DIY

  • January 18, 2021

    How I Built a Smart “On-Air” Light for When I’m Recording or Meeting

    As a guy who makes his living mostly from recording podcasts and videos, it can be frustrating when my family, who’s mostly stuck at home due to a pandemic, comes into my office while I’m recording, or decides to make the most noise right outside my door. I don’t blame them for this. You do what you can to keep 2 small children entertained. But I also wanted to solve the problem as much as I could.

    In fact, I’m sure with many now working primarily from home, a silent but noticeable signal that you’re in a meeting would also go a long way. This is a project I’ve been thinking about for a long time, and last week I finally made a smart on-air light for when I’m recording or meeting.

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  • December 15, 2007

    Rubik’s Cube

    rubiks cube

    Towards the beginning of the semester (thank God it’s over), my friend Jenn was showing me how to solve the Rubik’s Cube- something I never was and still am not able to do. Last night another friend of mine got me one for Christmas and I have more or less been thinking about it non-stop. I know there are countless resources that will tell you the solution, but I’d like to understand how it works instead of just memorizing an algorithm or two. My brother was showing me today how to solve it, but when I asked why we’d do it that was he’d say, “It’s how the algorithm is.” Jenn did tell me what I was trying to accomplish, but now that we are on Winter Break, it looks like I’m on my own.

  • January 20, 2007

    MYO Silly Putty

    After viewing this YouTube video on how to make your own Silly Putty, my friends and I could resist. We went out and got the ingredients and went to town. You can see the pictures below, but the final product (mine anyway) was pretty good. It’s a little stronger than regular silly putty, but it passes my three tests: the newspaper copy, bounciness and that cool pop sound silly putty makes. An added bonus is the outside of it is not a prone to picking up any particle that happens to touch it. It did harden a little over night when I left it out, but that was nothing working with it couldn’t fix. It’s a fun (kind of messy!) project if you are looking for something to do.

  • February 6, 2006

    Teach yourself how to program

    As some of you may know, I have taught myself a lot of the programming I know. It started with HTML, then CSS, some JavaScript, and then I moved on to PHP and MySQL. AJAX and Java are in the works, though I have some help from school with Java. In any case, I thought it might be good to write how I went about teaching myself PHP.

    With HTML and CSS it was a little easier because I had Frontpage to learn from. But the best way to learn those 2 things it to look at other people’s source. I still do that occasionally when I see a cool CSS effect that I want to try. There are also an infinite amount of resources on HTML, as well as other Web based languages. W3 Schools is, in my opinion, the best.

    PHP/MySQL Programming for the Absolute Beginner

    Learning a programming language like PHP is a little harder than that because PHP is processed by the server, and is invisible to the user. When I taught myself, I first purchased a book that familiarized me with the language. PHP/MySQL Programming for the Absolute Beginner is great for that. It covered not only the language, but some theory behind programming. I strongly suggest you learn theory if you are serious about programming. While languages change, theory will always be the same. Don’t just learn the syntax of a language- but how and why each component works- Ifs, Whiles, methods/functions, etc.

    In addition, read online tutorials, how tos, and do it yourself. The programs from that book and books like PHP for Dummies are good. Do a program a day- even if they are simple and easy. They are meant to teach you how to use certain types of syntax. My Del.icio.us links on the side usually have some good PHP/programming resources. PHP.net is and will always be the best. It’s a huge database of all of the php functions- Functions are code written outside of the main program that can be called upon. The ones on php.net are built in, already written. These will save you massive amounts of time you would spend writing your own stuff. PHP has over 700 built in functions. Occasionally, on this site, you will find something I have written, and I will make the code available for download.

    It is not always easy to learn a programming language, but if you work hard, do practice programs and READ, you will be well on your way to writing your own apps in no time. Later!