From Book News, Inc.
Fullam, who has two degrees from MIT and includes Thomas Edison and Ben Franklin among his hacking heroes, provides detailed instructions and materials lists for 15 projects. Each is rated in terms of cost to build, level of difficulty, and time needed (usually a weekend, although a few will take several weekends). The projects include a cubicle intrusion detection system, a car-mounted video camera for seeing around SUVs, a digital video recorder, an arcade game, and an Internet-enabled toaster that imprints the weather forecast on toast.Copyright © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Book Description
Put a hacker in a room with a Furby for a weekend and you'll hear a conversation that's fairly one-sided in its originality. Toss in an 802.11b network card, a soldering iron, wire cutters, a logic probe, and a few other carefully selected tools and materials and you'll have potential. Add a copy of Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks and by the end of the weekend that Furby will be saying things you never imagined. From How to Hack a Toaster to building Cubicle Intrusion Detection Systems, Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks offers an array of inventive customized electronics projects for the geek who can't help looking at a gadget and wondering how it might be "upgraded." Beginning with basic hacks, tools, and techniques for those who may not have a background in electronics, the book covers the tools of the hardware hacking trade and basic soldering techniques. Clear step-by-step instructions allow even those with no formal electronics- or hardware-engineering skills to hack real hardware in very clever ways. Hacks in the book are rated on a scale of difficulty, cost, and duration. Projects range from those that are truly useful to some things you may have never thought to do, but which are really cool, such as: Building your own arcade game Making radio-controlled cars play laser tag Building an automobile periscope Hacking an 802.11b antenna Building a building size display Perhaps you're an electronics hobbyist who likes to learn by doing. Maybe you hack software and want to see how the other half lives. Or, maybe you've never hacked at all, but you'd like to get started quickly with some projects that do something interesting from the start. If you're any of these, then Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks will indulge your inner mad scientist. Using the projects in this book as a jumping point for other new and clever hacks, it won't be long before you're looking around, asking, "I wonder what I can improve next?"

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Put a hacker in a room with a Furby for a weekend and you'll hear a conversation that's fairly one-sided in its originality. Toss in an 802.11b network card, a soldering iron, wire cutters, a logic probe, and a few other carefully selected tools and materials and you'll have potential. Add a copy of Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks and by the end of the weekend that Furby will be saying things you never imagined.

From building an Internet toaster to creating a cubicle intrusion detection system, Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks offers an array of inventive, customized electronics projects for the geek who can't help looking at a gadget and wondering how it might be "upgraded." Beginning with basic hacks, tools, and techniques for those who may not have a background in electronics, the book covers the tools of the hardware hacking trade and basic soldering techniques, then moves into more advanced hacking projects. Clear step-by-step instructions allow even those with no formal electronics- or hardware-engineering skills to hack real hardware in very clever ways.

Hacks in the book are rated on a scale of difficulty, cost, and duration. Projects range from those that are truly useful to some things you may have never thought to do, but which are really cool, such as: Building your own arcade game Making radio-controlled cars play laser tag Building an automobile periscope Hacking an 802.11b antenna Building a building size display Perhaps you're an electronics hobbyist who likes to learn by doing. Maybe you hack software and want to see how the other half lives. Or, maybe you've never hacked at all, but you'd like to get started quickly with some projects that do something interesting from the start. If you're any of these, then Hardware Hacking Projects for Geeks will indulge your inner mad scientist. Using the projects in this book as a jumping point for other new and clever hacks, it won't be long before you're looking around, asking, "I wonder what I can improve next?"

SYNOPSIS

Fullam, who has two degrees from MIT and includes Thomas Edison and Ben Franklin among his hacking heroes, provides detailed instructions and materials lists for 15 projects. Each is rated in terms of cost to build, level of difficulty, and time needed (usually a weekend, although a few will take several weekends). The projects include a cubicle intrusion detection system, a car-mounted video camera for seeing around SUVs, a digital video recorder, an arcade game, and an Internet-enabled toaster that imprints the weather forecast on toast. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

While most of us are content to use our technical toys as provided, hardware hackers constantly search for bigger, better, and more interesting ways to modify their equipment. Hardware Hacking Projects lives up to its title by outlining how to carry out various projects, from building an aquarium inside a Mac, to hacking a video periscope for your car, to building an Internet coffee maker. Cost, time, and difficulty are estimated for each, and project downloads are available online. Appendixes provide additional information on topics like creating schematics and different types of power sources. A clearly written, illustrated, and fun guide for larger libraries serving do-it-yourselfers, tinkerers, and power users. Hardware Hacking provides a similar step-by-step project approach, but projects differ in type and scale-find out here, for example, how to create a paddle for your Atari 5200, build a UFO mouse, and add a larger hard drive to your iPod. The last section includes an OS and coding overview, while beginning sections cover tools and electrical engineering basics. Appropriate for larger libraries. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.