All of these $20 Off-the-shelf converters are fine. But what am I supposed to do with all these 7805's and duct tape?

@Aetius: You are obviously not an engineer. Look up Contan. Then look up the difference between X7R capacitors and the others. It is easy to build a cheap machine with cheap parts. To build a machine with quality parts takes moola.

@mustanganator: Hmmm. My experience has been that the editors bring a lot of cool things to read. Apple, MS, Nokia, etc. Have you read the other stuff? Stop being fixated on your own issues. All of your posts seem to slam this site. Get happy.