If I had this book 10 years ago, the FBI would never have found me!" — Kevin Mitnick This book has something for everyone—from the beginner hobbyist with no electronics or coding experience to the self-proclaimed "gadget geek." Take an ordinary piece of equipment and turn it into a personal work of art. Build upon an existing idea to create something better. Have fun while voiding your warranty! Some of the hardware hacks in this book include:
* Don't toss your iPod away when the battery dies! Don't pay Apple the $99 to replace it! Install a new iPod battery yourself without Apple's "help"
* An Apple a day! Modify a standard Apple USB Mouse into a glowing UFO Mouse or build a FireWire terabyte hard drive and custom case
* Have you played Atari today? Create an arcade-style Atari 5200 paddle controller for your favorite retro videogames or transform the Atari 2600 joystick into one that can be used by left-handed players
* Modern game systems, too! Hack your PlayStation 2 to boot code from the memory card or modify your PlayStation 2 for homebrew game development
* Videophiles unite! Design, build, and configure your own Windows- or Linux-based Home Theater PC
* Ride the airwaves! Modify a wireless PCMCIA NIC to include an external antenna connector or load Linux onto your Access Point
* Stick it to The Man! Remove the proprietary barcode encoding from your CueCat and turn it into a regular barcode reader
* Hack your Palm! Upgrade the available RAM on your Palm m505 from 8MB to 16MB

Covering both Windows and Linux, PC Hacks combines the bestselling Hacks series style with the world's most popular computing hardware. Hacks for enhancing performance and preventing problems with your PC include overclocking CPU and video cards, tweaking RAM timing, selecting the best performing components, and more. The guide includes advice on reusing an old PC to off-load work from newer systems as well as ways to prevent security hacks.

Whether you are a hard-core techie, just learning the ropes of building and tinkering with your own systems, or trying to figure out why Widget A does not work with Widgets B, C, D, and so on, there is a hack in here for you. You will find a hack for every aspect of your PC from power supply to mouse port, video to network connections, and have the chance to learn a lot about each section of a PC along the way. It has been my goal to help make your PC more reliable, economical, and effective whether it is five years or five days old. Without dwelling too much on the past and the foundations that make the PC what it is today, you will discover subtle nuances, and maybe a few "trade secrets," that will dispel common PC myths about how things work, or don't, and why.

Readers will be able to build and program their own 8088 single-board computer by applying the interfacing concepts and techniques presented in this book. Coverage begins with the software architecture of the 80×86 family, including software model, instruction set and flag, and addressing modes. Abundant examples illustrate basic programming concepts such as the use of data structures, numeric conversion, string handling, and arithmetic. Hardware details of the entire 80×86 family are then examined, from pin and signal descriptions to memory and input/output system design. Advanced topics, including protected mode, WIN32 and Linux programming, and MMX technology are also introduced.

FEATURES:

- Robust coverage of hardware and software principles provides readers with good overall exposure to the 80×86 family.

- Features a wide variety of interfacing applications, including a complete microprocessor-based system that can be easily duplicated

- Teaches the relationship between the use of C programming and assembly language  for interfacing and control.

- Coverage of 16-bit and 32-bit programming, exposure to the Windows WIN32 and Linux execution environments, and the process of structured programming provides readers with a strong programming foundation. 

Here's what you need to know to buy, set up, and make the most of HDTV. Be prepared when you head to the electronics store!

Plasma or LCD? 720p or 1080p? Blu-ray or HD DVD? Confused? What you need is this handy guide — it answers those questions and a whole lot more. It helps you choose the right HDTV for your needs, find sources of HDTV broadcasts, install and configure your system, and hook up cool HDTV sources like disc players, PCs, and game consoles.

Discover how to
* Translate the jargon, standards, and acronyms
* Incorporate HDTV into your home theater
* Be sure you're getting true HD channels
* Add a game console
* Prepare for the transition to digital TV

Unfortunately, making a decent scan is harder than anyone wants to admit, which is what makes this fun and easy guide so useful. After demystifying terms such as "pixels" and explaining how to select a scanner, expert Mark Chambers walks you through the art of scanning and shows how to use scanned images in a variety of cool projects.
Topics covered: Digitizing images via a scanner connected to a computer running Microsoft Windows. Hardware connectivity (via parallel, SCSI, USB, and FireWire) is covered before the author explains the scanning procedure and how to manipulate images in an editing program. Suggestions for craft projects and some troubleshooting tips round out the volume.

By following this resource, corporations can go wireless and still protect mission-critical data. Top corporate security consultant, Stewart Miller covers security for Windows, Linux, Macs, Palms, and other PDAs, and shows how to prevent breaches caused by weak encryption protocols. This work review security approaches for the different standards currently competing for the U.S. market. It addresses data compromise, unauthorized access, and denial of service - all critical to WLAN users. It covers the 802.11 IEEE standard in regards to security, performance, and throughput. It also discusses encryption and privacy through the WEP (Wired Equivalent Privacy) protocol.

SystemVerilog is a rich set of extensions to the IEEE 1364-2001 Verilog Hardware Description Language (Verilog HDL). These extensions address two major aspects of HDL-based design. First, modeling very large designs with concise, accurate, and intuitive code. Second, writing high-level test programs to efficiently and effectively verify these large designs.
The first edition of this book addressed the first aspect of the SystemVerilog extensions to Verilog. Important modeling features were presented, such as two-state data types, enumerated types, user-degined types, structures, unions, and interfaces. Emphasis was placed on the proper usage of these enhancements for simulation and synthesis.

This book starts from the very basic concepts of programming PIC microcontrollers using the basic language. The difference with this book to all the others I have read is how John Iovine makes it all so simple. He has detailed intructions of all his projects which are some of the most exciting I have yet seen. He uses microcontrollers to interface with servo motors,DC motors AC appliances & stepper motors to name a few. The strength of Iovines approach is in the Pic programming software which converts your basic program into machine code. This enables you to write short tight programs which, because a basic interpreter is not required, run very fast indeed. The hardware required is clearly stated with each Chapter and is very reasonbly priced. A list of suppliers is also included.In short this is a ‘must-have’ book for anybody starting out experimenting with microcontrollers. It is also very suitable for ‘intermediates’and younger people who have an interest in electronics and want to know more about what microcontrollers will do in a wonderfully readable format. Enjoy!

Beyond cutting edge, Scott Mueller goes where no computer book author has gone before–right past all the warranty stickers, the hidden screws, and the fear factor to produce a real owner's manual that every laptop owner should have on his desk. This book shows the upgrades users can perform, the ones that are better left to the manufacturer, and how to use add-on peripherals to make the most of a laptop. The CD contains one-of-a-kind video showing just what's inside a portable PC. For readers who have ever wondered what goes on inside their portable PC, how to upgrade/repair the portable PC or how to live on the road with it, this is the one must-have book of the year!

Using the popular and pervasive mid-range 8-bit Microchip PIC® as an archetype, Microcontroller Programming offers a self-contained presentation of the multidisciplinary tools needed to design and implement modern embedded systems and microcontrollers. The authors begin with basic electronics, number systems, and data concepts followed by digital logic, arithmetic, conversions, circuits, and circuit components to build a firm background in the computer science and electronics fundamentals involved in programming microcontrollers. For the remainder of the book, they focus on PIC architecture and programming tools and work systematically through programming various functions, modules, and devices.