Category: Online Business

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Fun Project – Nintendo Wii Remote Flashlight

If you read this blog on a regular basis you would already know I enjoy re-purposing broken electronics into new useful gear. I had an old Wii remote sitting around that was broken and it was calling out flashlight to me. I figured I would give it a shot.

My self imposed requirements called for using one of the original buttons to turn on the light, and I also had to reuse the original battery holder.

Tools you can use:

Triwing Screwdriver – Nintendo likes to use “special” screws across all their equipment. The Wii is no different and requires a Triwing screwdriver to open the Wii remote. This kit is $11.99 and covers them all!

 

About 12″ of wire the lighter the gauge the better. This 22 gauge wire collection would be a great addition to your tool box. $20.00 at Amazon Continue reading “Fun Project – Nintendo Wii Remote Flashlight”

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Weekend Project – Broken Stick Hockey Trainer

Trainer

My children love Ice Hockey! Basically in my house its all hockey all the time. When they are not on the ice for games or practice,  street hockey in front of my house will do. On many occasions we have had sticks break under the stress of vigorous play and we tend to keep broken sticks around and re purpose them for other fun projects.

Today I will show you how to make this cool stick handling trainer out of a few scrap parts you may have laying around.

Materials:

StickBroken WOODEN street hockey stick

 

2x Hockey pucks Continue reading “Weekend Project – Broken Stick Hockey Trainer”

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DIY Summer Project – Make your own Sun & Moon Jar Night Light

The Sun & Moon Jar night light helps set the mood in any room. Place the jar in your family room, bed room, back yard patio or even take it on your next camping trip. No matter where you place the jar, the warm glow will surely add ambiance to your surroundings.

Today I’m going to explain the steps to make your own Sun & Moon Jar.

Visit www.GeekGearStore.com for a completed version of this project!

Supplies you will need:

Tools You Can Use:

Let’s Get Building!

If you are not familiar with how LED’s work give this post a quick read.

Light Up Your Projects With (LED) Light Emitting Diodes

SUN & MOON JAR STEP 1 – Prepare The LED module

Take each LED and bend the Cathode (negative) post as shown.

I use a small needle nose to make the “L” shape.

 

Continue reading “DIY Summer Project – Make your own Sun & Moon Jar Night Light”

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UNIQUE GIFT FOR DAD – 16GB Mercedes Benz USB Flash Drive in the style of a Car Key!

Stumped on what to buy for the Dad that has everything this Father’s Day? This may be the answer. A very cool 16GB USB flash drive in the shape of a Mercedes Benz key fob.

Only $13.99 on Etsy

The USB drive can be customized and laser engraved with the word Dad or his  initials on the back!

Just plug into your computer and save your files in style!

Put some music on this drive and plug into Dads car USB port for some cool tunes.

 

Plus when you connect it to your computer, The Mercedes logo shows up and the drive name can be customized with your Dad’s name or initials!

 

 

 

 

 

This will  make an awesome  gift for Dad! Pick one up on Etsy for only $13.99

Exclusive for WebCommand.net readers:
Save 10% with discount code WEBCOMMAND

Thank you for reading my blog
-Joe

 

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Put old tech to new use – Floppy Disk Pencil Holder

As a society our technology has exponentially improved over the last 20 years. Many of us carry around the the collective knowledge of the human race in our pockets. All these advances have a side effect, tons and tons of E-waste, our obsolete gadgets just become trash over time. In this post we will put one iconic piece of old tech to new use.

The 3 ½ Floppy Disk

The 3 ½” floppy was introduced in 1983 and was manufactured for almost 30 years. There are a lot of disks floating around out there and maybe you have some hiding in your basement. Don’t throw them away just yet, lets re-purpose  into this great Floppy Disk Pencil Holder.

Supplies You Will Need:

 

QTY 5 x 3 ½” Floppy Disks (can be found in your basement or on Ebay / Etsy)

Continue reading “Put old tech to new use – Floppy Disk Pencil Holder”

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Add sound to your project – Nintendo NES cartridge clock plays Mario theme song.

This is a fun project even without the sound. I enjoy taking vintage NES cartridges and making them into clocks. No worries the cartridges are broken beyond repair before I gut and start drilling holes in them. The NES cartridge clock is a great way to recycle.

I will cover building the clock in another post later on. This article is going to focus on adding the audio module and making them sing.

Supplies You Will  Need

  • 30 Second audio recording module – $12.00
  • An old Nintendo NES cartridge – Ebay or Free(if you have one)
  • Soldering iron – $16.00
  • Small piece of wire – You got this
  • Hot glue / or any glue  $11.00
  • NES Security bit – $5.00

Let’s get building

Continue reading “Add sound to your project – Nintendo NES cartridge clock plays Mario theme song.”

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Forced Etsy Payments – Is this a good thing or bad?

As many of you know I have been an avid Etsy seller for over 10 years. Making cool up-cycled crafts out of obsolete and retired bits of technology. I think Etsy was only a year old when I started selling. The first five years were great as sales increased year over year and my hobby was making me some extra cash. However as the website became saturated with more vendors, sales have steadily declined. I’m fine with the reduced sales, as it is just a hobby to begin with.

I think its safe to say that the handmade craft market has gone the way of Ebay. The site has matured and there are so many people and companies selling (54 Million Members) that it is incredibly difficult to make a sale, yet a profitable one. It is possible that growth has slowed at Etsy? Since they are now a public company (IPO 4/16/2015) they have pressure to turn a profit for their share holders.

Need a revenue boost = Forced Etsy Payments

It would appear that Etsy would like to have a larger piece of the payment processing pie. Recently they announced to all sellers that they MUST begin to accept “Etsy Payments” or have their selling privileges suspended on May 18th.  I’m not sure how many sellers already use Etsy Payments, but at between 3-4% fee on each transaction it will be a considerable uptick in revenue for the company. Continue reading “Forced Etsy Payments – Is this a good thing or bad?”

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