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Here’s another free booklet of 400 or so puzzles.  If you enjoy the puzzles, leave a comment and I may post some more

Download July 26th Free Sudoku Booklet

I’m a bit of a sucker for any kind of puzzle I can get my hands on.  Number puzzles, rubicks cubes, sudoku, logic problems.  You name it, I like playing with it.  I hadn’t solved any sudoku for a while prior to picking up a copy of Brain Age for my Nintendo DS.  After realizing there was a host of puzzles included with the game,  I quickly made my way through them. Repeatedly.  So I decided to figure out how to generate my own.

At first, I was just generating sets of puzzles as images, and solving them whenever there was a lull in my day.  A few friends wanted to try them out, and I quickly realized that sending sets of images was less than efficient.  PDF’s looked like the answer to my problem.  So, I generated this booklet of puzzles for an inspection.  I’ve actually set up a database to collect generated puzzles, and have filled it up with over 3 Million solvable puzzles, to date.  I guess I won’t run out any time soon.

In any case, if you want to, download the booklet and give them a try.  If you print them off, they’re very large type (1 puzzle per A4 page.)  All solutions are included at the back of the booklet.  If anyone likes them, leave a comment, and I can put up a few new booklets, as they only take 3 or 4 seconds to create.

Note: I’ve realized that the puzzles might seem easy.  If you scroll through the booklet,  the puzzles get harder as you go.  After page 200, you’ll find the hardest puzzles in the book.

That’s it, download the Free Sudoku Booklet and give it a try!

Cheers!

Today, I decided I wanted to get my PS3’s EyeToy working with my macbook.  I like the idea of timelapse video, but hate the idea of pointing my laptop at something long enough to get a good video.  I plugged the camera in but had no luck first off.  System Profiler saw the camera, but I couldn’t get it to show up anywhere useful (namely, iStopMotion.)  A few google searches led me to Macam . The build I downloaded was from March of 07, so I wasn’t sure it would work.  It didn’t.

Another google search took me to Cristiano Betta’s blog, where he apparently had no trouble getting a PS2 Eyetoy to work with leopard.  I knew I was missing something, so I went back to the macam download page,  and looked for source.  The latest CVS build worked just fine, however.

That did it. It works.  I wish I could be more descriptive, but that’s all the info I have!

Words cannot describe how happy this makes me.

Final Fantasy IV DS TGS 07 Trailer

After much frustration with Microsoft, and the realization that they weren’t going to help with my faulty console, I took matters into my own hands.  Here’s what went down.

I’d read online that some people had some success with their consoles after removing the “X” clamps that held their heatsink’s down.  On the advice of a friend, I tried that method.  I bought a 3.5g tube of Arctic Silver,  8 M5 x 10 screws,  16 #10 nylon washers, and 16 5mm metal washers.  I disassembled the xbox,  removed the “X” clamps, and removed my heat sinks. I then spent the next 30 minutes gently cleaning the chips with some rubbing alcohol and q-tips.  If you try hard enough, you can get them back to their mirror finish.  Then, for good measure, I cleaned the heatsinks off as best I could.

Next was the fun part. I applied some Arctic silver to the chips, and re-attached the heatsinks using a combination of washers and bolts.  I’ll document what I did later on (I video taped most of it, I might put a video together)  but you can find all of the information online pretty easily.

In the end, I was left with what seems to be a fully functional Xbox again. Now that my case has been opened, and I’ve got no warranty left, i’m thinking about modding the case some how.  More on that later.