How to turn a Mac sudden motion sensor to an accelerometer

Did you know that most MacBooks and MacBook Pros hard drives come equipped with a sudden motion sensor that lets the hard drive withstand crashes better? Well, you can use this sensor as an accelerometer, which is an instrument used for measuring acceleration.

This Mac OS X video tutorial, you will see how to turn a MacBook sudden motion sensor into an accelerometer. You will see how to take advantage of the Sudden Motion Sensor (SMS) that every MacBook and MacBook Pro produced between now and a few years ago has:

All Intel-based Apple portables such as the MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, PowerBook G4 computers starting with PowerBook G4 (12-inch 1.5GHz), PowerBook G4 (15-inch 1.67/1.5GHz), PowerBook G4 (17-inch 1.67GHz), and iBook G4 computers starting with iBook G4 (Mid 2005) have Sudden Motion Sensor technology.

The applications used are freeware and are called LiquidMac and SeisMac, and you can download them from:
- http://uri.cat/software/LiquidMac/LiquidMac.app.zip
- http://www.suitable.com/tools/download/SeisMac.dmg