Welcome to 314pies.com!

What's New

I've just posted a detailed tutorial for how to build your own book scanner to convert paper books to electronic format. The build cost only $30 (assuming you already have a digital camera and a few tools and supplies around the house), and it only takes few hours to put together. Using it, I can scan books at about 600 pages an hour.

I've also posted the Book Image Processor, a software utility I wrote for easy post-processing of the page photographs. You can download it for free under the GPL license.

About 314Pies

This site is a platform to showcase my web design and software development skills, and to host various web apps.

My specialty (with respect to web design) is helping customers who are non-technical or just new to the Internet. Basically, if you want a website, I can walk you through the setup, handle the technical details, and teach you what you need to know to get up and running. If you're interested in setting up a website for business or personal use, please submit a web design bid request.

I also do technical consulting and software development. If you are interested in any of the applications demonstrated here, or you would like to discuss contracts, please use the contact form.

Recent Tutorials

These are the latest tutorials. Click here for a complete list.

How to Use Good, Unique Passwords

This tutorial shows you how to use the KeePass password manager to maintain your passwords and use a different, strong password for each site you log in to . First, I want to address the basic question: why is it a bad idea to use the same password on every site? The short answer: because now all your online accounts are as INsecure as the least secure site that you visit. Read on for more discussion of the problem and a step-by-step tutorial for using my favorite solution, KeePass, to manage your passwords.

[Image Credit: Dev.Arka]
How to Rip Audiobook CDs in iTunes

Why rip an audiobook? Because listening to audiobooks on iTunes is much more convenient than carrying around a big case of CDs. Also, most CD players don't do a good job of saving your position. This tutorial shows you how to use iTunes to rip audiobook CDs in a way that makes it easy to manage the audio files.

[Image credit: ESwift]
Using Images in Joomla Articles

This tutorial explains different aspects of dealing with images in Joomla, including uploading, inserting, making advanced “Lightbox” images and slideshows, and resizing images on your computer.

[Image Credit: SmallStoriesBigPicture]