Homemade alcohol stove

August 17th, 2008

After building 14 different alcohol stoves over the course of a couple weeks, I have settled on what I believe to be the perfect mixture of efficiency, size, weight and simplicity.

Whole rig weighs in at 3.5 oz. Main components include a 24 oz. Heineken® beer can (pot), an 8 oz. apple juice can (burner), 5.5 oz. cat food can (lid) and 10″ aluminum flashing (windscreen).

Using 1 oz. of denatured alcohol it’s able to boil 16 oz. of 62 degree water in 8:35, eventually burning out at 15:40. It’s worth noting that with just 1/2 oz. of fuel it manages to heat the same 16 oz. of water to 200 degrees by 11:00 (plenty hot for freeze dried meals)

Flashing roll (10″ x 10′) cost about $10 at Home Depot, the rest came from the recycling bin.

Video here

How to take close-ups with the iPhone camera

August 16th, 2008

Simple, really. Just cover the iPhone’s camera with a magnifying glass, loupe or reading glasses prior to taking photo. 10x was great for small stuff, but 2x was the overall winner due to its ability to capture typical documents. Until they put an auto-focus lens in the iphone, it’ll have to do.

 

no correction

no correction

 

10x loupe

10x loupe

 

no correction

no correction

 

2x magnifying glass

2x magnifying glass

Configure NetShare for iPhone using Windows XP and Apple Safari

August 14th, 2008

Consider yourself very lucky if you purchased Nullriver’s NetShare before it was pulled from Apple’s App Store.

It’s just that good.

Armed with this app, an iphone running 2.0+ firmware, a Windows XP laptop and Apple’s Safari Browser, you’re no longer constrained to a network of commercial hotspots and nefarious wifi connections.

Experience near-DSL speeds in 3G service areas, completely untethered from the wired world and costly data card contracts.

Proceed with caution.

Though this seems to work, understand you may be violating your carrier’s terms of service and possibly exceeding your bandwidth allotment. Use at your own risk. 

Not so easy.

As great as the app is, it can be quite painful to get going the first time. 

For those of you struggling with setup, I’ve laid out most of the key steps below. Not sure if this is the best way to setup, but I was able to configure three different laptops, so it is one way of doing it.

Hope this is of help to some of you and please sound off in the comments with stories of success, failure & why NetShare is almost as freeing as the Stadium Pal.

 

open network connections

download and open safari on the pc

 

open network connections

select prefs under edit menu

 

open network connections

click change settings

 

open network connections

click LAN settings

 

open network connections

click advanced

 

open network connections

enter 192.168.10.1 to socks field & click ok to this and other underlying windows. close safari for now

 

open network connections

open network connections

 

open network connections

right-click wireless network, select properties

 

with a clean slate, now click add

on the wireless networks tab click add

 

association tab: configure new network like so

 

no need to mess with this

authentication tab: no need to mess with this

 

check this box

connection tab: check this box & click ok

 

open network connections

under general tab, select TCP/IP, click properties

 

open network connections

configure IP with 192.168.10.2, subnet with 255.255.255.0, click OK, then close

 

open network connections

right-click & view wireless networks

 

open network connections

if you're currently connected to another network, make sure to disconnect first. then select iphonepc and click connect.

 

open network connections

it will try to connect, but won't actually do it. need to setup the iphone now.

 

open network connections

select iphone settings

 

open network connections

select wifi

 

open network connections

select iphonepc network. pc connection should now indicate success. click blue arrow next.

 

open network connections

configure static IP with 192.168.10.1 & subnet with 255.255.255.0

 

open network connections

under general settings set auto-lock to never

 

open network connections

open a new webpage on iphone. this initiates the 3g/edge connection. move quickly to next steps!

 

open network connections

open NetShare on iphone

 

open network connections

open safari on the pc

 

open network connections

that's it. screaming fast 3g

 

Check out Edison’s Blue and Yellow video here!