables.com/id/Hack-the-Snap-Circuits-Rover/

Want to learn how to build a laser tripwire and alarm out of snap circuits? I'll show you how to build both circuits— the laser tripwire circuit and the alarm circuit.