Jason Fitzpatrick

With TeamViewer for Android or iOS, remote desktop connections to Windows, Mac or Linux are a snap. It’s free for non-commercial use and easy to set up — no fussing with firewall rules, ports or IP addresses required.

TeamViewer is one of the remote-access programs most favored by our readers. While there are other ways to access desktops from the palm of your hand, none are quite as easy to set up. We’ll be using the Android app in this article, but the iOS app should work the same way.

Although caffeinated drinks are enjoyed by all manner of folks, there is a deep affection for caffeine in the geek community. This week we want to hear about your caffeine workflow–how do you get the caffeine from the bean to your brain?

Low-tech, high-tech, store bought, or hand-roasted in small batches with a loving touch, we want to hear all about how you enjoy your coffee or other caffeine sources. Sound off in the comments with tips on getting the best brew, buzz, or both to help your fellow readers enjoy a caffeine workflow just as well tuned. Don’t forget to check back on Friday for the What You Said roundup!

Mario needs to destroy the castle before he can continue his quest, but it is an extremely tough castle! Can he succeed once he unleashes all that awesome mega cannon power or will his quest fail in the end?

Cannon Something [via Dorkly Bits]

As of Ubuntu 11.04, a new feature was added, called the Global Menu, which is a common menu bar shared by all applications (shown above). Most of us have been used to each application window having its own menu bar.

The Global Menu is available on the top panel on the Unity desktop, no matter where the application window is. If you have an application window resized to be small in the lower, right corner of your screen, the menu bar for that application is still on the top panel. This can be confusing and uncomfortable if you are not used to it. If you don’t like the new Global Menu and want to move the menu bars back to each respective application window, we’ll show you how to disable the Global Menu.

Press Ctrl + Alt + T to open a Terminal window. Type the following command at the prompt and press Enter.

sudo apt-get autoremove appmenu-gtk appmenu-gtk3 appmenu-qt

Tokyo, Night, Buildings, River, Bridge [The Paper Wall]

What if you combined an 8-bit RPG with global access in a sort of 1988 meets the modern Internet mashup? You’d end up with Realm of the Mad God, a sprite-fueled massive multiplayer adventure.

Realm of the Mad God mashes together so many different aspects of modern gaming that it’s immediately intuitive to use. You navigate using the standard FPS shooter WASD keyboard keys, you aim and use your weapons using the mouse and left click button, you gather gold and experience to get more gear, and so on. While that alone would make for a pretty fun retro-looking game, Realm of the Mad God has all sorts of neat innovations lurking under it’s block shell. Rather than follow the fixed-map-and-bad-guys model that most MMORPGs follow, Realm of the Mad God has built-in regeneration. Once players level up, they are summoned to fight the Mad God and, if they defeat him, the entire Realm is rebooted and regenerated with new content.

The game has a freemium model. It’s totally free to play and, if you’re so inclined and become addicted to the game, you can pay small fees to expand your on-character inventory, have a second character in the game, or partake in other fun (but not essential) upgrades.

Realm of the Mad God [via Boing Boing]

This straight forward tutorial outlines how you can turn an old book into a secret switch–what the switch controls is only limited by your imagination.

The tutorial’s author, a renter, didn’t have the liberty to go punching holes in walls and turning his secret book switch into the trigger for a secret passage way. While his book switch simply turns on the lights in his wife’s office, you can easily adapt it to turn on/trigger anything you’ve got the skills to connect to the switch. Anyone have any suggestions for a good book to use for a party-mode trigger?

Hidden Bookshelf Light Switch [via Hack A Day]

If those guys only knew who they were really playing against…

And just for fun here is the video the comic is based on.

Gaming Level: Asian [9GAG]

Nintendo 3DS – Worldwide Commercial [YouTube]

This DIY digital clock takes Persistence of Vision (POV) hacking to a new level by combining the more common POV tricks based on a spinning old hard drive with a sweet digital clock display created through POV.

Watch the video above to see the clock explained by it’s maker and in action. Although the DIY guts are quite complex the premise of it is straight forward: there are LED lights under the etched disk that blink at the perfect time to shine through the numbers and create and illusion of a digital display. Hit up the link below for more details.

Digital POV Clock [via Hacked Gadgets]

Every time you open a Microsoft Office application, you have to wait for the splash screen to disappear. If you want this to go away, here’s how you can disable the startup screen.

Note: Since we are creating a shortcut this will only disable the splash screens when creating a new document, but it will not be disabled when you open a document by double-clicking on it.

This guide assumes you have the x86 version of Office 2010 installed on a x64 edition of Windows. However if your configuration is different you can find the files to create shortcuts to in the following locations:

x86 Office on x86 Windows

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14

x64 Office on x64 Windows

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office14

Just remember if your binaries are in a different location, you mustn’t forget to add the switch to the end of the shortcut or it wont work

The hardest part of compiling software on Linux is locating its dependencies and installing them. Ubuntu has apt commands that automatically detect, locate and install dependencies, doing the hard work for you.

We recently covered the basics of compiling software from source on Ubuntu, so check out our original article if you’re just getting started.

Have you ever wanted to work on a project with the ability to track your changes as well as revert them? How-To Geek explains How-To use the popular version tracking system, Subversion (a.k.a SVN).

Image by Clearly Ambiguous

Since our home servers are constantly on, and often headless, it is nice to know when certain events happen on your server without having to log in and check all the time. This is where email notifications save the day.

To set up E-Mail notifications in Windows Home Server, the first thing you going to want to do is fire up the Dashboard.

Once the Dashboard has opened, click on the notifications button

You’re a reader on the move and you don’t have time for a tethered sync—that’s no problem. Today we’ll show you how to keep your ebook library synced to your iPad via Dropbox.

Whether you’re reading novels, brushing up on your favorite RPG manuals, or otherwise consuming ebooks on the go, this tutorial will show you how you can leverage your Dropbox account to keep your documents at your finger tips.

Find out (or satisfy your curiosity) about the best countries for starting a business, ease of doing business, and more this year with this terrific infographic.

Note: Cropped version of infographic shown here due to image length.

View the Full-Size Version Here

Singapore Still the Best Place for Entrepreneurs [Infographic] & Infographic.jp [via TinyHacker]

This is definitely going to be a very long RDP session…

Reddit [via Fail Desk]

We can only imagine what would happen if this anti-theft briefcase accidentally activated during a meeting (or, worse, in your car on the commute home).

[via Neatorma]

Chrome: If you’re looking for a way to put your favorite bookmarklets, complete with custom icons, onto your Google Chrome toolbar, this handy web-app converts them to true extensions.

Convert Bookmarklet to Chrome Extension is a simple tool that takes the JavaScript from your bookmarklet and converts it to a Chrome extension. Although the site offers instructions on downloading installing the extension, they don’t offer any guidance on customizing the icon. For that, we recommend you check out the full guide at Freeware Genius below.

How to Convert a Bookmarklet into a Chrome Extension [Freeware Genius]

Note: The original image size is 1600*1200 pixels, but can be easily placed on a matching background to fit your monitor’s resolution.

USB/Linux [The Paper Wall]

Nixie tube counters are popular among geeks, especially those building retro projects. This clever kit combines the look of a Nixie tube but with a heart of LEDs and a PCB board.

The original Nixie tube counters used glowing wire as displays for on-the-fly and bright number display in a pre-LED age. This neat kit uses edge lit acrylic sheets to create the visual effect of a Nixie tube with LED. Watch the video above to see it in action and then hit up the link below to read more about the kits.

Edgelit Nixie Display [via Hack A Day]

The Apple TV is one of the best media streamers on the market, but if you don’t buy into Apple’s ecosystem it lacks functionality. Here’s how to supercharge your Apple TV by installing alternate media players like XBMC and Plex.

The first thing you will need to do is jailbreak your Apple TV. Luckily the process is very easy and we have already shown you how to do it.

The next thing you will need is the ability to SSH into your Apple TV. After the jailbreak, openSSH server is automatically installed and turned on so you’ll just need a client to connect to the device and the IP address to connect to. We have already shown you how to use SSH in a previous article if you need to review.

We all have had a time when we have done some private browsing, maybe for someone’s birthday present, on the internet without going into “private” mode. Here’s the beginner’s guide to clearing your web history in any of the major browsers.

Note: this article is meant for beginners, as the title clearly states. Be nice in the comments.