inportb

I now have a shiny new cover for my Kindle 2 (okay, it’s matte, but you get the idea). With a gutted notebook, a bit of felt, and some time, I stitched together a lightweight carrying case. It’s not going to protect the Kindle against a fall, but it’d sure keep it clean. The only drawback is that it covers the speakers, but I’m happy as long as the 3.5mm audio jack is available. As a bonus, the transparent cover shows what’s on the screen even when closed.

The felt back keeps the device strapped to the cover.

Popularity: 6%

It’s today! According to SparkFun,

You can blame it on Chris Anderson’s book Free. After reading his book, I started kicking around the idea of what we can do that’s ‘free’. Sure, we have free bits (open-source hardware designs, available code, etc.), but we don’t have free physical widgets. Now combine that with our love of creating shear havoc (AVC, C&D letter, Portable Rotary Phone), and you get Free Day.Nobody gives away a free physical thing. There’s always a catch. So up front: you have to pay shipping. Other than that, it’s open season.

• $100 max per household
• You pay shipping
• Limit of $100,000 in giveaways for the day
• Starts 9AM MST January 7th, 2010
• Ends 11PM MST January 7th, 2010 (or when we hit $100k, whichever comes first)
• Rainchecks for popular items will be allowed

So… go grab some parts?

Popularity: 4%

Thanks to my awesome uncle, I now own a Kindle 2. I have updated the firmware and loaded up a couple of PDF’s, and am browsing Amazon’s library of free and public domain content. And ultimatebuster has mastered the art of converting any website’s content to PDF.

full of e-ink win

Popularity: 4%