Make: The First Year (4 vol. set) [Paperback]

Mark Frauenfelder Ed. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 19, 2005

From out of nowhere, MAKE has rapidly become one of the hottest new magazines to hit the newsstands. Often coined "the bible of the Tech DIY movement" MAKE has coalesced a passionate if rather unorthodox following of geeks, gearheads, tech enthusiasts, hackers, tinkerers and artists united by a common compulsion to reconfigure the technology in their lives; even when it means violating a manufacturer's warranty or two.

Through the brilliantly written and beautifully illustrated magazine, podcasts and makezine.com website, the MAKE team has already won broad acclaim for their clear yet down-to-earth coverage and uncanny instinct for what moves Makers, and their ability to nail the curiosity, vibrance, and passion of the rapidly emerging "tech DIY" movement.

In this special re-release, all 4-Volumes of MAKE's first year are combined in a special 4-Volume Collector's Set.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Mark Frauenfelder is a writer and illustrator living in Los Angeles, and the editor of MAKE. He is the cofounder of the popular Boing Boing weblog and was an editor at Wired from 1993-1998.

Product Details

• Paperback: 896 pages
• Publisher: O'Reilly Media; 1 edition (December 19, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0596526776
• ISBN-13: 978-0596526771
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.9 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #718,492 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I'm a writer and illustrator living in Los Angeles. I am the editor-in-chief of MAKE magazine (http://makezine.com) I co-founded bOING bOING magazine, and was the founding editor-in-chief of Wired Online. I write a monthly column for Playboy called 'Living Online,' and was the co-editor of The Happy Mutant Handbook (Putnam-Berkley, 1995). Find out more about me at http://boingboing.net

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Deceptive description??, March 8, 2006

By 

James H. Handcock "Montana Bookman" (kalispell, mt United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Make: The First Year (4 vol. set) (Paperback)

Mark does a great job.

I love the magazine, great layout, great contents, and this a bargain price - but - one reason I bought this was seeing (Hardcover) in the description.

Sorry - putting four magazines in a slipcase, even a nice sturdy one, does NOT constitute a hardcover.

Great job otherwise, but the description needs to changed.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Make Magazine... Makin' Waves, February 24, 2006

By 

Bradley J. Dixon (London, ON, Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Make: The First Year (4 vol. set) (Paperback)

A long time ago (two decades ago) I tinkered with electronics and all sorts of mechanical contraptions (the robot I built and the hovercraft are but a few weird and wonderful things I made). Alas, even Radio Shack stopped selling the classic books on electronics by Forest Mims (ISBN: 0945053282 still available on Amazon.com).

However, to really do cool things with electronics you needed expensive micro-processors... so many of us went a played with computers... However, with the price of microcontrollers dropping to a few dollars... a new world was opening up. MAKE had entered this void with a brave, bold nicely desigened magazine.

Make is published quarterly, and is full of many projects, (not all of them electronics or even micro-processor based). The projects range from the silly (a timed tea bag remover... build out of a toaster mechanism!) to the cool (ramjet powered go-cart... Very Noisy and Very Fast!), to the artistic (cool devices to make Persistance of Vision designs while you dance).

Each project is carefully detailed, with clear instructions, copious pictures and links to further information, if necessary.

All projects are designed to allow the average hobbiest to quickly make their own version.

You are guarnteed to bookmark at least one project from each issues. I know I always go COOL!, I want to build that!.

No other magazine comes close to empowering the average person to become a "MAKER". Not since Wired magazines launch (over 10 years ago) has a magazine hit a un-met market with such brilliance. If you are interested in (or returning to) becoming a Maker, then MAKE is your guide.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good tinkerers mag, January 20, 2007

By 

J. Allen "j allen" (Kern Co, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Make: The First Year (4 vol. set) (Paperback)

I ordered Make: The First Year from Amazon and was happy with the price and my order.
Make is for geeks and tinkerers. If you like Popular Science, you'll probably like Make. It goes a step further giving instructions for various projects, like making your own guitar to doing diverse connections and tricks with your iPod or old computer. Some of the info is a little sparse, but all and all it's well presented. There are also various tips and resources which are of great use to those who like to do it themselves. There is also a definite tendency to recommend reuse of junk hardware and trash which appeals to my sense of conservation. It really galls me to see all the great stuff that goes to waste.
For the most part the magazine is well laid out and a pleasure to read. But there are some articles that have some very small type and side panels that are almost unreadable with dark letters on a dark background and vice versa. What were they thinking? That's not cool. Pop Sci tends to do that too, placing text over a photo or graphic that makes it difficult to read. That's why I gave it a 4 rather than a 5. Other than that it's a great magazine and I hope it is successful.