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This is a project that will surely please guitarists, singers, or any other musicians that play on stage. Basically, you gut out a USB keyboard, keeping only the electronics and you build a pedal that you map to specific keys. This allows you to either scroll down a document (partitions, tablatures, lyrics, etc.) or even control a slide show or audio software.

USB page turner pedal for musicians [link][via]

My white Intel iMac has been working great ever since I bought it. Then along came Leopard. After getting the upgrade and installing it, my iMac became instable. All of a suddain, it would hang. Or at least, the video card would freeze. I could still connect to my computer with ssh from my laptop, but all the unsaved work I had going was lost. That’s until I realized that Leopard changed something to the machine’s firmware to slow down the fans – either that or Leopard runs hotter.

Anyways, if you’re stuck in a similar situation, go ahead and download the excellent SMCFanControl application. It lets you speed up your fans individually (my computer has 3 different ones). Apple, in its constant quest for the thinnest and most silent device on the market, tend to design dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. The computer’s ventilation system’s efficiency drops below the acceptable threshold once it gets a bit dusty.

Go ahead and install this little gem of a program.

How to cool down your Mac by speeding up its fans [link]

This is a cool modded MacBook. Although no instructions are provided, it’s interesting, just to get the juices flowing if you want to bling your ‘book.

MacBook Modding [link]

How to mod your G5 PowerMac Case to display a the time. No alteration to the case is needed – the LEDs are arranged to match the G5 tower’s mesh grill pattern -  which makes this hack even better!

Build a Clock into your PowerMac tower [link] [via]

Here’s a sweet project for those who want a Mac but can’t afford it: a PC that runs Leopard. Granted, the computer won’t be as nice as a Mac, but then again, considering the performance, it’s considerably cheaper.

I’ll stick with the Apple-built computer (I’ve been lucky so far), but it’s still nice to have options.

I’m quite sure that doing this that violates OS X’s license, but then again, I have doubts that those who build that PC will even have bought it in the first place.

Build a Hackintosh for under 800$ [link]

In this tutorial I will walk you through the necessary steps to change your PowerBook’s hard drive. The repair is performed on a Apple aluminum (alubook) PowerBook G4 (1.5GHz), with Firewire 800.

How to change a PowerBook Hard Drive [link]

[ 2009-12-01: updated link ]