[Hacker magazines printed]

Ive kept my eye out for these sort of things and can not find any in the UK. :(

[My 1st Soldering]

Hackaday done their take on DIY soldering station.

http://hackaday.com/2008/08/05/how-to-the-...dering-station/

I personally use a fan beside open window. I dont have enough space to even set-up a work bench, never mind a soldering station.

A hak5 take on it would be interesting to see their views.

[Hak5 Beowulf Cluster]

You could even build a system around FPGA's which would be very quick for some tasks.

Seconded, I've previous experience with using DSP's for performing processes and the results outweighed using clusters, not to mention the cost. I guess it all comes down to the specific task at hand.

:o

[boosting wifi range]

To touch on what PLuNK mentioned with the resistance - in order to provide maximum power transfer between the source and load, the source impedance and load impedance must match, otherwise it is a small fraction of the signal power transfered.

This can be a big problem in most 'DIY rigs'.

There are many solutions to impedance matching be it selecting right coax cable, baluns, etc.

Having a stronger Tx signal is great it can send data to a source over a longer distance than normal, but the Rx will need to have an increase in signal power if it wants to be able to successfully transmit back.

Is there many obstructions between the Rx and Tx? Is there clear line of sight?

Are there sources of interefence available (noise) which will effect the weak signal arrived at the Rx?

EDIT: Has he tried the parabolic antenna on the laptop? May be of use if he can not increase the SNR of his card.