How-To: Build a Two-Person Portable Headphone Amp

Here’s a nifty little mint tin project. It’s an Altoids amp that splits the signal to two outputs, with independent volume controls. The builder has even etched a PCB and will send you a copy if you email him your Earthly coordinattes (till he runs out of boards or racks up a huge postage bill). This seems like a fun medium-level project for the electronics hobbiest.

[Via Make]

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Attention LoTek Shoppers

The awesome uC Hobby (that’s “Microcontroller” Hobby for you Muggles in the audience) has a very useful article, especially for those new to electronics, on how to identify parts on PCBs that might be useful in future electronics projects.

t’s a good idea to keep all of your old electronics gear (modems, cellphones, answering machines, home appliances, etc) and cannibalize it for parts. Once you know what you’re looking for, you’ll be amazed at what you can find. My technojunk box has saved me from a trip to Radio Crap, or having to place a mail order for a few parts, on many occasions.

[Via Make]

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Another TiddlyWiki-based GTD

Street Tech (and Make) readers may already know that I’m a fan of GTDTiddlywiki, the in-browser personal organizer based on the Getting Things Done system and wiki technology. I’ve been using it, happily, for over a year and half. I’m tempted by some of the other GTD tools that are constantly pouring onto the interwebs, but I’m trying to stick with one system as long as possible and not make constant system upgrade and maintenance take away too from time from GTD. But if I *was* going to switch it up, I might go with MonkeyGTD, another Tiddlywiki-based client-side wiki that adds a dashboard, a global view of all of your next actions, projects, etc. and a layout that’s more open, more… er… iGoogle-like. In fact, I’m attracted enough to this, I probably will make the switch sooner or later.

Open Invites to Private Betas

It’s about time somebody did this. From Lifehacker:

Tired of being left out of private betas? Not to worry – try InviteShare, a service that encourages those with beta invites to share them with the Web community at large. Here’s how it works: people with beta invites share them with those who don’t have them – it’s super simple. Plus, while e-mail addresses are displayed publicly, they’re in image form, which means no spam bot attacks. This is a great way to get in on services before they’re open to everyone.

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Tube Amp Kit Building

At the most recent Dorkbot DC, while we were sitting around knitting…er… soldering, we were talking about the resurgence of interest in tube-based stereo amplifiers. Someone was asking about the availability of kits. DIYAudioProjects.com tracks just that — available kits, how-tos, mods to existing kits, etc. The site has links to other DIY and kit-builder audio links and suppliers.

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