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Want to send some Geek Love to that special someone? Why not do it with these elementary school throwback valentines, and win their heart this upcoming Valentine’s day—the geek way! Read on to see the simple method to make your own custom Valentines, as well as download a set of eleven ready-made ones any geek guy or gal should be delighted get. It’s amore! How the HTG Custom Valentines Were Made In Photoshop A size we’ve used for all of our Valentines is a 3” x 4” at 150 dpi....

A few months ago, we sent our ubergeeky writer Justin down to a Samsung event to check out their new line of Smart TVs, where he also created a video showing off how their search feature works. It’s worth watching, if for no other reason than to see how well he did. Editorial Disclaimer: of course, this video is obviously a Samsung commercial, and we aren’t necessarily backing their products, nor did we receive any money....

How-To Geek is a great place to learn all kinds of things, and some of our articles are in-depth explanations of how something works. We call these explainer topics, and here’s the best ones that we published in 2011. What Files Should You Backup on Your Windows PC? You’ve probably been told many times that it’s a good idea to backup your PC. But, where do you start? What do you actually need to backup?...

Last year Google added the ability to plot graphs, which allows you to plot mathematical functions right on the Google search result page. Here’s how to make the Batman logo. Originally when the graphing capabilities were added to search, many people wondered how advanced the Google Graphing Engine really was. Many search guru’s argued that it wasn’t possible to graph the “Batman Function”, however, recently a man named Roland Mieslinger managed to figure out the seemingly impossible equation....

Wi-Fi is a big part of everybody’s daily life. However, it can cause frustration if not set up properly or optimally. Worse than that, it can get you into big trouble if it is not secure. Understanding more about routers and setting up Wi-Fi on PCs, Macs, and mobile devices, can provide a better and safer experience when getting online wirelessly. The following articles explain about the hardware used for Wi-Fi, and how to set it up securely on different platforms including mobile devices, configure and optimize the hardware, install and use alternative firmware for the hardware, customize Wi-Fi settings, and stay secure when using Wi-Fi on a home or public network....

Every week we bring you a snapshot of the week in Geek History. This week we’re taking a peek at the public release of Gmail, the first time a computer won against a chess champion, and the birth of prolific inventor Thomas Edison. Gmail Goes Public It’s hard to believe that Gmail has only been around for seven years and that for the first three years of its life it was invite only....

Valve’s Steam Machines aim to bring your Steam game library right into your living room (but at a rather steep premium). Today we’ll show you how to bring your Steam library (plus all your other computer games) to your living room for a fraction of the price with a Raspberry Pi. Why Do I Want To Do This? Hands down the most versatile gaming experience is the one you have on your Windows computer....

Docker storage drivers control how images and containers are stored on your filesystem. They’re the mechanism that lets you create images, start containers, and modify writable layers. Here are the differences between each driver and the situations where they should be used. What Are Storage Drivers For? The active storage driver determines how Docker manages your images and containers. The available drivers implement different strategies for handling image layers. They’ll have unique performance characteristics depending on the storage scenario at hand....

Service meshes are generally found in distributed systems composed of microservices. The mesh provides a way for different services to exchange data. It only handles internal traffic, handing off to an API gateway or edge node to serve to users. Popular meshes include Linkerd and Istio. What’s Inside The Mesh? The basic concept of a service mesh is quite straightforward. The layer encapsulates network proxies that route traffic into individual services....

What Are Data Scraping and Web Scraping? Data scraping and web scraping are two different automated techniques that achieve the same end. They harvest data from systems owned by third parties. They extract the data, collate it, and store it in ways that facilitate its reuse. Typically this means putting it into a database or into a portable format like CSV. Data scraping makes use of APIs provided by the platform that is being scraped, even though the terms of use of the API almost certainly prohibit the gathering of data en masse....

Technical Debt Technical debt is the deficit between the assumed performance of something and what it actually delivers. Because of the disparity, there is an unavoidable underperformance. Technical debt doesn’t age well. As the disparity grows so your exposure to risk grows. Technical debt can slowly accrue. Aging hardware and operating systems eventually slide backward out of their manufacturers’ support cycles. The technical debt is the mounting security risk that you’re exposing your organization to by running systems that don’t receive security patches....

You can’t normally “undo” an email sent by mistake. Some email clients have undo-like features, such as the “Recall” feature in Microsoft Outlook, but these won’t work most of the time. When sending emails, don’t click the Send button until you’re absolutely sure you want to send the email. Whether it’s a message you wish you hadn’t sent or just an embarrassing typo, you can’t usually take it back....

How-To Geek has provided all kinds of tips and tricks to help you get the most from your Windows 7 system. The following are 20 of the best articles we’ve published about Windows 7 in 2011. How to Remove Win 7 Anti-Spyware 2011 (Fake Anti-Virus Infections) There are many fake antivirus, malware, and spyware applications out there that get a hold of your computer and hold it hostage until you pay money to have the virus, malware, or spyware removed....

Ubuntu 12.04 is upon us. Aside from the usual assortment of bug fixes and updated software, Ubuntu’s Unity desktop environment has been polished and offers new features and more configurability. Precise Pangolin doesn’t include any dramatic changes, but it offers polish and refinement — while filling gaps in Unity. As an LTS (long-term service) release, it will be supported for five years on both desktops and servers. The HUD Ubuntu’s new heads-up display is probably the most interesting and groundbreaking feature in Precise Pangolin....

Today we’ve learned that Yahoo is shutting down Delicious, a fairly popular online service that let you organize your bookmarks, so if you want to get your bookmarks out and migrate to another service, here’s how to do it. You can use the export tool to easily get a copy of your bookmarks, and then use that file to import into any number of places, including your regular browser bookmarks....

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....

Every week we dip into the reader mail bag and pull out tips and tricks to share. This week we’re looking at a super simple shortcut for resizing windows, how to contain your mouse in a multi-monitor setup, and how to check your battery configuration. Extend a Window Vertically with a Single Click Writing in from Ohio, reader Charles shares a clever tip that was brand new to us:...

Once a week we round up some great reader tips and share them with everyone. This week we’re looking at a database of video game play times, repairing your computer mouse, and a visually pleasing Android timer. Check Video Game Play Times at Video Game Length Angelo writes in with the following game-centric tip: We blew threw Portal playing casually over a long weekend, so we agree that estimate seems spot on....

To use Google Slides in offline mode you will need to make sure that you have Offline Editing for Docs enabled as shown here. You can enable it via the Settings Menu in the upper right corner of the browser window. Note: We have included the link to the offline mode set up instructions below for your convenience. Once that is done or if you had previously set up Google Docs for offline mode, then the only other requirements are that you need to have the Google Slides App installed (link below), and be using Chrome or ChromeOS....

Google Sheets is home to several expense-tracking and budget spreadsheets. Most of these pick a default currency, but if you want to change that, we have you covered. Here’s how to change the currency symbol in Google Sheets. We recently started using one of these expense-tracking spreadsheets on Google Sheets, and surprisingly, the chosen currency was British pounds. You can easily change that to U.S. dollars or other currencies....