As the product of frugal New England Yankees, I like items that multi-task. If said item is something that could typically get thrown away, even better. Check out this awesome iPhone 3GS dock made from its retail box.

Since the 3GS does not ship with a dock (bummer), enterprising owner Vince Tang used the included USB cable, the docking "plate," which is that tiny piece of plastic meant to seat the phone correctly, and the sturdy box to create a dock. Specifically, he cut a hole in the box's lid, crammed the plate and cable inside and glued the daylights out of it. We think it looks pretty good (from the top at least).

In fact, if I hadn't sent my old iPhone to NextWorth in my 3GS box, I'd be making one of these right now. Well done, Vince!

During last night's talkcast, we debated the validity of the most recent Mac mini rumors. I was in the "No Way" camp. I'm sure there's a new mini in the works, but I don't think that's it. At least, the machine depicted in that video isn't what will be offered to customers. I mean ... five USB ports, Firewire 800, two display ports ... why stop there? Throw in SCSI! LocalTalk! Cans and string!

Or better yet, cram the whole mini into an Apple Disk ][ enclosure. That's what one enterprising case hacker did, and the results are pretty sweet. This mini has been so carefully placed that even the optical drive lines up with the case's opening. The LED has even been rigged to glow when the Mac is running. We love it.

[Via Engadget & Cult of Mac]

The steampunk mod meme is not going away. From the Mac mini to R2D2, all sorts of hardware is being made to look Victorian. No one knows why.

Artist Kevin Tong continues the tradition with the iPhone ... sort of. The iSteamPhone T-shirt presents the iPhone in a blown-apart presentation like you might find in a daVinci sketch pad. Even the "parts" of the iPhone are vintage. Note the analog clock and what looks like a muffler in the center.

True, we're cheating here a bit in that this isn't a physical steampunked iPhone, but who wants to see that? The T-shirt is clever and sure to be a hit at your next MUG meeting. Grab yours for $20US.

[Via Guy Kawasaki]

It's many bricks, technically: Lego Bricks. Students at the San Francisco Art Institute used 2,588 bricks to build an enormous Mac Pro case.

The design wasn't without its problems -- partway through the movie, three "Lego engineering catastrophes" forced the addition of a support beam under the middle of the case, presumably to support the weight of the hardware inside.

The exterior design isn't the only thing impressive about it: On the inside, it's a Mac Mini that's FireWire-linked to a PC Hackintosh. Nice.

The case was submitted for the 2008 MacMod Challenge.

Like most phone cameras, the iPhone's lens is focused for the most general possible use, i.e. nearly at infinity. TUAW reader Daniel Forsythe modded his iPhone to focus a bit closer up so he could use it to read bar codes that he shoots from magazines and equipment labels.

The mod involves breaking the glue that holds in the camera module and rotating the lens to bring the focus closer to the camera. With this hack, he can snap photos of close-in subjects. Check out his Flickr photo set for samples and discussion.

He writes that he plans to make a full mod guide should readers express interest in it. The photo seen here is focused to 0.25".

While browsing Flickr this afternoon, we came across a shot of a Nintendo DS running Macintosh System 6 in emulation on reader Ken Fager's Flickr stream. Of course, we contacted him to ask how he did it. Here's what he had to say.

First, grab a DS flash card and install MiniVMacDS onto its root directory.

Once that's done, place the Mac Plus ROM into the "vmac" folder along with a System 6/7 install disk (you can make a blank disk image using Disk Utility).

Finally, turn on the DS and select MiniVMacDS. It will boot the disk images. From there, install (minimal) System 6 onto the blank disk image.

Ken notes that it's a bit pokey, but hey, this wasn't done for speed! Have fun if you try this for yourself. Thanks for sharing, Ken! We love it.

If you've got a MacBook Air SuperDrive and you've been hankering to use it with other computers (Mac or PC), tnkgrl over at tnkgrl Mobile has a solution. With a $9 part and some intestinal fortitude, you too can make your MBA Superdrive universally compatible.

Using the drive with other computers has been a desire from its inception. After some experimentation, tnkgrl found that simply replacing the IDE to USB bridge within the drive did the trick. Of course, that means removing the daughter-board and relocating the 12 MHz crystal. For an experienced hardware hacker, no sweat. For the average Joe, well, it's quite obviously an at-your-own-risk situation.

Check out the post at tnkgrl Mobile for the details.

It's June, you're bored, and you're looking at that 40GB AppleTV sitting on your media center. The next thing you know, you've bought a solid-state drive (SSD) and created the world's first (as far as we know) SSD-equipped Apple TV.

Josh Lee modded his original AppleTV not to increase the size of the drive -- he's using a 32GB Transcend SSD since he stores most of his media on NAS -- or speed it up. In fact, it sounds like he did the mod just for the hell of it. The benefits of the mod include less heat generation by the AppleTV and almost silent operation.

Josh reports in his email to AppleTVHacks that all he had to do was take an image of his AppleTV drive, mount it, resize the media partition, DD the image to the SSD , do a factory restore, use the patch2stick, and the SSD was quickly up and running. Whew!

Your challenge, TUAW reader, is to nab one of those fast 256GB Samsung SSD's when they ship this fall and use the Josh Lee method to create a fast, cool, and silent FrankenAppleTV. If you're the first, tell us about it.

A big thank you to Luck for the pointer to AppleTVHacks

TechEBlog has assembled an outstanding collection of Mac mini mods that convert the littlest Mac into everything from a tablet to a wee Mac Pro.

The micro-monster pictured here has an added USB port on the front, a slide-off hard disk cover, and a fresh power button. It measures 3.28" wide by 7.8" tall by 6.5" deep. Adorable!

You can see a few more of our favorite mini mods here, here and here.

[Via Reddit]

Here's the situation. You're sitting with a friend when she gives you some great information that you want to write down. Or, you want to share something with her, but your Mac is not running, and it seems like a hassle to wait for it to boot just to complete that simple exchange. What's a nerd to do?

How about cover the lid of your MacBook Pro with chalkboard paint? That's exactly what Russell Davies did, and the BlackBoard Pro was born. It's got a certain "Little House on the Prairie Schoolhouse" charm, and as Russell says, "...there's something very satisfying about crossing off a to do by licking your finger and smearing it out."

Well done, Russell. We think.

[Via Joshua Blakenship]

TUAW reader Rowan Pope pointed us to this insane MacBook Air hacking post. How many USB ports does the Air support? Apple says just one; this post says up to 7. Apparently, the Air has a few extra live USB port connections built into that thar skinny little computer. How do we know this? Because the guy downloaded developer documentation for the ICH-8 chip, which offers 5 low-speed and 2 high-speed USB controllers.

He popped open his Air and measured the voltage at each pin. He then used a hacked memory key with a modded USB extension cable (with an extra resistor just to be safe). After connecting the memory key to one of the pins, his MacBook Air system log reported a USB error. A few more tests and adjustments later, he actually got his laptop to recognize the drive. In total, he found three working USB connections plus an unused SATA controller.

TUAW is awed. Be sure to check out the other mod on this much-opened Air: a carbon-fiber bottom case. Sleek!

We love reading articles like this. Folks who use old gadgets for novel purposes make our geeky little hearts dance. Take as evidence the DIY iPod video projector and the iPod nano slide viewer.

Today we came across a post from jeffkobi at Instructables describing how he turned a 5.25" floppy drive into an amplifier. After building a prototype with a Tupperware container, Jeff (can we call you Jeff?) put the guts of a Sonic Impact 5066 T-amp into the drive case (it fit quite nicely, actually), attached a volume knob and in/out ports, connected his iPod and was in business. A retro-amp that looks cool on any desk.

Well done, Jeff!

A new entry in the Mac category – created by one Dave Veloz for his wife – takes on a Mac Mini and forges a machine that Captain Nemo would be proud to use. The keyboard may be familiar, and the monitor is an evolution of previous works, but the treatment of the Mini and gold lettering in vintage Victorian style brings the full package together in a wonderfully Mac-centric, Steampunk fantasy vision with superb attention to detail. And all that work didn't just sit around looking pretty: the final product was set up at Dave's wedding to display a slideshow of engagement photos.

We at TUAW would like to extend a hearty "hurrah" to Dave for what may be the coolest mod ever to befall a Mini. Maybe even cooler than the Millenium Falcon mod. And yes, that can be taken as an official challenge: show us what you've got!

Thanks Jim!

While checking out yesterday's beautiful iPhone mod, we though about wallpaper that would compliment an all-black iPhone. In the process we compiled a list of our favorite resources for iPhone (and iPod touch) wallpaper.

• Poolga
• The Iconfactory
• Pixelgirl Presents
• iPhone wallpaper group on Flickr
• Sciphone
• Deviant Art

Have you got a favorite that we've missed? Let us know in the comments.

While we're at it, check out more details on that iPhone mod, including pictures of the complex machine that gets the job done.

Not all preferences appear in your iPhone Settings application. As I discussed rather thoroughly in my Modding Mac OS X book, it's not that hard to dig through applications and discover undocumented--or in this case unpromoted--preferences that add spice to your Mac or iPhone. I decided to put the iPhone's SpringBoard to the test. That's the app that runs your main home page. This core application contained over a dozen user-settable preferences. I tested them all and selected my six favorites. If you have access to the command line, you can start having fun with these settings yourself. This post shows you how.