I’m really, really meticulous with my laptop, but sometimes, the fact that I have to lug around a huge padded backpack containing my laptop, the power brick, and a few accessories like the mouse can be a hassle. What if I just wanted to bring my laptop with me to the nearest coffee shop? I don’t want to have a huge bag cluttering the already-cramped cafe when I’m going to be staying there for a few hours. However, I don’t want to walk around carrying my laptop only. Heh, I don’t want to be an easy target for muggers.

So imagine my surprise when I saw Conceptual Devices offering a few things you can do with a hoodie, among them was to use it to make an improvised laptop bag. You can find more tips, including using your hoodie as a baby sling, and another tip on how to make a backpack, actually.

A hoodie is not just a hoodie. In a world full of stuff, smart items should be transformable, editable. They should engage the possibility to be transformed into something else. We do not need a new object. We rather need to get rid of some of them, to reduce the complex network of things around us.

You can check out the steps how to do just that here (click to embiggen):

I’m kind of iffy using a hoodie as a laptop bag, to be honest. I don’t have much faith in my DIY skills to make an improvised laptop bag that won’t unravel at the worst possible time, leading to a mess of computer components on the sidewalk. I’ll have to try it out with a netbook first. What about you? Do you see yourself using this in the future?

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I recently found out about the Pownce project that is currently on its beta phase. The new service includes Kevin Rose of Digg (I’m a big fan of the guy ever since his TechTV days). The new service has two components and you can use either one. There is a web component and also a small applet that uses the new Adobe Air runtime technology.

I’ve been lucky enough to be included in the beta and it really is promising. Imagine Yahoo! Messenger, only more user friendly and geared towards creating groups that can share files. The only thing that I don’t like is that you can only share up to 10mb of files. If you want more, then you have to pay a subscription. I admit I’m a cheapskate so I’d prefer for the service to be free.

Now, PC mods are quite common. Vents would never even get a second glance from people because PC case manufacturers now incorporate these on cases. What is making people take notice though are modifications made on laptops.

People who modify laptops are a different breed altogether. These are people with nerves of carbon fiber and balls of steel. Why? It takes a man of courage to actually open a very expensive piece of electronics and then tinker and change something that was not even specified by the manufacturer.

Take this guy, for example. He modified his Apple laptop so that the Apple logo would glow. The modification was a success and the result was quite impressive.

I’m now looking at my trusty Acer notebook in a whole new perspective.

It is a little known fact that five African Americans have had their signatures on US currency.

The four African American men whose signatures appeared on the currency were Blanche K. Bruce, Judson W. Lyons, William T. Vernon and James C. Napier. These men served as Registers of the Treasury.

Until the series 1923 currency, the two signatures on almost all currency (except Fractional Currency and Demand Notes) were of the Treasurer and the Register.

During this period four of the 17 registers were African American.

The fifth African American whose signature appeared on currency was Azie Taylor Morton. Ms. Morton was the 36th Treasurer of the United States. She served from September 12, 1977, to January 20, 1981.

There are no images of African-Americans printed on U.S. currency.

Well thanks to the brain child of John W. Cornwell, there is now the Robotic Beer Launching Refrigerator.

About 3 months and several hundred dollars later John has created a fully automated, remote controlled, catapulting, man-pit approved, beer launching mini-fridge.

It holds 10 beers in its magazine with 14 more in reserve to store a full case. It is controlled by a keyless entry system.

Pressing unlock will start the catapult rotating and when it is aiming at your target, pressing unlock again will stop it. Then the lock button can be pressed to launch a beer in the selected direction.

I want one. This thing totally rocks. The only drawback is the cost.

According to John, he put at least a hundred hours into the build, as well as several hundred dollars worth of parts. He estimates that the price would be about $2,500.00 USD to build another one.

He should put the plans and parts list online. I’m sure he could sell them for a fair price. I’d buy them.

Well thanks to Ben Zweig, self proclaimed folding expert, we learn how to perform both the “simple fold” (the industry standard) and the “Japanese fold” (folding magic!).

Ben also shows us how to make an automatic folding machine from a few pieces of cardboard.

I’m really liking the automatic cardboard folding machine.

Since I have a bunch of laundry to do, I’m going to make one of these later today to help in the folding process.

Thanks Ben for this very informative video.

18Seconds.org is the location of the attractively-designed campaign, complete with a Yahoo! Maps mashup that lets you see how your city and state rank up in terms of CFL purchases.

The site is filled with energy conservation facts and tips with the site’s name stemming from the average amount of time it takes to swap out a light bulb with a CFL-variant.

Be sure to spread the word about the site and campaign. This is a really good cause and can help everyone around the world.

Find out more about this iPod artistry.

It’s a cute animated film about a hot-shot race-car named Lightning McQueen that gets waylaid in Radiator Springs, where he finds the true meaning of friendship and family.

It’s definitely a fun movie for kids but also for adults as well. Pixar is good like that adding in a little adult humor which can also be seen and heard in Pixar’s 1995 classic Toy Story. Yeah, Buzz Light Beer…

Anyway, I love animation and of course PhotoShop projects, so I went looking for some tutorials on how to take a picture of a real car and make it look like one of the cars from the Pixar movie Cars:

So if you’d like to learn how to do this, here is a link to the tutorial on making your car look like a Pixar Car. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: The car pictured above is not my own car but I’ll be doing a picture of that soon.

Welcome to the year 2007 by the way :)

Well according to Wikipedia:

A Googlewhack is a Google search query consisting of two words–both of which must be in Google’s dictionary, and without quotation marks–that returns a single result.

A successful Googlewhack returns ‘Results 1-1 of 1′. Googlewhacking is the pastime of seeking such a result. A person attempting to find a Googlewhack is known as a Googlewhacker.

Sounds like a fun online game don’t you think? Trying to find a pair of words which, when typed into Google, return exactly one web page.

I thought so too and have spent close to an hour trying to find a GoogleWhack without any luck. Boo.

Thanks to Gary Stock, the relentless searcher who coined the term ‘Googlewhack’ back in January 2001, we now have something fun for those times when we don’t want to work but still need to be on the internet looking productive. Yay!

Check out Gary’s site GoogleWhack.com for the rules on how to play and to submit your GoogleWhack.

Have fun and be sure to let me know what you come up with… and if I finally find one, I’ll let you know as well.