Some of my bad tech "hacks"
I usually think of things like "if its stupid but it works, it's not stupid", and I seem to have applied this to my technology as well.
These may not look great, but they work (for the most part).
Adding more soon, last updated Mar 10 2021
Memory card reader add-on for my secondary
Extended iPad charging cable
More USB ports for my main
Terrible coat hanger tv antenna
Reusing those gimmicky usb drives
Power button safety cap
Socket 7 CPU heatsink doesn't fit?
Recovering the data from my SD card < new!
Memory card reader add-on on my secondary pc
This is one board off of a memory card reader that I scavenged from a 2009 Acer desktop that was being recycled.
For various reasons, the side panel is never going back on this case, so I figured I might as well securely attatch it in the best place I can find.
Beleive it or not, tying it to the side with string and tape was very effective, and you can use it no problem without it moving around.
It has ports for USB, SD, and CF. What else do you need?
It works flawlessly on Windows XP, though Windows 98 has some issues with the SD card reader.
Extended iPad charging cable
I always thought that iPad charging cables were too short, because they are.
If you've ever taken the plug part off of an apple charging block, it looks like a normal 2 prong connector used by many chargers. I found one of those cables and replaced the plug part with it, and it works!
I have extended my iPad charger at least more than 2 times. (do I look like i'm going to measure it)
More USB ports for my main
This one is barley a hack, but it's still convenient. I have this tiny USB hub, and I taped it to the side of my monitor, and it's been there for 4 months without falling off! The black tape is to cover the useless blue LED that every device has to have these days.
I could hack it more and really cover, or completely remove the useless LED, but I can't find any way to open it. (like all modern tech)
Terrible coat hanger tv antenna
 
I'm sure any antenna people reading this page are having a nightmare right now.
Don't get me wrong, I love OTA television, and I would love to have a good roof-top antenna someday, but for the time being, this is all we have.
On top my telly is an old pair of rabbit ear antennas that I found in an attic box. On top of my desk thing/lego holder is my coattena!
It was made by ruining a coaxial cable and tying the cut off ends onto a cut-in-half coat hanger.
I hate to say it, but it picks up every single station that various antenna locator websites say that I sould be able to pick up for an indoor antenna.
I marked off all stations that I could pick up, and I even have some that aren't on this list.
This website is local to Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Reusing those gimmicky usb drives
I'm sure everyone here reading this has at least ONE of those usb drives of a fictional character, where you rip its legs off and plug it into your computer. I'm pretty sure nobody actually uses those kinds of usb drives. At least I don't, and wouldn't trust them with ANY important data.
When I was helping clean up around the house, I found some of those crappy usb drives. I took out the metal usb part of them, and threw the rubber in the garbage.
I taped the metal part to a lego brick, and wrote down the contents of the drive. I don't use these for important data, but I do use these for the occasional time when I need a bootable usb.
Power button safety cap
I have an all in one computer, and the power button is on the right side. You know what else is on the right side? My hand when I'm trying to open the CD drive. Almost every time I go near the power button I accidentally click it, and Windows 10 gives me no time to "CANCEL SHUTDOWN" and it just fricken turns off.
 
I decided to make a power button cap to prevent accidental shutdowns. Its designed so that you can only turn off the computer if you're really trying, and not accidentally bumping it.
I cut out this odd shape and folded it into a box. I used masking tape to attatch it to the monitor, and it works just fine.
CPU heatsink doesn't fit?
I'm building a computer for MS-DOS, Win311 and Win95. The board I got didn't have a heatsink, so I pulled one out of the Packard Bell Multimedia E140, which is basically beyond repair, so I don't feel bad about stealing it's CPU and heatsink.
So, I tried to put the heatsink on the new motherboard and... it didn't fit. The part that hangs off the heatsink (I don't have a good photo of it) runs into many components on the motherboard. I'm not going to spend money on a $12 heatsink to wait 900 years, and it still won't fit, so I decided that it wouldn't hurt to resize it.
I took a hacksaw to the part that hung off the edge, and it fits just fine now, except for the fan which only has 2 screws now.
As far as I know, on CPUs of this age (Socket 7 Pentium 150), doing things like this to the heatsink isn't going to affect a lot. Eventually I will go back and replace the heatsink, but it's working fine for now. This fan also sounds like death, so I might as well replace it.
Recovering the data from my SD card
This is... or was my SD card, and after 5 years of continuous use, it LITERALLY just fell apart in my hands when trying to insert it into my camera, and I still had things that I needed to get off of it.
If you can see the tape on the case of the card, I did try taping it together, but so much plastic broke off of the casing that it actually couldn't activate these 2 switches on the card reader. The one on the left checks if the card is inserted, and the one on the right checks the write protect switch, but since these couldn't be activated, I just bent (or destroyed) them to always be shorted no matter what.
 
Yes, I did cut the SD card casing in half to try to activate the switches with the peice I cut off, but it didn't work.
 This is the best picture I could get of this, but can you see that black rectangle in the card reader? Yeah, that's the flash chip that you can see in the first photo in this listing. I very carefully lined up the pins and pushed it in with a flat head screw driver, and..... YES, it actually worked.
I've already got the files off of it, but I think my 5 year old 32gb SD card can finally retire.
Oh but how do you get the chip out of your card reader now? Well, I have a very complex method known as whacking it on the desk until it comes out.
Those were some pretty dumb hacks, eh? I'm always messing around with my computer stuff, so check back in a few months and I might have added a few more things. Thanks for reading.
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dvd3000 is just another netizen yelling into the void
this is my website! and where I've been collecting my internet happenings off and on since 2014.
just come on in and make yourself at home, and don't mind the mess..
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