Make

This is a strange publication - half way between a book and a magazine. It's for activists, hackers, and technological DIY fans.

In appearance it's a little bit like WIRED in its glorious heyday - sometimes difficult to see the difference between the articles and the advertising. The theme of this issue is 'home entertainment'. It's mainly techno-DIY, but it also includes tips on time management for making your day more productive. There are features on pilotless gliders, solar-powered cars, a robot powered by a cockroach, and training robotic dogs to sniff out gas leaks.


It's the sort of publication which will definitely appeal to fans of gadgets and experiments. At the centre of the book there are four practical projects with photos showing you how to do them, step by step. They include cramming a full featured PC system into a retro Atari 2600 video game case; podcasting by producing your own audio files; making a robot out of a computer mouse; restoring old guitar amplifiers bought on the cheap from eBay; how to hack your DVD player so it will play DVDs from any world region; and how to upgrade your iPod to Linux and make it a powerful recorder and games player using free Podzilla software.

There's also a section called toolbox which carries reviews of the simplest and most unlikely gadgets, tools, and products: a 'cold heat' soldering iron; high performance wood-hardener; everlasting sandpaper; retro gramophones; and a particularly lethal-looking 'survival' knife.

It's a publication for people who like making and fixing things, people who read Practical Mechanics and Popular Electronics. I also suspect that the influence of blogging is creeping into the print world. Almost every reference to a source is followed by its web address.