Proud to announce that Student Geek will be photographing, typing, playing and breaking at The Gadget Show Live!

Tickets for Gadget Show Live 2012, the UK’s biggest and best consumer tech event, are now on sale at www.gadgetshowlive.net/tickets. Taking place at Birmingham’s NEC from 11 – 15 April, the five-day event is the perfect place to see, try and buy the very latest tech – with many products being shown in the UK for the very first time.

Gadget Show Live 2011 sold out over six weeks before the doors opened last April, with close to 105,000 attendees. For 2012 the event has been further extended to include an additional hall packed with new features and exhibitors. To make sure as many gadget
fans as possible get to indulge their passion, an additional 10,000 tickets have also been released.

Based on the popular Five TV show, Gadget Show Live 2012 will see over 280 companies exhibit thousands of the coolest products on the market. Exhibitors already confirmed for the event include: Samsung, JVC, Sennheiser, Kenwood, Packard Bell & Acer.

Let us know if you are going? or have you been last year what did you think? What would you like to see? If you are exhibiting at this years show – give us a shout we may just write about you. Comment, Share or Poke below…

Student Geek is aimed and created in the UK but the content is for the world, it is important to understand the internet at the moment can be accessed across the world that values an open, secure, and free Internet. It does need protecting but that’s when education, common sense like not allowing minors, prevention of copying content using digital technology like DRM and making it easier and better to go legal should all help to improve piracy. Even though this legislation is being created in the US it affects us all and will set a president for other countries to follow.

A lot has improved for example Music buying has changed it has become easier to buy music easier and cheaper without the fluff of CD cases from Zune, iTunes and even listen to it for Free with Spotify or Last.fm so it has helped a lot and change attitudes but with Movies services are slowly becoming popular in like Flixster, LoveFilm, or BlinkBox. More TV’s get connected to the Internet the easier it will become.

Student Geek values open, secure, and free Internet.

Publishing freedom is a right we must protect.

Many websites are blacked out today to protest proposed U.S. legislation that threatens internet freedom: the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). From personal blogs to giants like WordPress and Wikipedia, sites all over the web — including this one — are asking you to help stop this dangerous legislation from being passed.

Passwords are used everywhere especially online to allow you to gain access to your emails, contacts, documents, spreadsheets, pictures and more.

Happy New Year! By now the hangover from the previous night has got over with… now it’s time to change your passwords with following tips in mind. Why I say this I hear you ask? Well how many times have you changed your password in 2010? once or never… not good enough so beef up the security with the following tips.

Keep it long

Keep your password it least  6 characters long if not longer but there may be restriction in place on the length so it is a balancing act but on average a 6 character password is stronger than four or less. To make it easier try creating a password that is a sentence or more than one word so it becomes long and difficult to guess.

Add a sprinkle of special characters

Special characters I hear you say? Simply <>@#[])(*&^%$£”! add any of them or use them to replace a ch&rcter. It will again help make your password stronger!

No Recycling!

I don’t mean being environmentally friendliness in this context, i mean being lazy by using the same password as you email address account password for your Facebook account password. Imagine if your mate got hold of one of them… Imagine what they can get up too in your email account. Obviously don’t write your password on paper.

Change your password regularly

Stay in trend and change your password regularly this way it keeps guessing puns… well, guessing. Poker account password hmmmm would it be ‘GaGa’. 

lower case and CAPITAL as part of your password

DO! have capitals in your password as passwords are normally case sensitive and this will make the hacker scream in pain!

Use num8ers

Use numbers to make it even more difficult to crack your password as many as you like though don’t use your date of birth or football team position as your numbers keep it random and don’t repeat the number more than once so use 7036 instead of 2322 as 2 is repeated three times so it is easier to crack.

 Obscure

Keep it obscure don’t use your name, your family members name, date of birth, door number, team position, postcode, favourite sports team, favourite food, favourite anything related to you that the person might use to gain access. Keep the password personal and a secrete.

Wanting to see it in a painting then see below…

The winter season and holiday has arrived and fast going. The Student Geek blogging project has passed well over  one year and now 404 days old being a web developer (you might have seen a 404 error code when you went to a page that does not exists, get it…) it would be a nice touch to mark this day with a post on highlights of the best posts since 2010/11 so far on the Student Geek Blog proudly powered by WordPress.com

Received a new Gadget?

If you have received a brand sparkling new computer (let it be Mac/Android/Windows/Linux based) system all of them need some tweaking to make it secure and if you don’t know student geeks tips on this  than take a look at  LOCK DOWN YOUR PC article.

Need to tighten the purse/wallet strings?

Been spending like mad with Christmas and Boxing Day sales in the UK than it maybe time to start saving whatever is left until you get your next pay packet so take a look at STUDENT GEEK SAVINGS! article on how to become a pro at saving whilst still enjoying luxuries (It doesn’t mean you become tight wad when buying drinks!)

Start a new year with a new Windows Live ID…

If you have a Windows Live/ Hotmail email address or creating a new one with your other email address than don’t forget to read how you could take advantage of it on other platforms like Xbox live profiles etc. Find out more at POWER OF WINDOWS LIVE ID! article.

Finally got a Windows Phone 7.5 device as a gift!

Congratulation for being cool (as i have one and fan)  but why not take a look at Student Geek suggestions on apps – take a look at ESSENTIALS APPS FOR WP7 UPDATE and ESSENTIAL APPS FOR YOUR NEW BABY…

The above articles are just suggestions on possible things you might or might not be wondering about that would be helpful at the moment but there are many more articles from group working to book reviews so explore the site, comment, share, like, rate and tweet about the articles.

Looking forward to writing more articles for next year aimed at and interactive on the campus, schools, colleges, clubs around the UK.

Don’t forget to like Student Geek on Facebook on exclusive content that never gets to make it on the blog, including offers, news and views or join the author of Student Geek on Twitter – Kiran Patel.

Long gone are the days where advert and TV programs kept distinct and separate but now in the world of TV from past few years in the US and recently in UK there is product placement.

Give a gift that’s personal

Domain Name aka Website Address

Domain name are great gifts, as they can be personalised to suite the person so you got a family member or mate fanatic about comics, than why not buy him/her a domain name with their name + with ‘Hero’ at the end. E.G. CJHERO.com/.co.uk or whatever you prefer.

Just make sure when you register the name you inform the company it will be a gift so they will arrange things properly.

Make something…

Long gone are the days of mixes on tape it’s now all about the playlist but I’m not thinking about making a music list but use millions of tutorials online in many forms videos on YouTube or VideoJug , step by step instructions from eHow

Check this Crafty ideas: Make your own unique gifts – It shows you how to create five festive presents with your computer. For Mac users get some inspiration with this blog post.

Subscriptions to an online service…

Music lover’s, Gamer’s or anyone else would love a year fully paid subscription to about anything they like so if it’s…

♪ Doof ♪ Doof ♪  music sort of person then a premium subscription to a music streaming service like Spotify or Zune Pass would be ideal so they can hear to their there hearts content all year-long remembering you of course .

Gamer… got a family member always asking you to buy games for them then get them a subscription to OnLive service to get games streamed to the desktop

Something different - Online Football Course…

I know it can be difficult to buy a sports fanatic when you done sporty gadgets, equipment, experience days and vouchers but have you tried getting them qualified as a coach find out more for football on http://www.thefa.com/falearning or  for another sport search for the sport body online qualification in a search engine.

Craft electronically…

Unleash your creative side and start getting those digital snaps out of the folders and get pimping (creative) using tools on your computer/mac or online tools like Animoto to create photo video with extra professional twist or moo cards give the feeling that there are on top of their game in business or great tool to be used in networking events.

Finally here are some great places to buy gifts in the traditional sense if you wish…

http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/ - The place to get great  gifts and stocking fillers

http://www.ebay.co.uk – The online auction marketplace

http://www.amazon.co.uk – The marketplace for about anything.

During the summer break I had the opportunity to teach a bunch of young people about becoming a webmaster and its basic skills of html and design concepts. The venue was new ex youth centre building that had an IT lab with a mix of mac’s and Windows laptops. There was wi-fi and excellent internet connection to all computer systems so that was not the problem.

“Panic or maybe not…”

There were number of things that made me nervous there was no room to project inside the IT lab, no web design software on any of the computers for me to use so it helps them in the process. I decided to see if i could use the web (cloud power) as my huge software bank to do everything online without installing or downloading anything to reduce the hassle of students finding it difficult move from one system to another.

I must say my first full experience of Mac that i had to use throughout the day to work on… whilst also using my windows laptop made it first frustrating but slowly got the hang of it to the point when end of the two-weeks I was going to missing doing things differently like on Mac’s taking screenshot of the screen – it saved automatically onto the desktop straight away without extra work as a jpg. (nudge-nudge:windows should have that as a feature in-built).

I used the following tools…

Projector – Cloud based Screen sharing service: join.me

To help save time, effort (to many things to mange when tutoring for the first time) and reduce the heat in the IT lab I decided to go against a projector set up inside, instead i used join.me to project aka share my presentation on the Mac’s and Windows  notebooks, desktops and devices with ease though don’t show a video it won’t good as a projector. Though demonstration  of steps while allowing them to do it on their individual systems made the whole process a bliss.

Painting/Photography editing tool – Cloud based paint application that did not require registration and was fully featured.

I wanted to give all my students all the tools they could have at hand with ease without the need of it being inconsistent due to the platforms or devices being different so I choose to use Sumo Paint equivalent to Photoshop/paint etc. for all the image editing needs or creation.

Storage solution - Cloud based storage system that was backup of my USB memory stick come the worst when a USB port not working or forgotten.

I stored all my files on a combination never all on one solution –  a mix of Dropbox, Box, and Windows Live SkyDrive due to my WP7 Phone. All of them provide a free offering and easy to register and get going.

Plain Text HTML editor - Cloud based version of simple Dreamweaver or Notepad to write HTML.

This was for me the most important as after teaching the student basic principles and foundations of web development and gave them a taste of using ‘what you see is what you get’ (WYSIWYG) platform like Google Sites it was important they got the raw coding skills done with ease like they did when using Google Sites Platform without coding involved so they are not put off by it.

I choose to use webs.com as it was where I first started my first website creation using a template and tweaking it but I knew that can downgrade the account to HTML only bypassing the templates. It did have some limitation as new account user when first sign up with them for few days to stop in-proper use but it did the job allowing the student build hand coded sites from scratch.

There are lots of tools out there and I am sure there are specialist cloud based tools/services. Especially useful for university assignment is Harvard Referencing . Did you find a cloud based tool/service that we have not mention on here, that you think is worthy to be mentioned than comment below.

Shortly returning from the extended break. Like our Facebook Page to keep in the know.

The summer months have not been quiet and we got lots to share with you from us and others around the UK.

The idea behind this article came when I was taking picture in a car park at the airport, you will understand why a lot more clearly below but I wanted to share how I use the mobile camera as a tool to effectively make my life easier, which many of you would appreciate and gain from.

The title says it all for this article, as the mobile camera is quite a powerful tool but we all need to know what we use it for other than taking standard photographs.

Car Parking

Don’t forget where you have parked car ever again instead take picture of the sign indicating what level or zone you parked at  and you will never forget.

Handheld scanner in your pocket

Take a photograph of the document rather than waiting to get home to scan. You don’t need an app just use the inbuilt camera and take a snap this is especially true if you have 5 or more megapixel camera with auto focus on. If you’re using windows phone 7 device then the photograph will automatically  sync and update the Windows Live  SkyDrive service, saving you the hassle of transferring from device to PC/MAC.

QR Code

QR codes look similar to bar code but are different though they work on the same principle of allowing to gain more information on the product/service.

Finally, this has become more widespread than butter itself, in newspapers, posters, on product package and now TV shows in particular the BBC One program  ‘The Good Cook’ by Food writer Simon Hopkinson, which uses QR codes to take you to the recipe page on the website.

All major smartphone’s can handle QR codes and you are normally required to download a special app that scans and translates it into link/number/text. If you use one on your phone and you think it is good let us know below – Don’t forget to tell us what platform you use (iPhone/Android/Blackberry/Windows Phone 7)

Make money

You can sell your masterpieces to other people who need photographs like newspapers, media houses etc using sites such  Flickr and Getty Images (enable selling feature) and Photobox Galleries. Pro Galleries. Though be careful on how much commission/charges they take from your sale.

Collect points

No one has time to login into the reward scheme website such as Coke-Cola’s Coke Zone or McVitites VIP Club when on the go nor do you want to carry the packet/can home in your bag instead take a photograph.

Want more ideas to save take a look at Student Geek Savings!

I hope the article were helpful, again if you have any suggestions do let me know below by commenting or using the contact form.

I thought I’d compile a list of student geek saving tips! I have spent few days wondering how I was going to present to all my legends…. and decided to do it in stages where this is just start of many updates or follow up articles, tweets or suggestions on the Student Geek page on Facebook or the site.

The  sales are all gone and the summer is fast approaching, the pockets might be tight as bills as pile up and i know the job market is tight wad at the moment so keeping everyone of those hard earned pennys will become useful especially if you are a student now going to university…

The suggestions may be aimed at UK audience but it does not mean there may not be a local opportunity in your country so do look into it.

Check the Prices: Google It! – www.google.co.uk or Ask Bing is it worth it? – www.bing.co.uk

This is also true when shopping on the high street! I have so far got laptop Belkin cooling unit for remarkable cut down so it does work.

Another trick to use to make things quicker use the tool in your pocket whilst you are in-store to compare prices  by going online and googling or asking bing.

FREEBIES! Great but don’t let your guard down.

Money Saving Expert – www.moneysavingexpert.com

I mentioned being a money saving convert a proud geek one be it! As technology moves so fast as geek loving his technology and gadget its important for him/her to keep up with latest freebies and offers and the best way to do that is to get the online community to help you. Visit Money Saving Expert for financial guidance and details on coupons/offers on buying your essentials from the supermarket to increasing your income online. Don’t forget the freebies board on the forum.

You might find me answering questions on the Techie Stuff Board

Become Fans of brands you love!

This is something that you can only do if you have a social media accounts with services like Facebook or Twitter and you would have to keep an eye on the ‘wall’ or ‘feed’ to see if there are offers, many of them hold weekly competitions or give-aways especially Fridays for some reason.

Let loyalty count

Do you have a favourite brand that you always use McVities biscuits and Coke-Cola both do a point collection programme online after buying the selected products. If you want your shopping basket in general work for you in  Tesco’s and Sainsbury’s then use their loyalty programmes Tesco Clubcard and Sainsbury Nectar Scheme or Staple Reward. Both supermarkets also provide the opportunity to gain or spend points/cash outside of the supermarkets sometimes double values in return.

Don’t pay for 0845 or 0870 etc numbers get a freephone or alternative geographic area number

There is always a time when you have to get in contact with a company’s customer service or call centre to get what ever the problem is resolved quickly and it can be more frustrating when we have to folk out the cash for the call when they are to blame. Instead use http://www.saynoto0870.com/ to get the alternative geographic or freephone number.

Unlock the potential of the mobile phone whilst shopping

Reduce the need to spend by browsing instead use your phone to create a shopping list (trust me it helps as it saves you time and money) stops you from buying non essentials that are not listed in your list or stops you forgetting things.

Use the camera to scan and search the net for comparison on price or just search the net using the web browser of your phone. Find out more by reading Unleashing the power of the mobile camera article on Student Geek.

Student Discount

Double check before proceeding with payment Online if there is a student discount available (sometimes via special promo code or link to special section of the shop website) if not try searching  voucher codes with shop name on a search engine and refer to the results.

Microsoft provides Microsoft DreamSpark as a great incentive to get student and educators creating and using their software. Some of which is normally not cheap to buy but available to you for FREE if you are a student attending a full-time course at a eligible UK educational establishment. Please refer to website for further details.

There are many more tips and tricks but at this moment I think there is enough for you to get started on and do let me know what has worked for you or not and your own advice.

—

Legal bit: Note Student Geek does not endorse any product  or service in this article other than offer a suggestion, tip or advice that you use at your own risk.

This article was inspired by after the theme from Liam and Dan articles!