I use a large forestry clearing saw (giant weed wacker) at work that requires a 19mm spanner for simple things like greasing the gears and changing the cord (or get it back out from the holder when it snaps out). The one we have available is too big to carry around and stays with the tractor, and is too worn out to work at all on the grease bolt. I bought a cheap 19mm combination spanner and grinded it to fit the bit holder of my Leatherman, which means I can have it with me at all times. It works great and frankly I think Leatherman is missing out on a business opportunity since they don’t offer anything but a bit holder and bits. I’ve seen people online makes saws, cutlery and all sorts of things for the bit holder on their Leathermans, so why not offer some official accessories?

UPDATE July 28th:

Been doing some modifications to this lately to make it sit better in the bit holder on the Skeletool. The final design that seems to work best includes a hole int he spanner and a bolt with a magnet that locks the spanner to the carabiner part of the Skeletool. This holds it firmly in place and is easy to take off/put on. The magnetic bolt has a ring on itso it can sit on the carabiner on my keychainas well as on the carabiner on the Skeletool to keep it from falling off.

The S5 doesn’t have a physical keyboard, which hampers productivity on a device that after all runs full Windows 7. This keyboard dock both holds the S5 in a suiting position and provides a keyboard.

The first thing you need is a keyboard. I use the Logitech Ultra Flat keyboard because it’s small, cheap, and the plastic on the back is strong enough to hold the tripod nut you need to put in there. Next you need a scissor type camera tripod like this one. Next you need a 1/4″ nut to fit the tripod- I pulled a round edged one from an old slave flash trigger which is awesome because it fits right inside a drilled hole. Last you need some sort of rubber anti-slip mat like the ones you get for cell phones in the car.

Drill a hole in the bottom of the keyboard and fit the tripod nut in. Cut off two of the legs of the scissor tripod leaving the middle one, and screw it to the nut on the keyboard so that it flips around and acts as a back support for the device (see the pictures). Last you cut the anti slip mat into a couple of pieces that you glue to the keyboard where you want the bottom of the device to rest. The scissor tripod will act like the back support for the device while the anti slip pieces will give it a solid grip on the keyboard resulting in a three-point support for the device to rest on.

I would also suggest cutting the USB cable and making it shorter, soldering it back together with a more fitting length to it. Check out my soldering tutorials for help with that.

When I saw an article on the Internet about someone who had used matte black car tape to cover their EEE. The tape is meant to cover cars as an alternative to painting them and you might have seen similar tape used for large ads on buses and so on. The tape is cheap as it cost me about $30 for a roll shipped to Norway, which in my book is not bad. You should be able to get it much much cheaper if you live in a country like the US and can track somewhere that carries it. Applying it takes some getting used to and air bubbles are much more of a problem with this than with vinyl skins and the likes, but once you get it on the end result is also much better looking. It’s also possible to stretch the tape, which means you can get it to fit around curved edges perfectly without getting any wrinkles. The guy who did this in the article I read said you need to disassemble the netbook to cover it completely, but that isn’t really true. I put sheets of paper over the screen and keyboard and then cut out the screen/keyboard with an exacto knife leaving only the casing with tape on it, easily removing the excess tape as it only stuck to the paper not the screen/keyboard itself (which may have destroyed the LCD or ripped off keys). The end result is awesome, and paired with a matte screen protector you’re left with a netbook that looks a hell of a lot more professional than the glossy, fingerprint magnet nightmares that are actually sold.

To make this thing I disassembleda cheap knife to get a solid belt clip and metal back plate. I then found one of those hex bit “bandoliers” and a piece of leather. I glued the leather piece to the metal plate attached to the belt clip, and then glued the bit holder on top of that, followed by the other end of the leather piece wrapped around the bit extender tightly and then glued in place. The end result is a nice solid belt clip that holds both the bit extender and 10 hex bits.

Skin is from eBay, the cutouts around the screen didn’t fit 100% but otherwise nice (hadn’t expected 100% perfect from eBay). Matte screen is done with the help of a ViewGuard screen protector.

Tiny DIY USB connector I made for my Sansa Clip+. Instructions here.

DIY angle adapter I made to get rid of those giant USB dongles sticking out.

Moded FiiO E3 USB powered clip-on headphone amp, paired with my Beyerdynamic DT770.

VX Nano mouse and Wacom Bamboo tablet with custom DIY low-profile mini-USB cable.

Sometimes I’m amazed at some of the products that doesn’t exist. Yesterday I was looking around for a anti-dust kit (port covers) for my EEE 1101HA’s unused ports, but only found some for wholesale in China. Other items I’ve needed for my EEE is a better angle adapter, and while you can buy something along the lines of that one it’s nowhere near as small or usable. I also needed a smaller mini-USB cable as I use a Wacom tablet at school to take notes and when it’s placed beside my EEE the USB plug sticks out from the EEE and covers part of the tablet. Apparently, no-one has though of making a low profile USB plug before, at least not as I could find.

Pics really tell the whole story… the angle adapter is covered with Fiio model clay which is a material that you cook in an oven for 30 minutes and it turns hard as plastic. I’ve used it for other projects before and it’s really nice. If anyone require an angle adapter or a small cable, email me using the info here.

(One of the angle adapter pics shows how far the USB drive sticks out without the adapter, faded)

The concept here is two-fold: Add an analog volume knob, and make it USB powered. The volume control part is easy, just wire a stereo potentiometer to the line-in and you have an instant volume control that is much more accessible than the built in digital volume control of any computer. For the second part, you need more parts. USB plug, two 10uF capacitors and a 1.5V voltage regulator. Caps go on both in and out pins (between in and ground, between out and ground) and the USB plug carries the 5V to the input of the voltage regulator where it will magically turn into the 1.5V that the E3 natively runs off of (1x AAA battery).

Lastly I glued both the 3.5mm input jack and the USB plug to the Fiio in a way that makes it plug straight into the side of my EEE 1101HA, no lose cables, and act as a natural extension to my netbook. That way it’s not flimsy or clumsy in any way and I plug my headphones into the E3. The volume control works great and the bass boost is awesome. Best of all, it’s a very cheap project.

Using the 1101HA at school and out and about I often find myself with annoying reflections blocking my view, making it hard to impossible to see anything. I started searching around and found a company called ViewGuard that sold matte screen protectors. The price was decent albeit the shipping rate was a bit much, but I ended up buying two 11.6″ protectors which totalled $60 with shipping. Today they arrived and I managed to put one on at the first try with no air bubbles or trapped dust.

The result is pretty good, and while it does degrade the screen quality slightly it helps immensely with the reflection problem. It spreads out the light making clear reflections a thing of the past, and you’re left with some light blobs instead. Since the eye won’t try to focus on these, it’s very effective at making the screen easier to see.

Below are some pictures showing the result- note that the camera doesn’t provide an accurate representation of the result since it focuses on the screen not the picture behind it. Either way, it works and it works well.

Before:

After:

Outside, screen pointing towards the (cloudy) sky:

Reflection in the frame vs reflection in the screen:

When I first got the new netbook and bag a few weeks ago I immediately put on a new strap and my water bottle hook. Today I bought the school’s new “eco friendly” thermos cup which gives you cheaper hot beverages (hot chokolate in my case) which I need now that the temperature is dropping. As with the water bottle however I’m not a big fan of lugging stuff around in my hands, so I immediately started drawing some skecthes and ideas for how to make a holder for it on my bag.

A few skecthes and some hours later the holder is done, mounted and working perfectly. I also made an addition to the water bottle “device” to make it more stable (not swivel around like crazy). I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.