We recently picked up one of those Aquasaurs kits for the kids – which lets you hatch and care for some neat little aquatic fish (or shrimp) that date back to pre-historic times. After reading the instructions we got everything set-up and all was good, until we read the part about the temp of the water needing to remain between 72 – 80F. Problem is, we tend to keep our house around 70ish, and during the day, we have our automatic thermostat drop the temp to more frigid temps (to conserve you know!). 
We quickly realized that these things would likely not get past the larvae stage at those temps. For the first two days, we had the tank propped up on the stove under the halogen lights to keep the water warm. However, over time, they would heat the water too much and need to be monitored / turned off for periods of time. We needed to come up with a longer term solution.
One option would be to simply go out and drop $$ (insert cost here – I don’t know) on a aquarium heater – but that would be too easy. I’d rather take my $300+ extra NXT & temperature sensor and make them work for a bit. Now you ask yourself, how the heck would the NXT heat the water. Well, that’s where dSwitch from Dexter Industries comes in. Interestingly enough, the dSwitch did not come to me with the intent of using it to heat the Aquasaurs tank. It was more like irony and good timing that I just received the dSwitch and we got the Aquasaurs going.
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At some point I would like to use solar energy to supplement our home power usage. 
Of course I was not going to jump into a full-out solar power array on my roof and out myself thousands of dollars without fully knowing the risks and potentials of photovoltaic solar power in my area. Instead, I decided on a proof-of-concept project – a small 10Watt 12V solar charger.
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So, since I find myself constantly taking things apart because they are broken, 
needing repair and cleaning, I figured why not post about them on my blog! Surely someone out there will take on the same task at some point in time. That said, here is a DIY cleaning for the Microsoft wireless notebook laser mouse 6000.
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What: Hack the innards of an Apple Mighty Mouse into an EEE 901.
Why: I found the 2-finger scrolling using the touchpad a PINTA. So, since it’s never my intent to leave well enough alone, and I was itching for something to take apart and hack, I decided to integrate a trackball into my EEE 901. The Apple Mighty Mouse was the best candidate becase the trackball acts like a wheel on the mouse – I can use it solely for scrolling rapidly through pages of content. Of course, there are out there, but its ball acts as a mouse controller (not for scrolling) and I didn’t want to pay the price. I figured the Mighty Mouse would be more of a challenge anyhow. Well, it was. Read on for details, a video, and instructions…
How Much: $22 USD (the mouse)
Update: Jan 2010 -
There have been a number of blogs and forums that have picked up this DIY, which is nice to see. There have also been a number of posts that share similar themes that either point to the Mighty Mouse being trash, or questions as to why would someone want to do this hack when the EEE already has two finger scrolling on the trackpad. To answer the quality question – the trackball has been installed since July 09. 6 months later (and counting), it’s still working as good as it did when I first installed it. No crud, skips, etc etc. To answer the ‘whatever floats your boat’ question, I guess its just that. I like to hack and DIY things – never satisfied with status-quo. As noted in this post, I dont like the 2 finger scrolling. While some consider these things an effort, others (like myself) consider them fun and challenging. I just find it funny when reading some of the responses out there as they either seem to be arrogant of the concept of DIY, or just like to get their post counts up 
. Thanks to those of you who can appreciate the hobby of DIY.
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I am an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego) and specialize in building and programming Lego robots (look at the rest of this site for more of my robots). 
I use (or play) with Lego Technic / Mindstorms for the most part. I got an idea to see what I could come up with for a cradle for my Axim. Below is my first run at a Lego Dell Axim X50 / X50v cradle. It also has an add-on joystick for making use of the D-pad easier when playing games.
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We quickly realized that these things would likely not get past the larvae stage at those temps. For the first two days, we had the tank propped up on the stove under the halogen lights to keep the water warm. However, over time, they would heat the water too much and need to be monitored / turned off for periods of time. We needed to come up with a longer term solution.