10 Ways to Make Your Home Geeky Cool

Fancy a home with some stylish and geeky home improvements? OK, you've got the geek gear. You've got the geek garb. But have you got the geek house? Read on as GeekTech shows you how to make your home into something friends would be envious of, using cool DIY projects or hacks.

Rainbowduino Coffee Table

Most coffee tables are merely functional, but the Rainbowduino is a conversation piece. The table itself is made from wood, but the grid in side just cardboard slotted together. In each of the cardboard squares is an LED that is capable of changing into various colors. The individual LEDs are controlled by an Arduino microcontroller. Add in a 64Pixelmatrix, and you have a coffee table that's not only pretty to look at, but capable of mini light shows.

Hydraulic Kitchen Island

If you want extra workspace or storage in the kitchen without making the room too cramped, make an island that disappears into the floor. Web developer Tim Thaler used a hydraulic scissor lift to get the cabinet moving up and down. When down, the island simply lowers into a utility room. Tim uses an iPhone app to control his hydraulic island: Once the island is fully up or down, the app cuts the power to the lift. Sadly, the necessary equipment doesn't come cheap, so you might want to do a little eBay shopping. Check out the video of the cabinet in action.

DIY Pantry Light

If you happen to have a pantry in your house and know a little about circuits, this very straightforward hack may be for you. The DIY pantry light, by Gina Trapani’s father-in-law, was made using a watch holder and rope lights. By attaching the switch just so, the light switches off as you close the door, which prevents wasted electricity. Check out Gina's image gallery on Flickr.

Propeller Lamp

If the rainbowduino coffee table wasn't quirky enough for you, how about a dimming propeller lamp made out of trash cans? The long LED lamp is made out of two trash cans and a sheet of PVC, and it you can adjust the brightness using a Sony remote control. Parallax Forums has the details.

Android-Controlled Garden

More a potential product than a hack, the Android-powered Farmbox lets you grow and manage your garden with a tap of an app. Once hooked up to your phone, Farmbox will automatically make sure your plants or vegetables get enough water, light, temperature and nutrients needed to grow nicely. What's more, data about your plants is uploaded to a cloud service, so you can record how to successfully recreate it again, or pass on to impressed friends..

Household Informer

There's nothing more irritating than having to go out in the rain or cold just to check your snail mailbox, only to find there's nothing there. Argh! Why not wire up your house to tell you when the mail has arrived instead? Household Informer can do more than let you know when you have mail: this hack is based around an AVR chip and has particular sensors for each function you want it to perform(you can set it up to open your garage door, for example). See the Instructables page for info on how to set up the useful system.

Automated Faucet for Cat Watering

Forget to fill up the cat's water bowl and wish Kitty could fill his own bowl? Although the latter may not happen for some time, this hack not only fills up the cat's bowl automatically, but also tracks the cat's water usage, so no wasting water. The hacked device is attached to a water tap, and controlled by a sensor and data logging on Linux via Xbee and MongoDB. The tap will sense when it is being used, and communicates with the PC, which then determines if it was the cat waiting for water or a human (a false positive on the data). This will then produce the right amount of water, when the cat wants it (well, most of the time, anyway). Follow the instructions to work it out for yourself, but be patient--it may take a while to complete.

Unlock Without a Key

Now, if you really want to show off, why not unlock your front door without using the key? You don't need to be a Jedi for this trick: With some coding and the use of Twilio software, you can simply text "open" or "close" to the door to control it. In addition, the door will reply to confirm that is locking or unlocking. Have a hunch that you didn't lock the door when you left for work? Text the door and it can also give you its current status, putting your mind at ease (hopefully). Check out the video below to see it in action:

Tweet-A-Pot

Coffee's great; having to make it is not. Enter Tweet-A-Pot: With the help of an Ardunio board, a Twitter account (and a custom hashtag), and a little Python coding know-how you can get your coffee machine pouring your beverage with only a tweet. That's a bit of time saved in the morning rush before work, or when entertaining friends.
Still want more? Here's a bonus idea:

Kinect Hack Rave!

Bring the club to your own living room with lasers and Kinect. This hack, created by Matt Davis, uses body movements to control the music and light show. To get music tracks flowing together nicely, the hack uses an OpenNI interface with Max/MSP (a visual programming language) and Ableton Live (a music sequencer). Watch Matt's explanatory video for the full details on how to bring the fun to your house.

10 super Geeky tips for 2012 (for educators, parents and kids)

Here are 10 things that teachers, parents and students can do to help ensure a SUPER GEEKY SAFE....errm... Aware! new year. (There is no *safe* on the Internet, only Aware!)

1) Change your passwords. Yes, ALL of them.

According to CNN Tech, an eight-digit password can be hacked in two hours but a 12-character password would take 17 years. Use this handy NEW! Comic Tutorial to create a great new password for every website....don't worry, there's a trick! (In the small print I said three important things:
*Change your passwords twice a year
*Have a different password for Facebook that you don't use for anywhere else.
*I’m not a security expert and nothing is foolproof.

2) Dump your cache, cookies, and clear history

At least once a year (I try quarterly), go to every computer you use public and private, at home and at work — and dump the cache, clear your cookies, and clear the browsing history.

3) Back up your data

“Hacks and hardware failures happen. Before this year gets going, make sure as much of your data as possible is protected, from calendars and contacts to blog posts and work projects. More of us are relying on networks of servers and startups to keep us running. So, now might be a good time to download and back up files of your contacts and blog posts — anything that's valuable to you and portable.”
Get a big external hard drive but also burn the really important stuff to CD or DVD because I've had externals die on me.

“Think of it this way: You — or at least parts of you — live on the Internet. If the Internet caught on fire, what would you grab to carry with you out of the blaze?" (Quoted, inspired and adapted from Jolie O'Dell)

4) Edit your privacy settings and friendships

Facebook is notoriously changing its privacy settings (which is why I've had an on-again and off-again relationship with it). Google "latest Facebook privacy settings" to read blogs with advice on how to double check that you're sharing what you want to share. Consider what you share and who you share it with. Also, look at your friends. Are you really friends with them? Do they add to the conversation? Have they contributed lately?

“While considering what's private and public, take time to evaluate what a ‘friend,’ ‘contact’ or ‘follower’ means to you and what types of information you share with different groups.” (Quoted from Jolie O'Dell)

5) Build a Personal Learning Network

For educators, having a Personal Learning Network is essential to stay in tune with the trends, whether you join a Ning or Twitter (even just for conferences). Here's a “getting started Flickr” gallery so you can start talking to other excited educators about new ideas ... crowdsource!

Got a question? Pose it to the PLN and you'll be amazed at the answers you get! See a question someone else is asking for which you have an answer? Contribute! (I try to give 95% and only ask for help 5%) GIVE, give, and give some more! Share shamelesly! Whatever you create think of your other educators out there who might benefit from it. Add it to your blog, wiki or slideshare! No one likes to re-create the wheel.
P.S.: Always give attribution!

6) Buy your name (and your child’s)

For $10 a year, you can own your own domain through Google Apps. You don't want to be the last person who has their own domain or let someone else get it. I was lazy in this, considered it back in the late ‘90's and went with Angelfire instead. I wish I had grabbed Gwyneth Jones before the Welsh opera singer and the Sci Fi young adult author of tsame name did! Ahh well!
Now I have two domains ... thedairnglibrarian.com for this blog and daringlibrarian.com for my electronic portfolio.

7) Get wikified
Sure, there are LibGuides and LiveBinders out there but nothing is as easy to use, flexible, FREE, and just a joy as Wikispaces! So, if you're not ready to buy a domain but want more than a school-based web page, create a FREE K-12 Wikispaces.

8) Clean out your Apps!

If you have a smart phone, iPad, or tablet review, clean out the APPS you have downloaded. If you aren’t using them, they are taking up valuable memory and space and could be slowing down your phone or tablet. Also delete old versions of Apps. I had a lot of “lite” FREE versions of Apps that I later bought (such as, yes, Angry Birds and Air Penguin). I get better performance by cleaning once a year!

9) Be transparent and walk wisely

Though some still consider it a big leap for an educator to be transparent on the web, I think that horse has left the barn. I went transparent in 2009. Sure, it's a little scary but worth it if you're building a Planning Learning Network and want to make a "name" for yourself out there. Our names are already "out there" and it’s best to craft how it shows up yourself and be a good role model. So now I’m gwyneth jones here and on Twitter in addition to on my electronic portfolio and on my wikis.

We should all be good role models for our kids and students about the footprints we leave on the web. Google your name, your child’s name, (“your name” add state) and see what comes up. It is up to us to create a positive digital footprint, one that we can show future education institutions, employers and others.

10) Consolidate your flashdrives ... and then try the cloud!

We all have a gajillion flashdrives floating around from 128mg's to16gb's.
Lazy Way: Gather them all and create a folder on your external HD called flashdrive backups (or one folder per flashdrive) and drag all of the material in there.

Smart Way: Trash what you don't need and save only the archive-worth stuff. Are those drives named? Do you have an .RTF doc on it that says "If found, please read," with your contact information? I give every new teacher to my school a new 4G flashdrive and sometimes they lose them (I'm looking at you, Justin! LOL.) You want to give yourself a chance to get it back if lost.

Now throw out old flashdrives and consider using Dropbox, Amazon Prime storage, iCloud, or Google docs to save your stuff! Don't have Dropbox? I blogged about this amazing resource a couple months ago. Get it by using this special secret squirrel link to register for dropbox. Educators can use their school email account and get EXTRA FREE SPACE! (it's a geeky pyramid scheme but so worth it!) Dropbox allows you to store your files online, share files with others, and sync your documents with multiple computers and mobile devices. I have it on my iPad and all my Macs both home and at school!

This is a must-have tool for educators! It's free, convenient and saves times.