9.19 – We were messing with the idea of something called ‘755’ where viewers, users and members could participate in deconstructing and reconstructing the world around them. It’s part art, it’s part expression and it’s a complete disobedience to function. Take, for example, your digital camera and rewire it to be a cheap .mp3 player providing better speakers and more memory; take a big fat writing pen, melt the case to fit lights that activate with pressure and you get a night-writer.

It turns out that there is an anxious audience for things like this that is already hard at work. Join us as we take a quick look at some of what we consider to be the best examples of Functional Disobedience. Please take into consideration that you can get your butt locked up with serious jail time for some of the hacks you’ll find here that give you the power to break the law. As always, when ‘hacks’ are used to hurt or steal from others, the operator is not a hacker, but a cracker.

MakeZine is possibly one of the most innovative sites for people who like to tinker and have some knowledge of circuits and electricity. There’s plenty of those folks out there too; the site is visited by an average of 336 and-a-half MILLION people a DAY! This is the kind of hacking that benefits odds and ends in a home or small office. The archive linked to is enormous and only a small fraction of what MakeZine (now an actual ‘zine) offers visitors. The editors have done well to ‘keep it clean,’ and not publish too many hacks that tempt weaker wills to commit crimes.

GraffitiResearchLab has things that are more like the heart-warming hacks you’d see in movies when lovers do something crazy to express their passions. “Throwies” are little LED lights with watch batteries and magnets that can decorate city buses and signs and most anything metal. They’re pretty, they’re probably a lot of fun to chuck around and they’re not permanent. There’s also the idea of turning public spaces into better places to socialize and meet and exchange ideas which, we think, suits the reason that cities exist in the first place. GRL is friendly in that it promotes redefining and getting back in touch with the function of society in an urban zone.

Here at HackedGadgets, you can get yourself in to legal trouble. The defense of publishing secret codes to ATM’s and Coke machines is that it makes vendors and manufacturers more cautious and points out certain problems that can be exploited. Exploiting the problems listed by the site can get you arrested. Remember, “that with great power comes great responsibility.” If you desire to run a security business like the old movie, “Sneakers” (awesome movie in its day), this is the site you’d like to bookmark and do well to remember that the FBI can see that you’ve been there. Mind your morals.

PopGadget.net: I’m a little embarrassed as a man to say that I liked this hacking site. The tag line is, “personal tech + innovative lifestyle for women.” Ahem. There are some playful links and hacks like soft staircases for your beloved and ancient house pet. There’s also a ‘spirograph’ fashioned like the pendulum operated ones at the turn of the 19th to 20th century. Thankfully for my gender protection there’s a CAR section. But after seeing the Hello Kitty tail pipe hack I think I should just dash off to a strip club.

‘Hacking’ is for hardcore IT security folks which few people are though many have an interest in it. HackWire delivers news of misdemeanor hacks and events like PhreakNIC X to an audience of few authors (they’re hiring). BinaryRevolution is computer related with a sense of humor offering .mp3’s like HackRadio’s, “Episode 163: Phishing – are you retarded?” Those nutty 2600 magazine covers are a bit translated at BinaryRevolution.com as well, which we found most interesting. Hack twice (once to translate and again to hack) at ButcheredFromInside which is written by Italians who focus on Linux, kernels and Windows.

So while we figure out how to put all the controls of an iPod into the steering column of a Scion xB, you have a lot to learn. Feel your curiosity out and let loose. Have some fun and have it safely and respectfully. That’s all the mind opening we’re willing to subject you to for now. H4V3 4 N1(3 D8.

9.12 – It seems that more computers are just shutting off for no reason at all this season. A second problem is the Internet Explorer on Windows XP locking up/freezing and then generating an error report when closed. Of all the most horrible computer problems in the Universe, these are two of the top three. For fear of causing a total landslide of jinx problems, we won’t tell you what the third most horrible problem is!

Let’s get to work. Windows XP is inviting itself on to Microsoft servers despite a fast or slow Internet connection. We’ve already seen evidence that XP is updating regardless of you having given it permission or not; nagging is triple-fold if you are running XP Service Pack 1 (10OCT06 final support day). Although Microsoft can deny it at the consumer level, computers update with little ‘hotfixes’ here and there for almost every visit to the maker’s servers.


The most infamous Hotfix bungle for us is the .NET Framework Hotfix for version 1.1 Computers that downloaded this Framework 1.1 fix later refused to Shutdown from the Start Menu forcing users to press and hold the power button on their PC’s. Uninstalling the .NET Framework 1.1 Hotfix through the Add/Remove Programs corrected this goof. Now, .NET Framework is at version 2.0.

With programming as convoluted at Windows, it’s no wonder that one thing breaks when another is fixed. If you have ever touched a carburetor for an old car, you know the experience. If Windows XP is just stopping dead and shutting off the computer, you might be in luck. One Toshiba Satellite laptop we tooled with only required a serious dusting off. The heat stored by dust captured on the main board was tripping the safety features and shutting the laptop down to avoid overheating.

The same goes for PC Desktops in houses with open windows, cats, smokers, lots of carpet, etc. The heat from the mother board can bake fine dust particles to itself. This adds up until dust is so caked on that the heat cannot escape. A temperature reading by the mother board reveals overheating and it trips the power off command. Removing this caked on crud is as easy as a can of old VCR ‘duster.’ Be prepared for a storm of nasty junk though.


If dusting your system doesn’t stop the shut down problem, you may have serious operating system problems that are best solved by a complete reformat. A shutdown can occur when Windows encounters a string of commands that make no sense to its programming. Perhaps a poorly written code is trying to write to a part of the hard drive that is inaccessible; maybe a bit of the hard drive that stored crucial data is now corrupt and, with no second choice, Windows generates a fatal system error.

If your system error results in the Blue Screen of Death, have a second party (like a smart friend, or Dinarius) copy data from your hard drive and just reformat the whole thing. Bad sectors of the hard drive will be ignored and you can return the copy of your data and reinstall the software you prefer. Thankfully, newer computers have the operating system disks built right in. There may be some [F#] key to press on starting the machine that will perform various scans and fixes right then and there within three hours or so.

If Internet Explorer is freezing and generating errors on exiting, you are well-advised to make back-ups of your valuable data as soon as possible. Internet Explorer (until the next version) is tied in too tightly with the Operating System according to critics. One can’t perform at 100% without the other. This was a fun-filled scam echoing from the days of multiple anti-trust lawsuits claiming that Microsoft was pushing out competition by enforcing a ‘monoculture’ environment of software.

Since Windows 95, it’s been true that Microsoft stuff works best with Microsoft stuff; it also holds true that nothing breaks Microsoft stuff faster than Microsoft stuff.