Having a themed bedroom is a dream of every geek (check here for signs of whether you are a geek yourself). That’s the personal space where a geek’s interests and passion is reflected in privacy. We’re not talking about movie posters or those you rip out of magazines, or a measly figurine collection that could hardly be called ‘a collection’. That’s mere child’s play.

No, what we want to see are the bedrooms of the No.1 Fans out there. The rooms you as a megafan could only dream of sleeping in. Where the walls, bedsheets, lighting fixtures, furniture, floor, right down to the pillows are made with the fantasy theme in mind. Because at the end of the day, what could be more fun than entering your very own world at night and waking from your fantasy dream every morning?

Recommended Reading: 35 Tech-Inspired Pillows For Geeks

Be you pirate or wizard, jedi or gamer, these are the 25 fantasy-themed bedrooms to die for.

Superman. (Image Source: Home Decor)

Superman. (Image Source: Home Decor)

Spiderman. (Image Source: ThemeRooms)

Batman. (Image Source: eden-motel)

X-Men. (Image Source: Victoria Court)

Star Wars. (Image Source: Walls Of Art LLC Muralist)

Star Wars. (Image Source: damngeeky)

Star Wars. (Image Source: Mary)

Space Geek. (Image Source: madincrafts)

Space. (Image Source: Houzz)

Deep Space Fighter. (Image Source: PoshTots)

Hyperspace. (Image Source: HLK)

Airplane Cockpit. (Image Source: Apartment Therapy)

Legoland Pirate. (Image Source: California Legoland)

Legos Inspired. (Image Source: Anita Roll Murals)

Super Mario. (Image Source: nocagri)

Super Mario. (Image Source: PixFans)

Pacman. (Image Source: Anita Roll)

Hello Kitty. (Image Source: Grand Hi-Lai)

Narnia. (Image Source: imgur)

The Portal Game. (Image Source: The Portal Bedroom)

The Hobbit. (Image Source: Florian)

Harry Potter. (Image Source: cosmosmagic)

Harry Potter. (Image Source: iTrip)

Hogwarts. (Image Source: piercethepanic69)

Editor’s note: This is a contributed post by Marcus Austin. Marcus has over 25 years of experience in tech and the business sector. He currently works for Firebrand Training as a Technical Author.

The Windows 8 app market is booming, according to MetroScore Scanner there are now more than 100,000 apps in the Windows 8 app store, twice the number of apps that were available just a mere three months prior. A great catalyst to the fast growth was probably due to the reward system launched by Microsoft to entice developers to submit good apps to the Windows Store.

While far from the 700,000 apps in the Play Store and 850,000 iOS apps in the App store, 100,000 apps in the Windows Store means your Win 8 app stands a great chance of standing out. There’s never been a better time to create a Windows 8 app. Plus, it’s also a lot easier to do than you think, and you don’t even have to know how to code.

Recommended Reading: 50 Windows 8 Keyboard Shortcuts You Should Know

To Build A Windows 8 App

If you’re a Windows developer then you’ll already have everything you need to create a Windows app, which means there’s no steep learning curve, and there’s no need to spend a fortune on new coding tools.

If you’re not then you’ll need a copy of Microsoft Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows 8 it’s free and available to download from Microsoft. And a of course you’ll need a copy of Windows 8.

If you’re a Mac user then you’ll be pleased to hear that you can build Windows 8 apps on Mac. Microsoft is so keen for everyone to produce Windows apps that they’ve created a helpful page to show users how to build Windows 8 apps using a Mac.

Coding Skills Required?

If you want to write your own code, then you’ll need knowledge of either a web development language like HTML5, CSS and JavaScript, or a conventional programming language, such as C++, C# or Visual Basic (VB.NET) and XAML.

If you’re unfamiliar with any of those languages then there’s a free ebook Programming Windows 8 Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript from Microsoft Press, that covers everything you need to know to build a Windows 8 app. There are also a handful of sample apps and chunks of code that you can download and cut and paste to make things easier.

How To Build A Windows 8 App Without Coding Skills

If programming isn’t really your thing and you want to create a simple information app then the Zipapp web site is just for you. Zipapp will let you create an entire app without you having to produce a single line of code. With this, one can create apps with static pages and with feeds from Twitter / YouTube / Facebook and any compatible RSS feed, ideal for users with a blog or active Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels.

If you are going to get your hands dirty and code, then the good news is that the code for Windows apps is similar to the way you would code for a Windows desktop program currently, and there are plenty of ‘Hello World’ examples available for you to work through if you’re unsure.

Building ‘Touch First’

While the coding is similar the interface is something new altogether. The Windows Modern user interface (UI) was designed for touch screens, and works in a different way than the standard Windows UI that we’ve grown used to.

Microsoft wants app designers to design for ‘touch first’. Developers will need to think in a more graphical way and consider things, such as the increasing the spacing between links on the app (fingers are ‘larger’ than a mouse pointer making links that are too close together difficult to click on).

The upshot of this ‘touch first’ design requirement is that you will probably need to spend a bit longer on the design than you would on a normal desktop application.

Additionally if you’re going to produce an app for Windows Phone 8 devices you will also need to consider what the app will look like on different devices and in different orientations e.g. a small portrait-format screen rather than the normal landscape screen you get on a PC.

Mastering Windows 8 Design

If this sounds tricky then there are a few very useful web pages and books available that can help you get to grips with the Modern design. The Planning Windows Store apps pages on MSDN are a good starting point and will guide you through all the things you’ll need to consider before designing your app.

Additionally the Design Guidance for Windows Store apps pages give some user experience guidelines as well as information on things like:

• how to organise content
• where to place your common commands like copy, paste
• what commands go in the app bar or in Charms
• what touch gestures to use
• where to place advertising if you need it

Testing Apps With App Certification Kit

Once you’re happy with your design and you’ve created your code for the app you need to test the app. To help test the app Microsoft has created the Windows App Certification Kit which analyses your applications code and tests the app for reliability, performance, adherence to Windows security features as well as conducting a test to see if the app conforms to the Windows 8 Modern UI.

Note if you’re thinking of creating an app for the Windows RT then there are additional tests that you need to consider.

Submitting your app to the store

After testing, the next stage is to submit it to the Windows Store for approval and to do this you will need a Windows Store account.

Getting A Windows Store Account

You can get a free account if you are:

• A student: You can get one through the dreamspark programme
• A start-up: You can get one through the BizSpark programme
• An MSDN Subscriber: Go to your MSDN Subcription dashboard where you will find an item called Windows Store Developer Account.

If you don’t fit into any of these categories then you’ll need to buy a developer account, and to do that you select Project > Store > Open Developer Account on the Visual Studio Express menu.

It’s $49 (£31.50) for an individual and $99 (£63.67) for a business.

Submitting The App

Submitting the app for approval is the final stage of the process. You need to upload the app to the store where it’s then tested and the code investigated. Unfortunately like the majority of approval processes there’s no set time scale, it all depends on how many apps are submitted and how complicated your app is.

At the very least you should build in time at the end of the project for a couple of approval cycles, hopefully if you have followed all the guidelines it will be approved at the first try. But if your app fails you will need to factor time in to fix the problem, then resubmit.

Congratulations! You Have A Windows 8 App!

Once the app is approved it will be added to the Windows store and that’s where the next journey starts. If you’re very lucky it may get picked up by the store’s editors and made a favourite app; if it isn’t then you’ll need to start promoting it on your own — and that’s a whole new article for another day.

The Notification Center has been around since iOS5, and it is also now available for OS X Mountain Lion. This feature enables native applications to show Notifications to users for events such as incoming mail, Twitter mention, Facebook Inbox message and successful uploads.

This notification in OS X Mountain Lion appears at top right side of the screen, as shown below (and then disappears after a certain amount of time, stored in the Notification Center).

This feature, however, is not limited for OS X native applications. We actually can add it for websites as well. Let’s see how we can do it.

Recommended Reading: How to Create Hide / Show Notification Bar With CSS3

The Notification Permission

First let’s walk through the permission matter. Before we are able to show the notification, the users should explicitly allow it. There are three permission levels for the Notification: default, granted and denied. To check the permission level, we can write the following code:.

 console.log(Notification.permissionLevel()); 

In the preceding code, we log the current permission level within the console, which in my case returns granted.

Users can deny the notification through the Preference option later on, at any time.

Running the Notification

The notification is specified with the Notification function, and Apple has provided a complete code example on how to deploy it for websites. But, I slightly modified the codes for demonstration purpose, as follows.

 $(function() { var notify = function(title, options) { if(window.Notification) { $('.no-support').hide(); console.log(Notification.permissionLevel()); if(Notification.permissionLevel() === 'default') { Notification.requestPermission(function() { notify(title, options); }); } else if(Notification.permissionLevel() === 'granted') { $('.no-permission').hide(); var welcome = new Notification(title, options); } else if(Notification.permissionLevel() === 'denied') { $('.support, .no-support, .notify-click').hide(); } } else if(!window.Notification) { $('.support, .no-permission, .notify-click').hide(); } }; 

In the preceding codes, we created a variable name notify to store the Notification function, and we set this function with two arguments: title and options.

Then, simply replace the arguments with ones that we want to show in the notification. In this example, I would like to set the title to “Hello World” and set the notification content to “Welcome to our website” within the option, like so.

 notify('Hello World', { body: 'Welcome to our website' }); 

If the users haven’t set the permission, Safari will first prompt an option to Allow or Don’t Allow the notification to show.

Once it is granted, the notification should appear as shown in the following screenshot.

Event

Furthermore, we can show the notification upon an event. For example, by using the jQuery .on method, we set the notification to show upon a user click.

 $('.button').on('click', function() { notify('Clicked', { body: 'You just clicked the button' }); }); 

Alternative function

It is worth noting that this will only work in Safari 6.0, which unfortunately is only available in OS X Mountain Lion. Alternatively, we can use the webkitNotification function as opposed to Notification, which seems to work both in Safari and Chrome, and Thijs van der Vossen over at FingerTips has shown us how to use it.

Further Reference

These codes we have demonstrated here are merely examples, there is certainly room for improvements here and there. Below are some good references to dig into this function further.

• Webkit DOM Programming: Sending Notification – Apple
• Web Notifications – W3C.org
• Chromium Desktop Notification – Chromium