Posted on

Lazy Long Weekend Project

About five years ago, we got a cute little R-Pod 173T.  It’s a trailer with a pop-out tent to extend the internal living area by about 36 sq. ft.

P1050706

Very cute and just the right size to be towed by our Santa Fe.

Tent_and_couch_sitting_up

A couple of years ago, my very patient wife suggested we remove the sofa to make more room inside. (not my photo — found on the tubes)

Brilliant! Awesome to have more space.

But what to do with the couch (sofa)?

She suggested we (I) figure out a way to use it in our Garage-Jang.

Garage / training room.

Of course, I over analyzed it. Here’s my project sketches to prove it.

Scan0001

Scan0002

Fast forward to 3 years later. Yes, it’s done.

IMG_0005

And perhaps I over-engineered it a bit. (seriously. 2×6??)

IMG_0006

IMG_0007

I don’t care. It’s done. It’s solid, and it’s actually comfortable.

Long Weekend Win!

 

Posted on

eeePC Netbook Ubuntu mod and a bit of fun

As you can see, I’ve managed to get TweetDeck installed on my languishing eeePC 8G Netbook.

Originally we’d picked the eeePC up as a light web browser, but found the native Xandros OS a bit weak.

Time passed and we’d not had time to really explore the potential of this little guy…until now.

First off, the OS needed a rework. I was considering a TinyXP (stripped down) Windows XP install, but decided against it for a number of reasons.

Then Easy Peasy was released. It’s a fork of Ubuntu Linux, optimized for the requirements of the netbook’s smaller form factor (screen, keyboard, wifi, etc).

Cutting to the chase, the Easy Peasy installation went perfectly, following these instructions.

Then, to make this refreshed netbook work for me…it needed TweetDeck (the ultimate Twitter client) which runs on Adobe AIR. Ubuntu and Easy Peasy don’t include AIR, but lucky for me there was a simple walkthrough which I’ll summarize here:

  1. Open the Terminal
  2. Download the file from here using the wget command:
    http://airdownload.adobe.com/air/lin/download/1.5/AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
  3. The name of the file is AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
  4. Save the file in the Home folder (Places > Home Folder)
  5. Run this command:
    chmod +x AdobeAIRInstaller.bin
  6. Now run this command:
    sudo ./AdobeAIRInstaller.bin

The normal installer will open, install it. From now whenever you download a .air file, just double click it and it will be installed.

So this means we simply browse to the TweetDeck download page, click on the Linux Version, and select ‘install with AdobeAirInstaller’ when prompted by the operating system.

Poof done! TweetDeck now installed and the eeePC netbook can now play with Twitter like the big boys.

Posted on

Modding my Xbox…

[ This item originated at my previous (now defunct) blog bradblog.info — copy retrieved from the Internet Archive]

A while ago I managed to lay my hands on a refurbished Xbox for a fairly reasonable price. Great, methinks. A game console and a DVD player, all rolled into one. And hey, it’ll even play music from the built in hard drive too¦ but not stock from the factory. No, my friend, you have to void the Microsoft warranty and mess with the happy technology that lies buried within your game console. Once you do that, you then have unlocked the power of your Xbox, and created a Monster¦here’s how I did mine¦ Continue reading “Modding my Xbox…”