Once upon a time, I put a tiny Windows machine inside an Apple III’s case. See this page for details.

At long last, I’ve hacked open a few mice and made a matching one-button mouse with the innards of a Logitech optical USB mouse. Sure, it can only left-click, but that’s part of the charm!

By the way, I switched the Logitech mouse to a blue diode in 2002 just to see if I could. It wasn’t part of the project this time. Yes, the accuracy suffers a little. This is part of why I chose to cannibalize it for the Compy III project.

Last weekend, I convinced my uncle to help me make a small set of Tetris-style shelves. The plans can be found at Instructables. Between my uncle and me we made the following modifications:

• Used biscuits on all the corners in addition to glue and nails. This makes the corners more stable and is particularly helpful on the unsupported concave corners of the L, S, and T pieces.
• Used 10″ clear (no knots) pine planks instead of the 8″ used by the author. I did this because I wanted to also store books and records that are deeper than the DVD/Game cases the author planned to store.

After sanding, we finished with Watco Danish Oil (Natural flavor). The can lied, though, and it was more than 8 hours until they were ready to use. It was closer to 36 before the surfaces stopped being oily and I was comfortable putting books on them.

I’m tremendously excited to have these finished, and I’m very grateful to my uncle for all his work on the project. Perhaps next year I’ll add a few more pieces to the collection!

One week from tomorrow, I’ll be awarded my MA from Digital Media Studies, and it’ll be time to strike out into the world to seek my fortune. This afternoon, I’m flying out for a job interview. They’re paying for everything, so I hope that’s a good sign. If this goes well, I’ll say a little more. If not, at least I get a free plane ride!

The Masters Project, incidentally, can be found here. It was one of my requirements for graduation. I plan to add Wii Opera compatibility this summer.

I was granted an old, software-less, questionably-functional Apple III by a roommate during my third year at Ohio State. Over the next two years I gutted it and built a PC with a Mini-ITX motherboard (VIA) inside it. Features include:

• Internal power supply using original power switch
• RCA output to original green & black monitor (or a TV)
• iMac USB keyboard integrated in place of original KB
• DVD-ROM drive in place of internal floppy drive
• 3D Graphics card in PCI slot
• Additional Hard Disk in old Floppy housing
• Runs Windows XP Pro

For information on the matching mouse, check out this post.

One of my duties at Kast-A-Way Swimwear was to design generic, fun t-shirts to be sold at meets. Sometimes I would be turned loose with the design, but usually I’d be asked to emulate an older design or work within a pre-defined theme. These are the results of some of those projects:

This shirt reads “If Swimming was easy… they’d call it Volleyball.” I fought them on the grammar point, but apparently this was meant as a reference to a line of t-shirts another company made for other sports, so the boss said the “was” had to stay. This is the sort of thing that those outside sports would dismiss, but swimmers and their parents will rush to buy. The boss really did know her market.

I was given more creative leeway on this shirt than on most. This was also the first one I did as a four-color process print. This meant I could use Photoshop and do some shading instead of my usual 2- and 3-color Illustrator work. I’m really pleased with how this one came out.

For this shirt, I was given the words “Merry Swimming” and asked to come up with a Christmas design. I designed a sprig of holly using small green swim fins in place of the leaves, and I’m told it sells moderately well at December swim meets.

This was one of the last photos taken by my dying Sony Cybershot. It was starting to bleed bright whites very badly. The shirt is another 4-color process featuring penguins on a chunk of ice, parading in their jammers and goggles toward a frozen starting block. The block is carved with a 4 because the fastest swimmer in a competitive heat is generally assigned to lane 4.