Aaron Malin

Archive for the ‘Tools’ Category

First thing is you’re going to need to run to your local hardware store and pick up some cheap items to get you started.

You’re going to need a big enough sheet of plexi glass to fit the door panel. (none of these items are very expensive, you’re looking at $30 total) You’ll also need some thumb screws, washers and nuts. many hardware stores have cool thumbscrew caps like chrome skulls and other things to make your work look nicer. A can or two of spray paint and one can of clear coat.

Here comes the difficult part, but not hard if you can remember shop class in 7th grade.
Cut out the door panel on your PC but make sure it isn’t too large so the plexi glass can lay in behind it and still have room to drill the holes.
Cut the plexi glass to the recommended size, but make sure when cutting that you apply carpenters or painters tape to both sides of the plexi glass over and under the lines you’re going to cut to prevent it from cracking.
Drill your holes through the door panel first (I used 8 holes total) and then lay in your glass. Mark the holes with a marker and remove the plexi sheet and drill the holes. (again using the tape on both sides)

Now you’re ready for paint, scuff up the door panel with some fine grit sand paper or a kitchen sponge. Hang the door panel from a piece of wire in your shop or from a tree outside. Coat the door panel from a distance to prevent runs and let dry for 10-15 mins before reapplying paint.
Repaint the door panel at least 3-4 times if you want this to look professional. Apply a thin clear coat finish and let it dry over night. (Don’t leave it outside overnight =p)

In the morning peel off the plastic on the plexi glass and ley it in, place in the thumbscrews and fasten with rubber washers and nuts. (DO NOT over tighten)

YOU’RE DONE, and if it looks anything like mine, it looks pretty cool!
Now you can light up your desktop in style. Feel free to e-mail me with any questions or zip me some pics of your own creations.

On my Hompage you’ve already discovered how to enable GMail as an online storage department.

Now we’ll dive into: Importing old mail into your new Gmail account, impersonating an e-mail, and turing Gmail into an MP3 player.

MP3 Player:
Turning Gmail into an MP3 player is pretty simple. First you need to have downloaded the Gmail Drive Shell which I mentioned on the Homepage. Once you’ve set that up, all you have to do is set up a label and filter in your Gmail account. Name the label something simple like MP3 or Music. Then set up the filter by clicking create a filter and where it says “Has the words” enter mp3 and check the box “Has attachment”. Now click next and check the box “Apply the label” and choose whatever label you created. Now you can zip MP3 files to your Gmail account and play them through Gmail by just clicking on your label.

Import old mail:
For those of you whom just created their Gmail account (Amie Malin) you can easily transfer your old account contacts and messages into your Gmail account. To import your contacts just click “Import” on the upper-right corner of the contacts page and select a CSV file from your old mail. Now to import your old messages you will need to download one of two apps depending on your old account. If your old account is an Outlook account download Outport from outport.sourceforge.net, or for others download Mark Lyon’s Gmail Loader from www.marklyon.org/gmail/. Once you’ve downloaded these utilities you can simply follow the GUI and it will take you step by step through the process.

Email Impersonator:
Gmail allows its users to send emails with impersonation which makes them look like they came from another address. Pretty useful if you don’t want spam email being sent to your Gmail account. Start by going to settings and click Accounts and go to “Add another email address”, and then enter which ever e-mail address you’d like to use instead. Gmail will send an email to this account in order to verify it’s authenticity. After that you can choose to make that address your default address and whenever you send emails from Gmail it will look like it came from another source.

* Java
* Eclipse 3.3.0 IDE