Good thing Halloween is months away. You'll need that time to hone your sewing skills in the noble quest to create a Daft Punk suit of your very own. Instructables has everything you need (except the electroluminescent wire, soldering iron, heat gun, and pleather tracksuit) to build an EL suit worthy of electronic celebration. Best of all, your tutor for the course is none other than the suits' creator for the duo's 2007 tour. Now get moving humans, it's time to let the robots rock the party.

[Via Hack n Mod]

We briefly mentioned using junk data to overwrite the iPhone's flash as a last-ditch method of securely clearing off your user data yesterday, and although we were half-joking, that's more or less your only option until Apple provides a proper secure erase feature. Security researcher Rich Mogull has helpfully laid out the steps for you, and they're basically what you'd expect: restore your iPhone, don't sync any personal data to it, and then manually transfer three different playlists large enough to fill the flash. Essentially you're doing a manual three-pass overwrite, which is pretty much exactly the long and tedious process it sounds like -- but we wouldn't dream of selling or giving away our iPhones (or any other phone with personal data on it) without struggling through it.

[Via Hack A Day]

Are you a CEO hoping to "step it up," "knock it out of the park," and generally "take it to the bridge" -- old-school style -- but you can't seem to work the magic? Well, BusinessWeek has got just the thing for you: a ten-point plan on how to deliver a presentation like our main man, Steve Jobs. Breaking it down from "set a theme" all the way to "rehearse, rehearse, rehearse," the cats at BW lay out everything you need to know to shatter sales records, hike your stock, and innovate the hell out of a keynote. Of course, they don't advise you on choice of outfits (we suggest jeans, sneakers, and a turtleneck), products to launch (how does iPhone 2 sound to you?), or how to properly execute a "Boom!" ("Boom!") -- but we're pretty sure you can suss those details out on your own. If you want the full breakdown of tips and tricks, including how to properly appear excited about your own products, hit the read link ASAP. To help you along, we've included a clip of Jobs doing his thing after the break. Boom!

Sure, it won't get you live 3D representations of living cells, but this little USB microscope mashup over at Instructables should nab you some sweet pics of up-close detail with a minimum of effort. You can pull it off with basically any simple webcam -- the one pictured here cost $5 -- and toy microscope, but you'll have to a little creative wiresplicing to get the white LED light source powered off USB as well. Still, it's a neat project if you've got the time -- now get to work!

Whether your end improvement is a functioning office, or a longer game of Unreal, uninterruptible power supplies are an essential part of keeping your kit up and running. In case you were wondering what goes on inside the little -- or, as the case may be, big -- boxes that sit next to power outlets, icrontic has a how-to for constructing your own UPS. If you're not up to the task of constructing your own, then there's also advice about which type of off-the-shelf UPS is for you. Now all you've got to worry about are other, human based, interruptions.

They say that sometimes the only way to get through to those you hold dear is with some tough love, so if you're just about at the end of your rope with a naughty, incorrigible pet gerbil, hamster, cat or guinea pig, it may be time to consider confining little Nibbles or Fluffy in a small electrified cage. For those of you who don't know how to build such a, um, specialty product -- and who would probably electrocute yourselves trying to figure it out -- Metacafe member NK5 has posted a handy how-to video on transforming an old CRT monitor into the power source for what is essentially a miniature version of those fences you see surrounding prisons and meth labs while driving along rural highways. Of course, NK5 also suggests a number of other, more pedestrian uses for the contraption, but embark on this project entirely at your own risk -- we're talking 30,000+ volts coursing through that cage. Check out the vid after the break...

Note: No animals were harmed in the writing of this post, and Engadget does not actually endorse shocking small pets, only snuggling them.

Update: Whoa, looks like some people didn't watch the video before leaving a comment. If you had, you'd know that it has nothing to do with making a "cat prison," and we only put that spin on this post to highlight the absurdity of the imagery. Still, we apologize to those of you who consider this to be a promotion of animal cruelty, and promise to give our own pets an extra tummy rub tonight in repentance.

[Thanks, Aaron C.]

One of our gripes with the iPhone are those ill fitting earbuds shipped in the box. Unfortunately, you don't have many options at the moment unless you're willing to live without the convenience of the mic / music toggle built into Apple's headphone cable. Even then, there's a good chance that your third party audio-only headphones won't fit the non-standard, standard jack. No worries, assuming you're not afraid of a wee bit (promise!) of soldering, you can fit the Apple cable with another set of buds of your choosing. Really, it doesn't look too difficult and James Papadopoulos even worked up a video tutorial which you can peep after the break.

If you're still using terms like "bling" and "pimp your [insert consumable]" to show how down you are with the kids, then perhaps you're also interested in wearing your new iPhone as a belt buckle in support of your poser persona. In fact, why not strap on a set of speakers too and show everyone just how ghetto you really are. Ok, ok, we'll admit, the design (bottom picture) shows some promise and the cats at Maya are only in the early stages (as in, the iPhone's only been out for 13 fargin hours) of their how-to. Besides, we know how desperate you are to show off your new gadget. Believe us, we know. Peep some early samples of the speaker-less version of the belts after the break.

If you have a taste for surreal photography then you'll want to pay attention, goth boy. The kids at Instructables have a new, improved guide for building an infrared filter for your digital cameras and camcorders. While the filter will work with any point-and-shoot, your camera should feature plenty of manual controls over the ISO, exposure, and white balance for best results. The effect is particularly interesting when shooting foliage since chlorophyl is transparent at these wavelengths. As such, scenic landscapes process as lurid white nightmares haunting jet black skies. The longer infrared wavelengths also cut through the dust and haze of the atmosphere (and your tortured mind) better than visible light. The filter assembly consists of an empty bottle of your mom's antidepressants, an old floppy disk of ennui, and a piece of unexposed film processed by the disintegrations of youth. That's it, you're ready to shoot, assuming you can even get out of bed. Now click-on to see the completed filter if you still possess the will.

Losing a laptop to a spilt glass of wine can be a very frustrating experience, particularly when said wine is of the cheap Rosé variant, as was the embarrasing case with this writer's late laptop. Well, one group of kindly DIY technology authors have assigned their noggins to the problem, and have created a post with an accompanying video which shows exactly what to do if you accidentally spill some red on your keyboard. Apparently, the best policy is to act fast -- just like the pretty, pretty, pretty good salt and club soda solution for carpet and upholstery spills -- by pouring off the excess liquid onto a towel, opening up the laptop, washing it under tap water, rinsing it under distilled water, and then leaving it out to dry. A quick reassemble later and the laptop should be back in working condition: but for how long? Also, if you do watch the video after the break, bear in mind that the music track is a loud variant of "Kung Fu Fighting," which seems to have been chosen purely for the line "and they did it with expert timing." Sigh.

While we've seen some crafty folks turn a Wiimote into a mouse (twice), the engineering minds over at Zedomax apparently figured they'd offer Sony an alternative to that sure-to-be-sued motion-tracking gizmo it has "patented." Of course, maybe the project was just to show off a good bit of snazzy soldering skills and a horrendously slipshod computer rig, but it's impressive nonetheless. Although it can't take flight like the FlyTech Dragonfly, this SIXAXIS airplane can control the motions of a flight simulator (or other joystick-enabled programs) by actually maneuvering the model in the manner you'd like your on-screen, pixelated counterpart to fly. Moreover, the propeller even kicks it into high gear to simulate the thrill of the flight in the comfort (and safety) of your own room. While the list of hardware (and background knowledge) necessary to create this thing is far too long to cover here, you can get your feet wet with a Cubloc controller, an accelerometer, and about 40 hours (or more) of unused vacation. But if you're ready to take the leap into the modding elite, there's no better place to start than the read link below (and the vid after the break).

Every so often, that console-modding Benjamin Heckendorn wanders away from his lair at benheck.com to share some interesting projects with Engadget. In the past Engadget's very own Will O'Brien has demostrated how to build your own CNC (computer numericial control) cutting machine, and he also plans future articles on this subject. Searching the internet, you can't swing a nunchuk without hitting plans for "do it yourself" CNC machines, motor kits being sold, etc. A CNC machine is truly one of the ultimate projects a hobbyist can build and one of the best tools to have in a shop when finished. Yes, even better than a speed square. However, while much is said of what you can cut with such a machine, the how part of design creation isn't always as clear.

For today's How-To we're going to go through the process of designing a somewhat complex item that can be cut with a standard 3 axis homebuilt CNC machine: a jointed "robotic hand". This requires several design methods drawn in multiple views, which will demostrate many of the techniques that are useful in preparing items for CNC cutting. At the very least it's a good primer for vector artwork in general, if you've ever been curious about it. So let's take a look at what's involved in prepping our CNC robot factory, shall we?

It might not be the prettiest thing ever to grace your svelte little Wiimote, but if you're the, um, rambunctious type, or have muscles the size a small house like our man Tyler, this little strap "hack" might be the only thing keeping your Wiimote from becoming a svelte projectile of destruction. The project is all pretty straight forward, using some supa-strong braided fishing line as a safety buffer in case your bowling game gets a little over zealous. But just in case you managed to sleep through all your knot tying merit badges in Boy Scouts, or have allowed the internets to reduce your brain to a pile of mush, and you need a fancy photo set to hold your hand through every little project, then you should find these detailed knot-tying instructions quite helpful.

[Via Digg]

Sometimes it's hard to draw the line between "fair use" and "just plain ol' dumb," but if being in charge of the playback and storage of your purchased media is of the utmost importance to you -- to the tune of a couple grand -- then Jake Ludington over at MediBlab has a solution for you. His argument in favor such extreme measures is the tried and true "backup" excuse, since, so far, managed copy hasn't made its way into his discs or hardware. Of course, with the amount of money involved in his method, he would probably be better off just paying buying a few extra copies of any disc he might purchase, and storing 'em in a vault someplace. However, if you would like to follow in Jake's fair usin' footsteps, the method is really quite straightforward. Just score yourself an Xbox 360 and HD DVD drive (one of the view HD DVD solutions which will output 1080i or 720p via component), a minimum of 4 eSATA drives in a RAID 0 array (for which you might need an external SATA card), an AJA XENA LG analog HD capture card (which will be doing most of the heavy lifting in this process), and a speedy PC for processing the video once you've got it all captured. Not quite 1080p, and not quite digital perfection, but it should win you a good bit of love and recognition in the BitTorrent community be plenty good for most "backup" purposes.

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

Despite our personal reservations on the topic, if you're rocking a Zune, we say more power to you, and we thought we'd let you know about this simple method to upgrade that little player of yours to 40GB. Ironically, iPodMods did the honors: turns out the Zune uses the same battery as that of the 60/80GB iPod, and while they were mucking about they also discovered that an upgrade to a 40GB Toshiba drive is relatively painless as well. The player also supports 60GB and 80GB drives, but you can't get the back cover back on with those bulkier drives in place, so no dice there. But if an extra 10GB is worth the price and hassle to you, then by all means grab your Xacto Knife and get hacking!

[Via Zune-Online]