Book/Magazine Review: Make

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It’s a book. It’s a magazine. It’s two mints in one! Well, sort of. In fact, Make seems to be an idea searching for a format. Squeezed between its covers are “181 pages of D.I.Y. technology”, as the cover blurb says, but one man’s D.I.Y. is another man’s hacks. This first issue looks like it’s trying a lot of different types of content to see what works, and it’s a commendable approach. It contains 4 large projects, described step by step: kite aerial photography, in which the reader builds a camera rig to take digital pics from the sky; $14 video camera stabilizer, in which the intrepid hacker makes a backyard steadicam; 5-in-1 network cable, in which the computer hacker combines a passepartout cable; and magnetic stripe reader, in which the apprentice solderer builds a reader from scratch.Some of the content is foolish, but in a Ben Franklin kind of way: the people with backyard trains and monorails, the carrying handles for a small PC, or the kinetic glowsticks. But what gives Make its qi is the attitude that you can hack pretty much anything. It’s the kind of attitude that led to the first computers and sent men to the moon, but that seems to be fading away as people become too lazy and look for ready-made solutions. I, for one, am guilty of this: I don’t even know how to brandish a soldering iron. What I’d like to see more of in future issues of Make is content for the likes of me (or my 14-year old son), more introductory content that explains the basics, talks about tools and simple projects. There’s a good balance in this issue, but Make will have to choose between writing for the common hacker, or providing articles for newbies.

Here’s a brief list of pros and cons:

Good:

Companion web site and blog

No PC modding

Lots of twisted ideas

The intro articles on technology are interesting

The four “projects” are well thought-out and well presented

The Howtoons cartoon is a good way to provide a simple project for kids

Primer on soldering and desoldering: needs more such introductory content like this

Not so good:

No indication where to buy many of the required parts

Layout confusing and hard to read at times (pages 88-89)

Taking apart an iPaq is home entertainment?

Not enough projects that kids can do

Digital cameras reviewed in the Toolbox section? Not appropriate…

Not enough of a distinction between D.I.Y. stuff and gadgets (see above)

The software “hacks” don’t fit; an article about using a specific program to do what it’s supposed to do isn’t D.I.Y.

Just because there are more “not so goods” isn’t a negative, it just means that there are areas where Make can improve. I’m certainly looking forward to the next issue; this one is promising, and the idea behind it is great.

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