I need not get into the details about why George RR Martins writing is beyond great (in depth exploration of each character), since this is supposed to be about the HBO series that introduced it to the public. Needless to say, every Song of Fire and Ice fan must have been on edge waiting for HBO’s adaptation of the Game of Thrones, fearing that it wouldn’t live up to expectations. But of course, we all know by now that most everyone’s pretty happy with how things turned out. True, I would have liked the direwolves to be a little bigger, but when it comes to the wall, I guess my spatially-challenged mind couldn’t imagine it to be as tall as that before…I love it. As for the characters, much everyone is spot on, not only in their look but also the way they carried it all off.

So why am I raving about the Game of Thrones now? Perhaps it’s because I can’t wait till Season 2 comes out on April (2 more months!!!), or perhaps its because I’ve been watching the Season 2 trailer over and over since yesterday. If you haven’t seen it yet, prepare to be left hanging.

As for me, it’s time to hit the books and brush up on the plot in time for Season 2!

If you are not a software developer and just want to add something geeky to your resume, then you’d probably love the idea of signing up for Code Year. So just how does signing up for Code Year up your geekiness level?

Code Year participants, who are exactly 341,648 people as of this writing, are sent interactive programming lessons every Monday, which they are expected to complete within the week. So far the topics finished have are “Getting Started with Programming” and “Functions in Javascript”. Note that all of the lessons assume that you have no background in programming, so you shouldn’t be afraid that they would be too difficult for you. If anything, they might be a tad to easy for you if you already have some background in programming.

So why is it again that you should sign up for Code Year? Frankly, I don’t know. To each his own. Some might want to sign up for the fun, some to learn something new, and some because they want a taste of programming to see if they would maybe like to someday really get into programming. Whatever your reasons are (and one of mine is to gain better appreciation of what my husband does on a daily basis), you can bet that you’ll learn something new if only you give it a try.

Veteran programmer already? Then Code Year is definitely not for you, but maybe you can spread the word and have your non-programmer friends try it out.

Image via CodeYear

Since we all need some humor in our lives, I thought that I’d just share some of my favorite images and cartoons that I encountered this year. Some might make you smile, some might not. I do hope it does inspire you to look for more fun in your life though and to remember to squeeze in a laugh at least once a day. Here’s the list, and here’s to another year of laughs!

Schrodinger’s Cat Wanted

What really made me laugh though was the blogger’s quote from the Big Bang Theory.

Sheldon: What do I have to say to bring this discussion to a speedy conclusion?
Leonard Hofstadter: Tell me whether or not I should go out with Penny.
Sheldon: Schrodinger’s cat.
Leonard Hofstadter: Wow, that is brilliant!
Sheldon: You sound so surprised.

Mnemonics

Warning: Explicit content in this cartoon.

Angry Bird Spotting Guide

I am fully aware that Angry Birds is so mainstream, but only geeks will bother making a spotting guide!

Image credits:

• Schrodinger’s Cat via DigitalHobo
• Mnemonics via XKCD
• Angry Birds Spotting Guide via GeekoftheDay

Nah, you say. Nerds have never truly been accepted as cool. Although we’ve known that to be true all along. Pop culture has always been driven by the Adonis-set. Throughout history, geeks have been tricked into doing others bidding; frequently it has been the result of someone playing the “cool” card and leading us to believe we’re something we’re not.

But this seems to be different. Never before has geekdom so thoroughly infiltrated the ranks of the normal. So much so, that nerdy-looking, or acting, males are now frequently portrayed in main stream advertising as the “everyman” they target for sales.

To demonstrate what we’re talking about, we’ve compiled a list of the top 5 things that truly illustrate the phenomenon. Here they are:

Hipsters – unwashed hair, skinny jeans and ironic t-shirts, need we say more? This popular social category – to which many in the silicon-subset aspire to – has inspired music, fashion, television and even the automobile industry.

Video Games – Once the socially barren domain of true nerds, video games have gone mainstream. Of course, it’s because they’ve become more affordable and accessible; but who would have ever thought such a nerdy pastime would come to dominant popular culture.

Polling – someone actually took the time earlier this year to poll 1,000 American adults about their feelings about their own nerdiness. Seriously. And even more surprising, a vast majority of respondents said they would consider it a compliment if they were called a geek.

Promotional Items – These free trickets and knickknacks given out everywhere from sporting events to trade shows and other special events, are now being sold specifically to appeal to geeks. Items such as Enterprise-inspired iPhone holders and LED flashlight/cell phone charger key ring combos are now widely available with imprinted logo of your choice.

Television – One of the top Nielsen rated television shows at the moment is “The Big Bang Theory,” a sitcom that revolves around the intertwined lives of a bunch of geeks. Tina Fey on 30 Rock has also done wonders for the group image.

I guess it’s finally just time. After all, it’s kind of odd it took society this long to fully embrace its inner nerd. Here’s to it; and hope it stays this way. After all, we deserve it.

That’s right, while you won’t get a Stanford or MIT degree, nor even a certification for learning these free courses, you’ll still know what you learned and get to brag that you’ve somehow gotten a Stanford and/or MIT education.

According to DigitalHobo, the live lectures for the free Stanford courses will start on January 2012. Most of the free courses are in the field of Computer Science, although there’s also at least one course each under Medicine, Civil Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Complex Systems, and Entrepreneurship. The courses will be delivered in the form of lecture videos that are supplemented by assignments and stand-alone quizzes. Students get to interact and help each other learn through a Q&A forum where everyone gets a chance to ask questions and answer that of their classmates. Teaching staff will be monitoring the forums to ensure that all important questions will be answered correctly.

MIT, on the other hand, has a lot more free courses you can take via the MIT OpenCourseWare. However, not all of these courses offer lecture videos like the Stanford courses all do. This is because the material you will find on MIT OCW are simple course materials that professors decided to make publicly available, which means that the kind of available content for each course varies greatly. Course materials you will find can be in the form of lecture notes, assignments (with or without solutions), online textbooks, projects (with or without examples), exams (with or without solutions), image galleries, videos, and study groups.

Back when I first encountered VNC, the iPad still hadn’t arrived on the scene and revolutionized the mobile industry. That meant that my hubby had to use the other PC in the house to play a joke on me. Just a few days ago though, my netbook started “acting weird”, and since my husband had no PC he can use to prank me with I really thought something was wrong with my touchpad. Then I realized he was happily grinning while “playing” with my son’s iPad, which of course instantly made me suspicious. My suspicions proved well founded because you can now apparently download VNC Viewer on your iPad and iPhone, a fact that I’ve overlooked for more than a year now.

If you haven’t hear of VNC Viewer, then you probably have no idea how to use it for a prank.  VNC is, as its developers RealVNC puts it, a “remote control software which allows you to view and fully interact with one computer desktop (the “VNC server”) using a simple program (the “VNC viewer”) on another computer desktop anywhere on the Internet.” In short, if you have ReaVNC installed and activated on a computer, whether it be a desktop or laptop, you can peek into what’s happening on that workstation and control what’s being done there (i.e. move the mouse cursor around) using the VNC Viewer on another device including your iOS and Android mobile devices. Obviously, VNC was designed for more productive purposes, but just think of the endless possibilities for pranks you can pull on non-techie people!

Happy pranking!

If you do I’m pretty sure you’re already aware of just how steep the competition is for geek blogs. Sure, there are millions of people out there who read geek blogs every day, but with so many of the same people putting up their own blog then it’s no wonder that we geek bloggers have a hard time getting the attention of geek readers, much less getting them to come back regularly.

With so much competition for geek blogs, blog promotion is something you simply cannot overlook. You need to reach out to your readers if you want to get new visitors not just to grow your readership, but also to replace the ones you are bound to lose to other geek blogs. Of course, the ideal situation would be for all visitors to become loyal readers, but since we’re living in the real world, we know just how bad retention rates can be.

One way to promote your geek blog is by developing your network online. You need to connect with other geek bloggers, build your reputation, and hopefully get them to link to your blog. Of course, this will require you to invest your time in making rounds on related geek blogs and in social sites.

You also need to put some effort into SEO so that you can rank decently in search engines. However, SEO takes time, so that if your geek blog is new you can surely bet that you won’t be seeing your blog among the top results in any of the major search engines any time soon.

You can also promote your blog with a little less effort by submitting your blog details in directories and web portals. One such web portal you can use is Blog Search Engine, which can help you by providing you with a review of your blog and a backlink for a one-time fee of $14.99. They also have packages you can upgrade to that will give you more backlinks from other blogs and will get your features on the portal main page. This promotional strategy is a good way to help you in your link building, which will obviously affect your SEO efforts, as well as increase your visibility at once.

So what are you waiting for? If you’ve got a geek blog, don’t sit on it but promote it. Whether you choose to just submit your blog on Blog Search Engine, launch a full-blown SEO campaign, or use your social circles, the important thing is to get one with it today.

One of the best feature of iPhone 4S is SIRI but SIRI uses internet connection and lot of data is downloaded when SIRI assists you and downloading data from internet drains your battery. One reason for the short battery is also that there are a lot of applications and when you use them some of them might not be closed and so they use up the battery very quickly and some might use a lot of battery while running.

iOS 5 itself uses up a lot of battery to run. So the stress on the battery has to be reduced in order to make it last long enough. You could also use the underwritten tips for your iPhone 4S, iPad or iPod touch or any IOs 5 device that you have.

1. Turn of wifi

One way to prevent quick drainage is by switching off the wifi whenever you’re not using it. This can be of major help in preventing quick drainage.

2. Turn Off Setting Time Zone

You could also turn off the setting time zone. Go to settings-Location services- System services. By doing this your battery life would improve by up to 40%.

3. Switch off all Location Services

If you’re a great fan of new apps or games and love to download them you obviously use up a lot of battery .You can switch the notifications from on to off if you don’t want to receive constant notifications.

4. Disable iCloud

You could also turn off your I-cloud but by doing that you would not be able to use the iCloud features. Go to Settings- iCloud- Documents & Data and click on Use Cellular to off.

5.  Keep Brightness at Medium Level

If you keep your brightness at maximum level it will consume up a lot of battery.Keeping your battery at medium level can help increase battery life.

6. Turn Off iTunes Wi-Fi Sync

If you have a continuous Wi-fi sync if you turn it off you will have better battery backup time.

7. Turn Diagnostics Off

Diagnostics consume up a lot of battery and so turning it off can save a lot of your phone’s battery.

8. Turn off Vibrations

Try not keeping your phone on the vibration mode to save up considerable amount of battery.

9. Turn Push-Notifications Off

Turn your push notifications to off to save up battery.this can also be of great help.

10. Complete Restore

If by following the above tips also you are not able to sustain your battery for long go for a complete restore of your phone but remember to back up before you restore so you can revert all your apps back.

The facts are enough to tell the popularity of Facebook among the people. However, the problem occurs when it comes to the talk of the security. The whole world is the victim of the incident that, how the cyber attacks affected the Orkut that was considered, as the most popular social networking site of its time. Therefore, a proper safety guard is much needed and the same thing goes with the Facebook, as nowadays it is the most lovable social site and that is why, the cyber criminals often attacks on it. Nevertheless, there is no need to worry, as I am going to tell you the 10 effective ways to protect your Facebook account.

1. The very first thing that you have to keep in your mind is that you should check the authenticity of every particular link that you visit. However, it can look as the genuine one but in spite of taking risk, you should check it.

2. The second thing is that never go with the short URLs because it can harm your account. Avoid the URLs that do not start with the www.facebook.com.

3. The third step is that you should be well aware of your spam content and do not trust on the links and the sources that are coming from the various sites.

4. The fourth tip is that if somebody asks you on the net to click on a particular link to get freeware or install a new and updated version of software that will run your system effectively. Then the thing that you have to do is just simply ignore that and close that link
by clicking on its ‘cross (x) because it can be a sort of virus that can affect your account as well as your system.

5. It must be possible that somebody has hacked your friend’s account and he/she can send you some suspicious links that can be harmful to you. Therefore, you have to be much aware from all these things.

6. Some of the links that, promises that you will get the products such as I-pods and other products, can be fake and can deliver a spam virus to your system. Therefore, always go with the trustful and well-known website.

7. Some interesting posts are there that attracts to go with their link. Beware, as it can be a way of hackers to hack your account and system.

8. The next tip is that always scan the item before downloading it from your Facebook account.

9. Login approval and the Account security are the two best options that can protect your account. Therefore, you should check all of them at the regular intervals.

10. The last but not the least way to protect your account is that never post any kind of java script or any other sort of codes to facebook URL as it can be a sort of malicious program just like Trojan. Make sure you always clean your cache and cookies even lending sites recommend that for example www.greatplainslending.com goes in depth on that if you fail to get through their process better to clean cookies and try again.

Therefore, these all were the effective ways to secure your Facebook account so just go and use it now!

The DSLRs are the multifunctional cameras but operating them is not a hard task to do, as it includes some simple step but the problem occurs there when it comes to clean the DSLR cameras and its lenses. However, there is no need to get worry as I am going to tell you some effective tips that will help you in cleaning its lenses and sensors.

Cleaning of lenses

Cleaning a lens is a hard task to do if you do not know the proper way of cleaning it. The lens of these cameras has three major parts that are front side lens, back sided lens and the filter. The tips to clean these lenses are as follows:-

1. The very first thing that you have to do is place all the lenses on a clean table and remember one thing that, dust should get in the contact with these lenses otherwise, it can affect them badly.
2. The second step is that you can use the blower to keep the lenses away from the lenses.
3. After that, you have to start the process with the first-slide lens and the same process will be conducted with the filter.
4. Drop 6 to 7 drops of lens solution on it and clean it with the use of micro-fiber cloth.
5. After cleaning it from the cloth again blows the blower so that remaining dust can be clean out.
6. Repeat the whole process for two to three times and the same process have to be conducted with the filter.
7. For cleaning the backside lens, the drop solution is strictly prohibited, as it can damage it. Therefore, a soft brush would be effectual in cleaning out these lenses.

Cleaning of sensor

The perfect cleaning of the sensor is mandatory, as it is the most essential tool of the camera that helps in capturing an image. The cleaning process of a sensor includes following steps:-

1. The first step you have to do is that lock the mirror up and if you do not know that how to do it, you can take the help of manual guide.
2. Place the camera in an isolated atmosphere and on a clean table.
3. Remove the lens and use the blower to blow out the short particles of the lens.
4. The next step is clean the sensor gently. You should wipe it in two ways either in the spiral pattern or in a linear pattern.
5. Repeating same process for 2 to 3 times will help you in the proper cleaning of the sensor.

Therefore, these were the tips that can help you ion the perfect cleaning of your DSLRs. However, avoiding same brushes for cleaning, too much amount of lens solution and the avoiding the use of lens cleaner will help you in the more effective cleaning.

This is a guest post from Kaitlyn Peloquin, a professional photographer who knows how tough it can be to work during a difficult economy. If you’re unable to find photography work and can’t pay your rent or utility bills, consider visiting plaingreenloans.com for help.