DIY Guitar Sustainer

This is my way of giving back to the guitar fam that I sorely miss after becoming an engineer and sacrificing spending time with my guitar.

I've decided to put up a detailed guide on how to build yourself an infinite guitar sustainer that will enable any guitar to hold out a note infinitely long, achieving that violin-like sustain goodness.

The Post-Apocalyptic Tin Can Amplifier

In the case of an apocalyptic nuclear fallout, and you emerge from an underground bomb shelter seeing nothing but a wasteland on top of what was once a thriving human civilization - have no fear! Let this video be your guide to scavenging the parts necessary to build yourself a guitar amplifier so that you can waste your numbered days away shredding guitar and rotting from the side-effects of radiation!

Guitar - Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley)

I haven't done a live recording in a while, so here we go! This one's super short. I was just messing around with the chords to Hallelujah all day while being sick and bed ridden. It's the days like these that make me appreciate the guitar so much - there's not many instruments that you can play while lying down in a nest of blankets and comfort.

Anyway, here's what came out of it, I'll need to come back and add a proper intro to this recording some other time.

Guitar - Sia Mashup (Titanium, Elastic Heart, Chandelier)

I discovered that mashing up songs really doesn't come easy for me. Here's my attempt at arranging a medley of Sia Furler's hit pop songs and the songs I used in it were Wild Ones, Titanium, Elastic Heart, Chandelier, and Big Girls Cry.

Arduino MIDI Drums

With the help of an Arduino, we can turn that Guitar Hero or Rock Band controller into a real MIDI drum kit for recording purposes!

The full Arduino source code can be found on my github here:
https://github.com/evankale/ArduinoMidiDrums

Guitar Cover - Hedley - Pocket Full of Dreams

Hedley's Pocket Full of Dreams from their album, Wild Life. Can't believe their album is two years old and I'm still listening to it! We filmed this one in junk yard using a point-and-shoot camera. Turned out better than I had expected, actually :)

Native Cross-platform Drawing Window

Many times I find myself duplicating the same low-level window creation code snippets at the start of creating a standalone desktop graphical application, and too often have I had to look up platform specific API calls to do simple drawing operations. There has to be a better way!

Hackintosh Build

I finally had the chance to build my first Mac (Hackintosh)!

Here I'm posting my specs and the drivers I used to get my build to work in the hopes of saving someone some time in the future who might be using similar hardware.

Remote Taskbar

I own a Playbook and it's rotting on my table. A little while ago, my guilty conscience got to me, leading me to think about ways I could make use of my Playbook that I wouldn’t use any of my other devices for.

Tri Rose - Math Rose Generator

Here's a useless Android app I put on Google Play just for fun... Tri Rose, the original Math Rose app!

Mathematically generate unique and intricate rose graphs (rhodonea curves) and share them with your friends!

Figuring out a Key Matrix (Scan Matrix)

Knowing how to figure out a key matrix is a simple and essential skill to those who salvage lost equipment for spare parts. I've written a guide over at Instructables to explain the technique I use to reverse a key matrix cable ribbon so I can re-purpose the keys for other projects.

Continue reading at Instructables >>

SMS Google Search

I live in a place where data plans are still extremely limited and overpriced. Over the years I've learned to make do with a basic phone plan which I mainly use to send text messages with. But there are times when I'm lost on the road and have no choice but to find a local coffee shop with WiFi just so I can Google an address or number. That is, until I had this idea – what if I could simply Google search with a text message?

Android - Properly Loading Web Images in a ListView

Here's demo of how to properly fetch images asynchronously into an Android ListView.
Read more for how to overcome the pitfalls of a rudimentary implementation.
Full source code and demo provided.

Guitar - From Morrowind To Skyrim - The Elderscrolls Theme

Here's a mashup of The Elder Scrolls themes (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim) in a fingerstyle guitar arrangement.

The Elder Scrolls Themes and The Dragonborn Comes were originally composed by Jeremy Soule.