Fixing Sleep Issues with Bazzite on a Gigabyte Motherboard

Bazzite had a nasty case of insomnia on my Gigabyte B550M DS3H

Last.fm Widget for Wordpress

Whenever I listen to music or podcasts on my phone, I use Pano Scrobbler to notify Last.fm what I'm listening to. Here's a quick share of the HTML I use(d) to display that info on my WordPress site. This widget is adapted from Prashant

I Made a Raised Dog Bowl Stand

I made another thing. It's a stand to elevate my almost-18-year-old-dog's food bowl. I feed her, honest.. she's just really, really old and a really skinny breed (Italian Greyhound) to start with. I won't go into many details because I'm

Crosscut Sleds Are Cool

When I made my side table, this little bugger was ridiculously helpful. I won't go into a ton of detail on the build, because there are plenty of great examples on YouTube. Here's one that I used. Of note, my Skil 3410-02 table saw has tabbed

Building a Counter-Height Side Table with Hidden Storage

Having recently finished my basement, I've been using my arcade cabinet quite a bit more. In doing so, I've been wanting a place to put drinks & snacks while I play, or to put a mouse & keyboard when I need to fiddle with the software

Handheld Gaming Gadgets

I enjoy putzing around with homebrew / homemade handheld gaming devices. I've built Raspberry Pi Zero systems inside a classic Gameboy shell. I've pieced together a Freeplay Zero in a Gameboy Advance shell. And I've purchased a premade Anbernic RG-350 straight from China. They all

My Quest to Find Actually-Sweatproof Bluetooth Earbuds

To stay somewhat-not-chubby, I run. When I run, I sweat. When I sweat, I sweat A LOT. And as a result of all this, I apparently straight-up murder Bluetooth earbuds. So, to keep track of my disgusting attempt to find Bluetooth earbuds that can survive my workouts, here's

Arcade Cabinet: Putting It Together

I'll preface this part with a warning. If I did it again, I don't think I'd do it this way. The first thing I did was stack the frame, control panel, and the sides together, then I glued & screwed them together. Then I

Arcade Cabinet: Control Panel

Here, I outline how I assembled the control panel for my arcade cabinet. A fair amount of effort went into the control panel. I tested several mock layouts on paper until I found one that I liked. Slagcoin.com is basically the online bible of arcade button layouts, and I

Arcade Cabinet: Marquee

The marquee serves no real functional purpose except to look really freakin' cool. Building this part wasn't exactly rocket surgery (although I had a couple struggles) Basically, I needed a ceiling and a floor for the marquee. These are just strips of MDF held in place by

Arcade Cabinet: Screen Panel

The screen area is made primarily of 1/2" MDF, with several trim pieces to keep a glass panel in place. I started by taping several pieces of paper to cover the entire screen-area on my monitor. This gave me a template to cut the hole for the monitor

Arcade Cabinet: Speaker Panel

I just realized that I've been seriously negligent on my arcade cabinet updates. I actually finished it a few months ago! Next up: The speaker panel. First off, I created a template on 1/4" MDF to help me rout out the speaker holes. The old butter

Arcade Cabinet

Arcade Cabinet: Administration Panel

My cabinet has an administration panel below the monitor, which offers basic navigation functions for starting / stopping games. It also has a 7" LCD that displays the controls for the current game. First, I cut a 1/2" MDF sheet to the appropriate dimensions. Then, I clamped a

Arcade Cabinet

Arcade Cabinet: Side Panel Cutouts

Here, I detail how I used a paper template to create the two identical side panels for my arcade cabinet. Weekend #1: Using my original SketchUp drawing, I saved a 2D PNG version looking directly at the side panel. I scaled this up in GIMP to the actual dimensions at

Arcade Cabinet

Arcade Cabinet: Frame Construction

Some would argue that an arcade cabinet doesn't need a frame, or that it makes it too heavy. I disagree. The frame will give additional weight on the bottom, to prevent the machine from being too top-heavy. Also, it'll provide a skeleton that should make it

Arcade Cabinet

Making a Sawboard for a Circular Saw

I don't own a table saw, and I'll need to make a lot of long, straight cuts in MDF to build my arcade machine. Rather than drop a few hundred bucks on a table saw, I made a sawboard for less than $20. I started with

Arcade Cabinet

Fun With Google SketchUp

Here's what my arcade cab will eventually look like, once I get a chance to start working on it. I like it.

Arcade Cabinet

Arcade Cabinet Update: 2/2015

Not much progress yet. I did manage to use PhotoShop to make the sideart for my cab.  I had some empty space to spare, so I made a brushed metal-like surface for where the keyboard & mouse will sit when that panel is installed.

Arcade Cabinet

Arcade Cabinet Update: 1/2015

The winter weather has not been cooperating with my plans to go outside and cut wood for the arcade cabinet.  So, I decided to start designing some of the graphics that I'll use for the marquee, admin panel, and control panel. I think I've settled on

Arcade Cabinet

Arcade Cabinet Update: 12/2014

I've finally bought some of my building materials to get started on construction. I've also completely redone the original Sketchup plans, taking into more careful consideration how I'm actually going to assemble the cabinet (placement of furring strips, making sure all of the electronics

Gaming

Xbox 360 Wireless Headset with Bluetooth on a PC

Is it possible? Well, it turns out that it is. I use Steam Big Picture to play games on a 64-bit Windows 7 home theater PC hooked up to my living room television. I recently decided that I wanted a headset for group chat in games like Borderlands. I already

Arcade Cabinet

Arcade Cabinet Update: 10/2014

I'm slowly making some progress on my arcade cabinet... In the last couple weeks, I downloaded Google SketchUp, watched the first few demo videos, and jumped in on the design. I think I have a pretty good idea of how my cab will look now. Still no idea

DIY

Smellyhouse

For several years, we've had an issue where every time the temperature would get down in the single digits (Fahrenheit), our house would take on a rotten egg / sewer smell. The smell didn't seem to be coming from a specific room or drain -- it was