YourITronics

CMoy is a very simple and portable headphone amplifier. The amplifier was originally posted by Chu Moy on headwize.com. Headphones amplifiers are usually used when the output of a device is to low for the kind of headphones you’re using, or to get better sound quality by keeping the device on a medium volume setting and amplifying the sound with the headphone amplifier. I’ve not build this amplifier so far, so i cant tell you from my personal experience if it sounds good or bad, but from what i read on the internet, users that build it are very happy with the results. The schematic is very simple, parts are easy accessible so it should go really smooth with the building process if you decide to do it.

CMoy Headphone Amplifier: [Link]

Make a sound card is no more a complex issue. If you use great IC PCM2702 from BURR BROWN / Texas Instruments you can create a fully functional USB sound card. This sound card can be powered from USB port and has one stereo output. You don’t need to install any driver for Windows XP and Vista, because they are already inside. This is really plug and play.

DIY Sound Card with PCM2702: [Link]

 
Remember the Gmail Light Cube notifier ? This is another project that displays the status of your email inbox, but this time trough an RGB LED. So you can setup 3 types of email notifications like work email in red, newsletters in green, other in blue. The color and characters are controlled trough RS232 by a Python script that runs as a scheduled task every 10 minutes, and the circuit is powered by a Picaxe 08M. The author didn’t provide a link for source code download, but he writes that he will send the code to anyone who asks.

RGB LED Email Notifier: [Link]

The Open GPS Tracker is a small device which plugs into a $20 prepaid mobile phone to make a GPS tracker. The Tracker responds to text message commands, detects motion, and sends you its exact position, ready for Google Maps or your mapping software. The Tracker firmware is open source and user-customizable. This looks like a great project if you’re into GPS projects.

Open GPS Tracker System: [Link]

I finally got a new monitor on my desk, an Acer P223w. It looks great and I’m very happy with the performance, i mean its not top of its class but its worth the money i payed for it. I choose Acer after doing allot of research, of-course there were allot of other models and makes on the 22inch segment like Samsung that are slightly better but those were over my budget. Another reason i chose Acer for, its the Crystal Brite technology (CrystalBrite is Acer’s marketing name for high-gloss laptop screens, representing the latest in anti-reflective LCD screen technology). I own an Acer Aspire notebook, which has CrystalBrite display and it looks great, so i wanted the same technology on my desktop monitor.

Before i got the Acer P223w i was using a 17 inch CRT monitor(yeah i know, i should of got a new monitor some time ago) so you can imagine that i was truly impressed with the size and properties of the Acer. Here is a list with the main features of the Acer:

• Screen Size : 22″
• Resolution : 1680 x 1050
• Contrast Ratio : 2500
• Response Time : 5ms
• Connection : DVI, D-Sub

Acer actually build two versions of this monitor one with D-Sub(VGA) and one with DVI connector. I have the one with VGA, because at the store where i ordered the monitor they only had this version. But i don’t think the DVI version would of been any better, because most of the differences between DVI and VGA monitors are just numbers, nothing to be seen with your eyes.

The first thing i did when i powered it on, was to check for any dead pixels (i recommend you do this every time you buy an LCD display). The best way to check for dead pixels is to run a program called LCDtest (i attached a zip archive, so just click on the link to download it). What the program does is to display 5 colors on your screen(white, red, green, blue and black), this make spotting dead pixels really easy. So i ran the test and everything was ok, actually during the test i could see how nicely the monitor displays the black colour(very black).

My video card already detected it as a wide screen monitor and set the 1680 x 1050 resolution. Next thing to do was to find a nice High Definition wallpaper, i chose this nice mountain scenery. I’ve not seen bleeding issues like others report on various forums and sites, in fact i have no issue at all with the monitor. Even if it doesn’t have the 2 ms required response time for gaming, the monitor still displayed the games i tested without issues(Comand&Conquer latest versions, NFS Carbon).

Another great thing about the Acer P223W is the OSD menu, which is great. Other monitors have really complicated OSD menus, but not Acer. You can access 2 main OSD menus, the full menu by hitting the Menu button, or the E button (e comes from Empowering, another technology from Acer). So far i only use the empowering button, because i only change the display mode from Text to Movie sometimes, everything else the monitor adjusts automatically.

As a final word, the Acer P223W is a great monitor and definetely a must see on your shopping list. If you have a limited budget and you want to get great design and performance, this is a perfect choice.