You never know when the level of festiveness in your home might suddenly become critically, even dangerously low. Thankfully, one vigilant soul has put such concerns to rest by creating the Emergency Party Button, a DIY system that with one press transforms a seemingly ordinary apartment into something resembling Rick James’s rumpus room.

We're back from this weekend's Maker Faire, the third-annual event in San Mateo, CA . Our friends at Make continue to up the ante, bringing DIYers from far and wide to show off their projects at the ultimate geek county fair.

SparkFun Electronics is showcasing a recent class project from Alex Dow at the University of Colorado. Derived from a box full of SparkFun widgets, Mr. Dow was able to concoct a digitally controlled Etch-a-Sketch.

If your DIY tinkering tends to lean toward the programming side, there's a good chance you're familiar with AVR microcontrollers. There's also a good chance that you may have been confused when, right out of nowhere, Atmel (the company who designed the AVR family) changed the AVR in-system programming (ISP) interface from 10 pins to 6 pins. Even worse, Atmel’s terrific USB ISP programmer, the AVRISP mkII uses only the modern 6-pin interface. No legacy support for your older AVR-related hardware here, folks. So what’s a poor budding AVR programmer to do?

Imagine being able to track anyone, anywhere in the world almost instantly. Scary, eh? Well, not if you’re looking for a low-cost turnkey system for managing your small fleet of trucks, planes, trains, boats, kids—you get the picture. The $450 UberTracker from SparkFun Electronics is a complete cellular/GPS/e-mail hardware package that can continuously email its GPS coordinates from anywhere in the world via a cellular data connection, and it's a snap to set up.

As you (or your labcoat-wearing offspring) gear up for the science fair season, consider a visit to The Citizen Scientist—a rich project site published by the Society for Amateur Scientists.

As any informed PopSci reader will know, the iPhone is definitely a game-changing piece of hardware, but it's not without its problems. Chief among those nagging little imperfections, for me, was the recessed headphone hack that rejected any headphones but Apple's trademark gleaming white buds. Apple's 'phones aren't that bad, but my Shure in-ear pair is better for blocking out noise on the subway (and my Grado SR60s are better for listening at home). Thankfully, an easy solution to this problem is just a trip to the local Radioshack away.