Tech Upgrades Guide : Build Your Own Laser Cutter + 74 Other Way-Cool Gadget Hacks

Tech Upgrades is for anyone who’s ever wished they could build their own touchscreen, brew up and use conductive ink, rig a mouse that you can operate with your feet, or make a rad engraved computer tower that glows in the dark—essentially, it’s for fun-loving nerds everywhere.

Used to be, whenever you had a computer problem or techie glitch, you went and found the nearest geek to help fix it. But now, there’s a new movement afoot—a band of inventive and self-reliant geeks who hack computer and software to solve problems (and, in some cases, just to have fun). From building your own computer out of a cereal box to modifying safety goggles to see infrared rays, from skinning your laptop with steampunk trimmings to divising a foxhole radio, and from setting up a projector for your iPhone to working out with a dumbbell of old CDs, this book makes being a nerd, well. Cool.

Activities include:
Rig a DIY Polygraph
Listen in on a Foxhole Radio
Tack Up a Dipole Antenna
Craft a Cell-phone Cantenna
Hang HDTV-Antenna Art
Mod an Xbox Controller into an iPhone Case
Make Your Smartphone “Bounceable”
Set Up an Electric Home Secretary
Rig a Smartphone Projector
Charge a Phone with Solar Rays
Make a Tennis Ball Smartphone Tripod
Turn Your Old Netbook into a Touchscreen Tablet
Fashion a DIY Stylus for Your Touchscreen Device
Protect Your Touchscreen with Thin Vinyl
Stash a Flash Drive in a Cassette
Make a Pink-Eraser Flash Driver
Fake It with a Sawed-Off Flash Drive
House a Flash Drive in a LEGO
Hack a Foot-Operated Mouse
Trick Out Your Computer Tower with Engraving
Turn Your Laptop into a White Board
Dye Your Laptop
Make a Steampunk-Inspired Laptop Case
Turn on Your Computer with a Magnet
Shield Your Screen from Prying Eyes
Print in Invisible Ink
Keep Your Laptop Cool with Copper Coils
Connect a Junked Out Typewriter to Your Computer
Make Keyboard Thumbtacks
Rig a Superportable Keyboard
Create a Glowing Mousepad
Put an Old Circuit Board to New Use
Make a Laptop Stand froma Three-Ring Binder
Build a USB Hub into Your Desk
Stash Your Printer in a Drawer
Mount Office Supplies Behind Your Monitor
Organize Loose Cables
Make a Floppy-Disk Box
Get Pumped with a CD Dumbbell
Assemble a Cereal-Box Spectrometer
Make an External Hard Drive
Build a Computer out of a Cereal Box
Transform an Everyday Lightbulb into a Plasma Globe
Light Up Sketches with Home-Made Conductive Ink
Hack Infrared Goggles
Decimate with a DIY Laser Cutter
Create Glass Objects out of Sand
Shine a Mini Flash Light
Brighten Up a Standard-Issue Flashlight
Beam a Batman-Inspired Spotlight
Get Techie with Aluminum Foil
Improvise a Tripod
Mount a Camera on Your Bike
Build a Time-Lapse Camera Stand
Rig a Plastic-Bottle Diffuser
Make Your Camera Waterproof
Create a Peephole Fisheye Lens
Adapt a Manual Ring to Your DLSR
Snap a Self-Portrait with a DIY Remote Shutter Release
Set Up a High-Speed Flash
Build a Ginormous Camera

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