Austin / Texas Modders? (1 Viewer)

Hey Folks.
I couldn't help but notice the active Austin area users here on the Home Theater Forums.

I am a founding member of the Austin Modders group.
We are mostly computer modders, such as my HTPC seen below.
But we do lots of other cool electronic mods, most of us have a good home theater. I actually work in the distributed audio field in Austin.

We have a meet in every other month, and LAN parties the month between.
Our next meet is July 8th, we will be installing a Carputer into a member's Pontiac GTO.

Our website is: AustinModders .com
Everyone is friendly, the core members of the group do lots of activities together outside modding; we go boating nearly every week.
There is no dues, we don't make money, we just have fun.

static.flickr.com/59/175400503_36e6034f3c.jpg

P.S. I did get permission to post this, thanks Ronald.

Joshua, thanks for letting us know of your group's existence. It would be interesting to know more about what you guys do. Is that beautiful enclosure a computer case? If so, WOW! I've seen custom computer cases, but that one is a gem. If I'm wrong, what is it?

Long live the Lone Star!

Yes, that is a computer. It is a Shuttle brand system, modified.
The idea is to have a rustic looking, dead silent Home Theater PC for the living room.
There is a thread here:
http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htf/...d.php?t=237411
I am currently designing a custom amplifier that will connect to the HTPC's sound card in order to remove my $200 el-cheapo surround receiver.

The wood for the above PC is the same as my main PC (left over really)
My main PC is built out of the same wood. (But built from scratch)
I also created the Wooden iPod, which was pretty popular on the net a year ago.
Photos of my projects are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zapwizard/

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Austin Modders main focus is computer modification, but this ain't just buildings PCs out of parts from CompUSA.
We create custom enclosures, custom electronics, use a lot of different techniques in building the PCs. In the end each is unique in it's own way.

The group started out when modders would bring their computers to local LAN parties. (Gaming parties) There were a incredible number of cool projects that people built. Me and two others decided to start a formal group.

We are all now pretty close friends. We teach each other new techniques at our meets, or just come up with crazy new things to do.

Joshua, that's all good - thanks for more details. A few of our HT group just recently built HTPC computers - see the thread. I want to build myself a new PC this Fall. I was thinking a super quiet case and motherboard and best dvd/cdrom reader/burner, etc, all from Fry's. I wouldn't do a custom wood case - saving that spare time for speaker cabinets.

I trust some of our group will have interest/questions of your group.