• Turn Your Android Phone into a Remote Control for Your PC – How-To Geek –
• Craftzine.com blog : New Parenting Site: GeekMom – And thus, GeekMom is born! Natania Barron, Kathy Ceceri, Corrina Lawson, and Jenny Williams are taking up the helm of this tech-savvy blog for moms of all sorts. They're tweaking the site over the month of September, so be sure to stop by, check it out, and give the team feedback! This healthy fruit and veg ice pop recipe by Laura Grace Weldon has already caught my eye, securing GeekMom's new place in my RSS reader.
• Robot Battles – Robotic Combat Competition – Since 1991, Robot Battles has been staging robotic combat competitions around the United States, with annual events in Atlanta, Georgia at Dragon*Con, in Orlando, Florida at MegaCon, in Chattanooga, Tennessee at Chattacon, and in High Point, North Carolina at StellarCon.
• GeekDad Guitar Lesson: The Firefly Theme | GeekDad | Wired.com – Welcome to GeekDad Guitar Lessons; a new bi-weekly video feature here on the GeekDad blog.  Each tutorial will present strategies on how to play your favorite Geeky/Techie/Sci-Fi influenced songs.
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• Giveaway: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson « Dreams and Speculation – Widely acclaimed for his work completing Robert Jordan’s The Wheel of Time series, #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson now begins a grand cycle of his own, every bit as ambitious and immersive. The Way of Kings, book one of The Stormlight Archive series, introduces the three protagonists who will be our windows on the strange and wondrous world of Roshar and the drama about to unfold there.
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  2-DVD Set in high-quality packaging
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I spent a bit of time with the free version of AmpliTube on my 1st gen iPhone and was utterly impressed. I only had two problems with getting it up and running. The iRig plugs into the iPhones headphone jack, and it was a but wide for the stupidly narrow iPhone jack. This was easily solved by cutting a small amount of the rubber off the plug. My first attempt to use the AmpliTube app failed somewhat. I could hear the guitar, through the headphones, but for some reason the effects were not doing anything. A quick reboot of the phone fixed that problem and it has worked trouble free since.

The iPhone version lets you connect up 3 simultaneous stompboxes (5 on the iPad), and amp, cabinet, and mic for a wide range of sounds. The full version in which you get 11 stompboxes, 5 amps, and two microphones for $20. I was pleased to see they had a chromatic tuner, metronome, and built-in mp3. I generally suck at tuning by ear, so the tuner helped a lot.

It took me a few seconds to get used to the interface, but once I understood it, making changes to the effects were quite simple. For each setup you have space for 3 pedals (5 for iPad) an amp/cabinet. You chain the effects together left to right, and can even repeat an effect if you wish.

Output from the iRig is suitable for head phones as well as line-in to a mixing board. Sound was very good and seemed to accurately reproduce the full rich sounds of the amp. You can purchase more stompboxes through the in-app store. Prices for the extra pedals were $2.99 but they occasionally have specials for $0.99. Amps are a bit pricier at $4.99. If you plan to buy more than a few it quickly becomes economical to purchase the full version for $19.99.

It appears to be a hit with quite a few rock starts as well. Richard Fortus of GNR and Claudio Sanchez of Coheed & Cambira both gave it rave reviews. Click through to see both videos.

Richard Fortus of GNR

Claudio Sanchez of Coheed & Cambria

More product info can be found at IK Multimedia’s web site:
AmpiTube iRig

• KNIT CUPCAKE BEANIE – ZOMG!  We can keep our heads warm and show our love of cupcakes all at once!?!  Where do we sign up?  Well, we now have Cupcake Beanies with playful sprinkles, icing and a cherry on top!  Keep your head warm,styling, and deliciously warm!
• Mecha Bug Papercraft (HEXBUG) | Paperkraft.net – Mecha Bug papercrafts created by KAMINO-ANA JAPAN CO., these creepy crawlies are based on the HEXABUG Nano Micro Robotic Creatures (autonomous robot creatures that behave like a real bug) from Innovation First International.
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• Deep Inside Xbox 360 Kinect: The Interface Of Microsoft’s Dreams | Gizmodo Australia – Kinect is more than an Xbox 360 peripheral; it’s the future of Microsoft, or at least a very possible one. It’s the beginning of Microsoft’s plans for natural user interfaces, the step beyond the thing you’re staring at right now.
• CriticalPast.com: Search over 57000 videos and 7 million photos – View more than 57,000 historic videos and 7 million photos for FREE in one of the world's largest collections of royalty-free archival stock footage. Offering immediate downloads in more than 10 formats starting at just $2.97 (Consumer); $40 (Pro).

• Stuff No One Told Me ( but I have to post it here or aliens will kill me ): 39 – Random thought: We put out children in closed rooms, staring at a wall and pretend that the're learning about life.
• Bad Romance by Brett Domino on Devour.com –
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• This startup wants you to play with its balls — Scobleizer – Now, what’s cool about a robotic ball beyond their opening pitch of “play with our balls?”
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• LaserPCBs – LaserPCBs are a new method of producing prototype and low-volume printed circuit boards in-house more easily and quickly than conventional methods.
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• On the design of the Bulbdial Clock – Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories – One of our favorite projects of the last year is our Bulbdial Clock, an LED shadow clock based on an idea from Ironic Sans. And, while we have written a fair bit about it, we haven't yet taken the time to describe some of the interesting technical details.
• More Transparent PCB Experiments! « mookstar – About time I documented my further adventures in to clear pcbs. The two new approaches were:

• New WordPress Plugin for Google Reader Shared Items – This plugin enables you to automatically post your Google Reader shared items to your blog on a schedule you set (daily, weekly, monthly).
• Amazon.com: Logitech Wireless Performance Mouse MX for PC and Mac: Electronics – Your hand is poised. You're set to create the big presentation. And with your Logitech Performance Mouse MX, nothing stands in your way. This is the mouse that puts high performance in the palm of your hand.
• Wiblocks — Physical Computing Tools – The PICO1TR is a physical computing board that is compatible with the Arduino software environment. The board size is 2.1" x 1". All I/O pins from the ATmega168 (or ATmega328) are brought out on 2 rows of 14 pins (300mil spacing).
• Scratch Forums / Remote Sensor Connections in v1.3 –
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• Peel | Beem –

• AVRopendous2DIP – avropendous – Open Hardware Development Board for the ATmega32U4 – Project Hosting on Google Code – Open Hardware Development Board for the ATmega32U4<br />
  AVRopendous2-DIP is an Open Hardware Development Board for Atmel's ATmega32U4 USB AVR Microcontroller.
• N6 Robot v1.1 – A robot board using the ATmega32U4 that claims compatibility with the Arduino IDE.
• Amazon.com: Boilerplate: History’s Mechanical Marvel (9780810989504): Paul Guinan, Anina Bennett: Books –
• Amazon.com: Act II: The Father Of Death: The Protomen: MP3 Downloads – A MegaMan inspired rock opera.
• lockwasher: robot sculptures – american artist lockwasher creates robot sculptures using found objects. while his initial <br />
  interest started with building ray guns, he soon began making these robotic characters <br />
  after accumulating an overwhelming amount of 'garbage' in his garage.