The goal is to match the rhythm you see. Press E for your left drum marked in blue, I for your right drum marked in red and space for both drums marked in green. That’s all there is to rock out as a mini drum Pro.
A little known company name ACS makes a useful adapter for any one who wants the shock proof reliability of a solid state hard drive. The Compaq Flash to IDE Adapter is cheap quick way to get solid state storage. When I found the CF to IDE adapter I couldn’t help my self. The idea of using a CF chip as a hard drive was too temping.
The top two reasons are speed and energy efficiency. Compaq flash uses a lot less energy then regular hard drive. Using any where from 90% to 96% less power then the common ide hard drives. With no moving parts there is less seek time. Depending on the specs of the flash chip being used the speed can be higher then 45mb per second.
The draw back to using any flash device in place of a regular hard drive is a shortened life span. Each block of storage has a physical limit to how often data can be written and erased. For use in Mp3 players, digital cameras, and PDA this really isn’t a problem because the data written to those devices often stay there for a long time. If you are using a Compaq flash for your swap file the chip will fail.
Having used ACS’s CF-IDE adapter as a hard drive I have to say that my disappointment was with the CF chip I used. Any improvement to speed is very dependent on the CF chip. The ACS adapter did just what it was suppose to do. The adapter let me use a CF as a mounted IDE drive, not as a removable drive.
Weather I was using it to boot Linux or using it for virtual memory on a window computer any speed improvement was not noticeable. Testing didn’t seem logical since I could not find a 4 gig hard drive to compare to the 4 gig CF chip I was using. When I tried my test software failed the CF chip claiming read arm malfunction.
I keep the adapter handy; I will use it again when larger and faster chips come down in price. I figure I’m more likely to use it for projects where vibration and impact shock are going to ruin norm hard drives. Or a small physical size is really needed. Definitely not something that has a lot of uses, but ASC’s CF-IDE adapter is an option worth knowing about.
Galactic Colonization, send your ship out to a lifeless planet to terraform it into a new colony. But watch out of other looking to colonize the same galaxy. If they beat you to a planet you have to over power them to claim it. If you don’t that will over take your colonies. Just a hint, if you wait a moment to let your enemy soften a planet before you claim it.
For a very short while there was a burst of battery hacks. People ripping apart batteries to get to the small AAA or coin cells inside, something that gets old after you seen five times. This is my nine volt hack and it’s something very different from the others.
It starts with a dead battery; it makes scene to do this if the battery no longer has enough juice to do anything. The brand of the battery doesn’t matter too much but I’ve found that the two popular name brands have there advantages, I explain more on that during the later steps. Once you have a 9 volt battery that is ready to retire your ready for the tools.
Like the other “Hacks” you are going to open the battery. A pair of diagonal cutters work great for opening the shell. There is a seam that runs along the side of the battery, if you roll each side of the seam back it unfolds. If done right the metal shell won’t tear or need to be cut. If you don’t have cutters a pair of needle nose pliers will work too. If it doesn’t open gracefully, then just get it open any way you can. Ether way watch out for sharp edges.
If you have seen the other battery hacks you know what you are going to find inside. A stack of AAA batteries run in series. Now this is where I go a different direction. If look at the top of the battery you will see the connectors. Some are just pinch in place by the shell and will slip out easily. More often the top is held in place with a little spot of solder. If you wiggle the plastic connector it will pop loose. Keep the plastic square with the battery terminals and properly dispose of the dead cells. Now that it is free on the cell pack ready for the real work.
The terminal plate from the top of the battery is a lot more ridge then the battery leads you find in toys, and other gadgets. After a lot of use and battery replacements the card board support inside the leads is no longer ridged enough to easily disconnect from a battery. You can buy replacement connections to replace a worn out 9 volt connection. But they have the card board center too and you would need to replace those after a while. Why should the part we throw out be made with stronger parts then the devices we keep?
It is important to remember that the connections are opposite of what they were. The larger spring lock is the negative side on the battery. That means you will need to solder the positive wire to that side of the terminal plate. That leaves the negative wire of the smaller connection. If your not sure witch way you need to solder, look at an intact battery to be sure that the positive wire of the device will connect to the positive side of the battery. Getting it backwards could mean a smoky death to the device being repaired. Once you have finished solder the terminal plate into place it doesn’t hurt to use a multi meter to make sure there is continuity.
Another use for these ridge durable 9volt connections is for project boards. When you need to be able to easily connect and disconnect the battery repeatedly. It’s cheaper then buying the 9volt leads at the hobby shop, and they have a longer life span too.
Scavenging part for electronic projects, can keep the cost down. Not to mention making the most out of hardware, and toys that have broken. Here are four links about salvaging electronic parts.
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