USB

Eee PC School #4: Add a Super HID

Get a grip on your Eee PC with a USB joystick; plus add 16MB of storage, LEDs, and a temperature sensor, all with the same dongle

Have you ever found yourself wishing that your Eee PC had a better trackpad, or maybe even a joystick? Well, the Atmel AVR USB key might be your answer.

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Build It

Build A Gas Guzzler Meter

Take an accelerometer, add a microcontroller and display, and watch the dollars fly out of your carburetor

Pain at the pump continues to reach new levels of misery every day. While most of us can’t afford to trade our current gas guzzler for a more fuel economical model, it would be nice to adopt some new driving skills that will translate into greater fuel economy. But where do you start? How do you know if your current jitney is a fuel sipper or a gas guzzler?

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Eee PC School #2: Add a Second microSD Card Reader

Double your fun in the removable media storage department for bigger media collections and more boot flexibility

Including a built-in SD card reader in the ASUS Eee PC was just one of many smart decisions that went into the lovable little portable (are you listening Apple?). Without a large hard disk, memory cards are crucial for any Eee user wanting to store large media collections, keep tons of applications, or boot multiple operating systems, allowing for a virtually unlimited data storage system without any external add-ons.

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Serial Ports For All

Finally, a way to add legacy port support to your modern computer.

It never fails; you want to upgrade your aging PC, but you still need that archaic RS-232C serial port for controlling your Parallax Boe-Bot, using that serial mouse, getting online via your trusted Hayes ACCURA V.90 modem, and, even, programming your Pfaff 2140 sewing machine. Apple Boot Camp enlistees can run into a similar RS-232C port quagmire using an older Windows app on a MacBook Air.

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Ask a Geek: Merlin Mann

Q:What is tagging?

A: Tagging is the act of assigning your own keywords to things online-photos, blog entries, bookmarks-so that you can easily categorize, locate, and share them in the future. One of the best examples is del.icio.us, which lets you save Web bookmarks to a page on the site instead of to a file stashed away on your computer. This way, you can access them from anywhere and let other people see what sites you like.

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