DIY Life

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?

We would love to get a new router for our home computers. Unfortunately, it's not in the budget right now. Sigh. So we continue to work with the one we have. And our Wi-Fi connection is...meh. If you find yourself in the same boat, just know there are things you can do to maximize the power of the router you have. I found some dandy suggestions at Yahoo's tech blog.

Well, okay, okay. The blogger's first suggestion is to upgrade to newer and more powerful technology, which I've already ruled out for myself. However, his subsequent tips reminded me that any wireless connection can be improved with a little patient experimentation. For example, did you know that the antenna on your router does not have to stand straight upright? Twist it around. Go nuts. Second, play around with your router's location. Help that good Wi-Fi juice flow through all the obstacles in its way (primarily walls, electronic devices or appliances), and make its way to your laptop. Heck, I've heard that even a soda can could improve your connection!

Now why would anyone want to kill an innocent laptop? Simple. The current technology is better, faster, and quieter. Affordable, too. Yet maybe you can't justify shelling out for a new machine while your old one continues to perform as slowly and faithfully as an old dog. Or maybe you can justify it, but your Significant Other argues it's beyond the family's means. Yes, it's an evil plan to be sure. Put your laptop out of its misery today, and tomorrow you can merrily trot out and purchase something better. No one need ever know the truth! (Evil laughter)

The best starting point comes courtesy of the UK paper The Register. This publication's website has two handy articles on the subject worth checking out. First up: "Ten ways to kill your laptop." Second: "102 ways to kill your computer." The suggestions here are good for entertainment value and maybe inspiration, but they're not the most subtle. For instance, I'm not sure my Significant Other would believe it if I told him my trusty yet aging Dell died due to my accidentally dropping it off a bridge or down a stairwell. You, too? Okay, so now we turn to the definitive resource: "How to destroy your computer," on the site Dan's Data. This is where you'll find the evil advice you seek: how to off your computer in a way that won't be detected by your (non-techie) loved ones. Muahahahahahaha!

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.

Here is a great video from PopSci.com on how to use a coffee can and in five minutes boost your cell-phone signal.
This project requires a few items to be bought online, most notably the cell phone antenna for your particular model, but shouldn't cost you too much to complete. After watching this video I had a few concerns about the completion of it, namely that I don't see why solder is needed, when duck-tape would do just fine and take much less time. I suppose solder is the better outdoor antenna choice, but that wasn't mentioned. The other thing I wondered at was why he couldn't have inserted the antenna "nut" before adding the second can. That would have also made things easier and quicker. All in all a great little video.