Admittedly it is not as easy as the use of the serial port, because the USB port needs special drivers to run. Thus we need some kind of firmware, which directly leads to the need of something to record and process this firmware.
http://www.ocinside.de/html/modding/usb_ir_receiver/usb_ir_receiver.html
LCD Monitors have become very popular with prices coming down, and screen sized growing. Those of us that have used LCD monitors for a while know that over time the backlight starts to dim and will eventually completely fail. Well for less than $20.00 and about a half hour of your time you can replace the backlight and rejuvenate that monitor to as good as new condition.
http://www.inventgeek.com/Projects/shorts/lcdfix.aspx
In this excerpt from the ExtremeTech book, Build the Ultimate Home Theater PC, you'll learn how to choose the perfect case and power supply for your home-theater PC build-it project.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1900170,00.asp
Have an old hard drive that no longer works? As long as it still spins up chances are you could build a clock out of your old hard drive! You will need some electronic knowledge, some common electronic components and a bit of patience. The clock that is produced isn’t exactly practical since most hard drives (especially older ones) are too loud for a clock that is to operate 24 hours a day.
http://www.alan-parekh.com/hard_drive_clock.html
Functional as both PC and boombox. radio works, but the indicator had to be removed. the built-in mics will feed into the tablet, along with line-in and possibly radio so i can record radio to the harddrive, if i ever wanted to. the line-out of the tablet goes to the line-in of the boombox. the headphone jack on the boombox is unchanged, and the amplified external speaker jacks on the boombox had to be removed to make room for the power switch, standby and restart switches.
http://www.gutterslide.com/boomboxpc/
Its Called TransTFT. 15" TFT panel transformed to something more aesthetic. If you can't tolerate the looks of your Flat Panel, heres a nice mod to give it a aesthetic look.
http://metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/transtft/index_eng
On/Off blinking Hard-Drive led can get quite annoying sometimes or it doesn't seem to fit the overall theme of the case or a project. Why not make it smoothly fade in and out when there is some HDD activity? These following steps will show you how to do just that easily and with only small amount of money.
http://metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/hdd_eyez/index_eng
Have you ever felt that your keyboard was to big? I sure have and I’ve looked at these small replacements your can buy more then a couple of times. Then again, they’re expensive and are usually made for people who needs small keys to prevent RSI - not for people who just want a small keyboard. A laptop keyboard on the contrary is small an has a lot of keys so they’re more suitable for the purpose. They’re also (usually) more quiet.
http://www.grynx.com/projects/converted-laptop-keyboard/
This one really only uses a Bluetooth dongle plus some cables. No hub or any other electronics so it’s actually a no-brainer to get this one working. That is as long as you have the space within the laptop to hide the dongle away.
http://www.grynx.com/projects/adding-internal-bluetooth/
Open the lid, a few borrowed keys from another keyboard attached with some superglue(tm), solder the LEDs and the switch, and voilá. Heh, well, simplified, at least.
http://metku.net/index.html?sect=view&n=1&path=mods/nappis-spotti/index_eng