DIY Life

In about a month, college students across the country will throw their caps in the air to mark the end of their campus careers. It's an exciting time of life that's marked by new jobs, new friends, and often new apartments.

Living on your own isn't quite the same as living with roomies or in a dorm, and even with a shiny new paycheck, things can be tight until you get on your feet.

Erin Doland of Unclutterer (a website which is now, officially, my best friend) recently wrote a guest post at Gen Pink on how to organize your first apartment. The idea here is not to run out to the nearest Container Store and buy every colorful plastic box in sight. Instead, Doland recommends that you:

• Spend some time thinking about how your kitchen will be used and unpack your boxes accordingly. Glasses near the sink, for instance, and pots and pans near the stove.
• Ask for household gifts as graduation presents. Since people don't get necessarily get married any more before setting up house, it's too bad we don't throw "first house/apartment" showers instead.
• Reuse items from your college apartment in a new way. Those milk crates, for instance, can become recycling bins.
• Prioritize what you need and focus on acquiring that. You'll be amazed by how little it takes to get by.
• Don't store your trash can under your sink where it can overflow and draw pests.

Let's hear it, DIY Life readers: what kind of advice would you share with first time apartment or home owners to get their living space in shape?

When tech geeks meet greenies, strange new gadgets are inevitably born. That's the case with the extremely unusual little New York startup company, Botanicalls. For a fee, the Botanicalls team -- all clad in pristine white lab coats, of course -- will provide you with an assortment of nice houseplants. Try as you might to kill them through the usual means of benign neglect, over-watering or too little/too much sunlight, you will not succeed. Why? Botanicalls plants come with sensors that alert you to their needs via automated telephone calls. I swear I am not making this up! Even Very Serious News giant Reuters did a story on it.

Anyway, for those who want a DIY equivalent, the Botanicalls people were kind enough to supply how-to instructions for a device that sends you Twitter alerts from your plant. These are really detailed instructions, I might add, with lots of great photos. Definitely a great project if you have computer savvy, wiring know-how and soldering skills. You do, right?

Inhabitant and Core77 are hosting a greener electronics design competition. The event will take place on February 1, 2008 at the Greener Gadgets Conference in New York city. They are looking for products that reduce the environmental impact of consumer electronics. Your design can target any stage of the product life-cycle. They suggest you consider these three areas of sustainability:

1. Energy
2. Materials / Life-cycle / Recycling
3. Social and educational development
   

If you have a cool gadget idea that considers our carbon footprint, uses less energy, employs green technology or recycling, then this might just be the way to showcase your innovation. You can win a little green too, so get those solar powered wheels turning and submit your ideas to the Greener Gadgets competition.

Entry information, event schedule, and prizes can all be found here. Entry deadline is January 28. I'm excited to see all the new ideas that will come out of this competition.

There is a contingent of the gadget-obsessed among us who love their toys, but prefer to conserve cash every month (it seems) when the "latest and greatest" gadget comes out for public purchase. Instead of buying all that new garb and abandoning that perfectly working gadget from last month (heh), why not re-purpose some of those gadgets with a little elbow grease and finesse and give them the working life they really have inside?

A great example is the Xbox Media Center (XBMC) that turns your five year-old original Xbox into a fully-featured internet and home computer network media server. Wanna view YouTube videos, listen to your MP3 collection or browse RSS feeds? You can.

Don't toss that old iPod either. There are plenty of utilities to make that again music gadget useful for other things. Have a plain vanilla Linksys WRT54G wireless router? Install the open-source DD-WRT firmware and get options and features normally found on expensive routers only. I've performed this upgrade and turned that lousy Linksys user interface into a stunning new interface with many more options (which are much easier to use). No need for that $100 draft-n router, right? Well, not yet, anyway.

LED eyes, the perfect accessory for your Halloween costume. You'll look like a demon wearing these frightening lights over your eyes. The best part is, it only cost $1. Here's what you'll need:

Materials

1. 330 ohm resistor (any 200-500 ohm will work)
2. 2 Miniature LED - red
3. Battery adapter
4. 9 volt battery
   
5. Crimp connectors
6. Velcro strap
   

Take a look through the full instructions and accompanying pictures. It's really interesting to see the actor wearing the headband in light contrasted with how frightening she looks in the dark.Sit at your front door to terrify trick-or-treaters, or wear them as an original accessory to your Halloween party. It is a quick and cheap Halloween trick that sure to be a popular DIY hack this year.

[via: Hacked Gadgets]

Are you in the process of creating the next great Halloween project? It's time to show off your skills, get some exposure and win cool prizes.

Instructables, MAKE and PopSci have teamed up to create a huge Halloween contest. It's all about DIY and it is sure to bring out some wild and creative ideas. Here is a list of the contest categories:

• Hack-O-Lantern Contest
• Costume Contest
• Decorations, Gadgets and More Contest
• Food Contest

Share your haunted house props, robotic Jack-O-Lanterns and disgusting eyeball recipes. The prizes are yet to be announced, but are guaranteed to be awesome. The top projects will even be featured in MAKE and PopSci.

More details should be coming out in the next week or two, and we'll keep you posted as they do.
You can enter your photos, videos or full Instructable submissions. Check out this page for some more information.

Your PDA's swaddled in suede, your cell's clad in couture and your laptop's loving its sleek new custom case. Meanwhile, those are mere decorations and only protect you from scratches -- how do you protect your gadgets from water?

Ever dropped your gadget in a puddle, had your toddler pour coffee on your laptop (ah, the perils of a working parent), or worse ... you leaned over to flush the toilet only to have your cell phone slide out of your pocket and right into the bowl? Usually it means that you have to replace your gadget ... but sometimes if you act fast, you can save yourself from another expensive purchase.

Follow these steps to avoid a trip to the gadget graveyard.

Step 1: Turn off your gadget and immediately remove the battery -- no matter what you do -- DO NOT TURN IT BACK ON. If you dropped your phone and it has a SIM card, remove that too. Some or all of your valuable contacts (along with other data) could be stored on it. To some people this could be more important than the phone itself.

Step 2: Dry it off as much as you possibly can. Even take a Q-tip and get into the cracks and crevices. You can never be too thorough.

Step 3: Put the gadget and battery in a dry, warm spot and wait. Don't try putting the battery back in to see if it works as this would risk damaging the phone with a short circuit. Remember: Water and electricity don't mix ... don't let your short patience get the best of you. You will have to wait this one out and your best bet is to let it dry for two to three days and not a minute less!

Step 4: Put your batteries back in and cross your fingers. With a little luck, your gadget will be back in working order. Note: This can work for your kids' electronic toys too.

Tip: If something other than water (like coffee or soda) was the culprit, you may need to add another step ... after drying you will want to take your Q-tip and clean the gadget with alcohol (use sparingly) and then dry again. Unfortunately, liquids other than water will corrode the inside parts and the longer it dries without being cleaned out, the more concentrated the substance will become.