News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters! Thanks Slashdot! Its been a while...

I'd suggest that maybe you're new here, but I think your UID is lower than mine.

You make a good point. And to the person who modded my post TROLL... I am NOT trolling. Its a genuine opinion with a real reason behind it.

That sounds about as exciting as watching grass die. No offense meant here, I get the reference to the designer and all, thats cool. But I don'' see how this is going to excite kids. Kid sees "Hans the 555 timer chip". Kid thinks: "Whats a timer chip?" and unless that is answered in a very obvious way EVERY TIME the character is shown, it'll be lost.

Make up some story about how you tracked down a huge network of movie pirates.

New for nerds doesn't mean "anything, no matter how trite, expensive and useless as long as it uses a 3D printer and a Raspberry Pi."

FTFY

If the mail server is set up well, yes. But many aren't, and not everyone is on gmail or the like. When I did it, I was the mail server admin so I could do whatever I wanted, to be honest. This is why spammers go after breaking into legit accounts.

Actually, jackass, she is a very intelligent woman, and in many ways smarter than I am. The point is that abstract concepts often need demonstration before they are well understood.

I did this once to prove the point to my wife. I made up some ridiculous email and then called her and asked her if she got it. She had. When I told her it was from ME, she finally got the point. The email was telling her she was a winner of free tickets to a concert for an artist that hasn't performed in a VERY long time. And I didn't have to telnet into a server to do it. I just set up my mail program.

Welcome our new Robotic Parrot Overlords!

I completely agree. Antenna engineering is not a trivial matter and if the proper R&D has gone into that $120 unit and it actually works, then its worth double that.

Anything you homebrew will end up being a copy of it, and probably not as good unless you've built a yagi before and know exactly what you're doing.

1) Quality number 1, 2 and 3 Philips screwdrivers. QUALITY ones. Not cheap junk. Magnetic tipped.
2) Multi Tool. I like the Gerber Suspension. Cheap ($30 USD) and effective
3) Screwdriver kit with every known bit. DO NOT USE as your every day. See #1
4) Spend $30 on an LED flashlight
5) Air! You need air. $100 cheapo compressor with a 2 gallon tank is enough, but get 5 gallons if you can.
6) Zip Ties, ROLLS of velcro, electrical tape.
7) Soldering kit. A cheap Weller stick will do. You'll need it at times. Not very many.

Thats all I could think of for now.

With a good enclosure and some good storage, not to mention a hefty battery, I can see this spending lots of time taking time lapse photos for days and even weeks on end! I can't wait to see how its packaged, and I hope the lens doesn't stink.

You nailed it right on the head. The customer will just take their crappy outmoded php or perl or whatever to some other host who will gladly take their money. I was in web hosting as a sysadmin for several years. I had a customer who had built his website in php, and very poorly. You could to http://hisjackasswebsite.bizfo/index.php?myawesomemalwaresite.com/virus.asp and frame ANY site into his. He refused to believe it was his problem, even after I proved it to him first hand. So, I suspended his site (I was getting sick of getting that server blocked on sorbs etc) and he went somewhere else. I contacted his new provider and let them know the score and advised them to watch out. They were actually thankful for the heads up. Could this program have fixed that? Doubtfully. Will the problem persist? Yes. Because people are lazy and cheap!

then vBulletin is your only way to go. SMF, phpBB, Yabb.... I've seen forum owners start with all of them, and when their forum is actually successful, they end up migrating to vBulletin because it just works. The pricing is reasonable, the features are there, and so is the support, which you'll eventually need.

On the other hand, if you are just opening a small support forum for a product you sell or if you intend specifically to keep it from growing too big, then sure, look at phpBB, its pretty good.