August 1st, 2011

Autodesk Acquires DIY Community Instructables

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In its third acquisition this year, Autodesk, maker of design, engineering and entertainment software, has acquired San Francisco-based Instructables, a popular online community where people can upload, discuss, rate and collaborate on a wide variety of do-it-yourself projects.

Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. → Read More

March 22nd, 2011

How To Make A Pseudo-Antique Light Bulb Organ Controlled By A Midi Keyboard

Musical acts can always do better if they have some sort of gimmick. The band Future Dancing is using a nostalgic-looking light organ as theirs. There is an Instructable on the neat light organ showing off the organ’s 12 bulbs that correspond to 12 notes in the octave (minus the octave note). The lights are positioned where the pipes on a pipe organ would be and the bulbs light up whenever a key… → Read More

December 15th, 2010

A DIY Gorillapod Right In Time For Gift Giving

Many digital point-and-shoot users often overlook the need for a tripod. Often times Facebook photos are full of blurry pictures, and that’s just not professional. One of the most often used portable tripods is the Gorillapod. They’re great for fixing your camera in almost any position. But all that comes at a price.

Read on for the How To. → Read More

July 23rd, 2010

Google's New Video Ad Highlights How Content Farms Rule At The Search Game

So yesterday, I notice there’s a new article up on Google’s main blog, head on over there and see it’s merely a post featuring the latest video in the company’s Search Stories series, video ads which essentially aim to highlight how all kinds of people use Google Search. They’re nice and all, if pretty pointless in my book, but nothing particularly spectacular about them.

But this latest one… → Read More

May 14th, 2010

Use Linux to water your lawn

So you bought the EasyBloom to take precise soil moisture readings. You have a spreadsheet plotting plant growth over time. But you’re still schelpping out to water the lawn like all your Luddite neighbors. Where’s your sense of pride? You’re a geek! You should be using technology to make your life better. Here, we’ll help get you started with this Instructable on using Linux to water your lawn! → Read More

December 21st, 2009

Hidden gadget charging station could save marriages

I have what I consider to be a modest number of gadgets lying around the house. The exact number is usually in flux, depending on what I’m reviewing for CrunchGear. Nonetheless, there’s almost always something sitting in my living room plugged into an outlet to charge. My lovely wife just barely tolerates this, and regularly asks if I need to have all these things lying about. She would love to… → Read More

December 9th, 2009

WikiHow Gets Pretty, And Hits 20 Million Monthly Visitors

How-to sites are always popular on the Web because they give people practical instructions on how to perform specific tasks and projects. They are also search engine optimization (SEO) machines, getting most of their traffic from search engines. About.com and eHow are the biggest sites in the category, but there are a slew of others, including wikiHow which just crossed the 20 million monthly… → Read More

August 19th, 2009

Stupid invention: the self-playing harmonica

The aptly named Stupid Inventions brings us a fun little diversion: the self-playing harmonica. Using nothing more than an inkjet printer, a vacvuum cleaner, and a harmonica, you can create a modern day Nickelodeon! Except, of course, it’s a harmonica, and not a piano. But still! Click on through to watch a video of this musical marvel in action. → Read More

July 30th, 2009

When you want to care enough to send the best, but forget

I mailed a birthday card out yesterday to a family member who’s birthday was, in fact, last week. I’m such a bad relation. I had the decency to include a check and a witty comment, but I know it’s going to be too little, too late. If only I could go back in time to yesterday, knowing what I know today. See, I just found out about cake in a jar! Boy howdy, would the lateness of my gift be forgiven… → Read More

July 10th, 2009

DIY miniature catapult, for all your miniature siege needs

What do you do with a coat hanger, some rubber bands, an Altoids tin, and ten minutes of free time? Why, you make a miniature catapult, of course. You can easily sneak this into just about any office meeting. Happy Friday! → Read More

January 26th, 2009

Build a postal scale from old discs and scrap wire

Got some old CD’s? Some spare steel wire, some tape and a couple of finishing nails? Then you too can build a simple postal scale. What better way to recycle some bits of things that would normally end up in a landfill? → Read More

January 16th, 2009

You know, for beekeepers

In an attempt to expand our readership, today we are running a story for the beekeepers out there. Yes, you can now depend on us to provide you information on cutting edge tech for all kinds of different people.

Today, it’s beekeepers. → Read More

October 10th, 2008

Turn a busted surge protector into a secret HDD

http://www.metacafe.com/fplayer/830090/ups_hack_hide.swf If you’ve got an old UPS laying around, and are both technically adept and extremely paranoid, have I got a project for you! This Instructables instructable is probably the most complicated way to go about this; there’s a lot of soldering and voltage metering going on when you really could simply, well, glue a small flash drive… → Read More

August 29th, 2008

Ditch your old paper business cards for a dot matrix one

I’ve contemplated ditching my business cards for some time, but every convention I attend and every PR flack requires me to donate one dead tree to them. A friend recently told me he had ditched business cards altogether a while back and immediately directs people to connect with him on linkedin, which is a great idea. But, I really want a kickass looking business card that won’t get… → Read More

April 22nd, 2008

5min Releases Embeddable Player That Can Handle Text, Images, and Video

Instructional video site 5min has released a new beta version of their SmartPlayer, introducing support for text, video, and images that can be merged into a single embeddable flash widget. The site considers the player to be revolutionary, and believes that it will help set 5min apart from their numerous competitors in the instructional video space. The original SmartPlayer gave users the ability… → Read More

November 7th, 2006

The LaunchPad 13 at Web 2.0 Summit

The annual Web 2.0 Summit kicked off today at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. The conference Summit, which has been sold out for months, is noticeably larger than last year and hundreds of people are milling about, seeing and being seen. The highlight of last year’s conference for me was LaunchPad, where thirteen young startups showed their stuff to the audience. See our coverage from… → Read More