GO, GO GADGETS @ THEDAILY. This is that new iPad magazine, and it’s also online – Adafruit makes an appearance!
Meet the real-life MacGyvers. Engineers and garage tinkerers across the country are building their own MP3 players, 3D printers and, yes, even light guns. And they say you can too. The Daily talked to some of the leaders of this gadget revolution and found that you don’t have to be a genius to make something. You just have to be curious.
In this 7 minute video we explore “The mysteries of Apple device charging“. Usually device makers need to sign a confidentially agreement with Apple who want to say “works with iPhone / iPod” and never talk about how the insides work. If you don’t put these secret resistors on the data lines to you get the dreaded “CHARGING IS NOT SUPPORTED WITH THIS ACCESSORY”. We demonstrate how anyone can do this and make their own chargers that work with iPhone 4, 3Gs, etc. Video above, HD and (m4v).
We now include a product ID on each product in the listing pages as well as the product page for every item now. For example the Arduino is prodect ID: 50. These product IDs make it easier for purchasing managers to confirm that they’re ordering the right stuff, these product IDs are also in our downloadable PDF.
By popular request – Adafruit now has a catalog – a printable PDF. We automagically generate it each time we have new products and also each month. It’s linked on every single page at the bottom of the left side navigation & product list – download / view it / print it / share it – Printable catalog (PDF).
At O’Reilly’s foo camp east 2010 at Microsoft’s NERD center (MIT campus) we presented “Million dollar baby – Businesses designing and selling open source hardware, making millions” at the Ignite hour. 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide – we tried to capture the excitement and great work from just a few of the dozens of open source hardware companies & resellers. Above, slides, photos & video (m4v). Special thanks to all the companies who helped with some data points and to the OSHW workshop group. There are additional videos/posts/tweet from other attendees, this is our quick video we were able to put together on the train ride back from MA to NYC.
I really love cheat sheets. In a lot of cases they can take the place of an entire manual. So I was surprised, given its popularity that I couldn’t find a single-page reference for the arduino online. I tried to make a sheet that captured all the things I hit the reference for while programming. What data type does the millis() function return? How long till that overflows again? How large can a long get? What baud rates can the serial handle?
A lot of readers are likely familiar with Adafruit Industries, supplier and maker of many kits found in the Maker Shed. In addition to my role here at MAKE, as senior editor, I also work with Limor (Ladyada), helping her with the open source hardware kit business. I’ll have a few articles about general things we do around here to keep the ship afloat and charting new waters, but I thought I’d start this “Maker Business” article with an overview of how it all works and how we use many many web tools/services. One of the most asked questions I get from makers is “what shopping cart do you use?” The short answer is Zencart, and while I think it doesn’t actually matter what you use when you start out, this is what we’re using at Adafruit. A recent milestone, we just shipped our 50,000th order. We mostly create and sell open source hardware, most of the tools we use are open source — I’ve never seen an article detailing “everything” a business uses online, so here’s one. I think you’ll enjoy it. Let’s take a look…
“Dali Clock is a digital clock. When a digit changes, it “melts” into its new shape. The date is displayed when the mouse is pressed. The window can be made transparent, and can do funky psychedelic color cycling. ”
Printable catalog (PDF)
FEED
