One of the most annoying things that I do reguarly is forward emails of homework assignments to myself to print them. This is especially true if I’m working on my laptop outside.

Thankfully, for students (and every one else), AOL has a program called Xdrive. The 5Gb they give each user should be more than enough for small Word documents. If you decide to use it, make sure you keep copies of every file you upload, just in case.

Grab it at: AOL’s Xdrive

Every day through the campus cafeteria I watch my meal plan dollars slowly tick down. I wonder: how will I make it to May?

Fortunately for all college students, getrichslowly.org has posted 27 tips on saving/getting money.

Read on: 27 Money Tips for College Students

Tired of sitting in front of your computer screen in Microsoft Word, staring as the blinking cursor of a blank page?

Dave Jeffrey’s suggestions won’t make you a smarter person, and they surely won’t write that paper for you. They may, however, get you thinking, and get that paper on its way to being done.

Read on: Dave Jeffrey’s Top 10 Creativity Boosters

Life would be great for students if we could spend less time in front of an LCD screen hammering out a paper and more time at the beach. I stumbled over this article on the front page of del.icio.us a few minutes ago.

The article is very thorough and precise (minus the occassional ironic typo). Pardon this man’s annoying diction. He’s got a point. Give this a quick skim; you just might learn something.

Read on: Half an Hour: How to Write Articles and Essays Quickly and Expertly

As a student in film school, I know that attending the movies will always be a social event. With digital delivery of movies hitting the mainstream, many decry the future success of theaters. In this mode of thought, why didn’t movie theaters disappear after the VHS tape or the DVD?

Even the reasons of not wanting to watch a movie on an iPod screen are not applicable.

The shallow argument would also argue that the original iTunes Music Store would herald the end of live performances. If anything, digital delivery of music has increased respsective listener bases and thus increased concert attendance, especially for those smaller bands.

So please, think the next time you blog.

Homework, papers, nonsense. These all go hand in hand, but–when it comes down to it–each student must engage in his or her fair share of it throughout the years spent at university. Thankfully, for Mac users, there’s a tool to make paper writing go much, much faster by removing the distractions of websites, AIM windows, etc.

I present to you: WriteRoom. It’s a very simple program that just maximizes itself to cover the entire screen. A simple idea, but one of the most useful programs I have ever used.

Get WriteRoom here.

They say the best way to prevent a hangover is to not drink at all. I prefer the method of drinking so much you wake up drunk. Hey, you’re not hungover, right?

While I am no organic chemist, I do remember a few things from high school chemistry. Particularly, I remember that Carbon rings (a.k.a. the blackness on burnt toast) work great to absorb other chemicals, especially those toxins that make Saturday and Sunday mornings yucky.

I initially inadvertently tried the Burnt Toast Method (BTM) last week while at dinner. I intentionally executed BTM yesterday morning. It worked like magic, although it didn’t taste the best. I now swear by the BTM.

Here are the steps:

1. Drink in excess, preferably in the company of friends or debutantes.
2. Wake up the next morning with a splitting headache, groggy, and exhausted.
3. Stumble to cupboard or cafeteria.
4. Burn toast with vigor (some black but not completely cardboard).
5. Apply a dressing of some sort. I prefer a burnt bagel with cream cheese.
6. Observe as your hangover disappears at a significantly quicker pace.
7. Start drinking again.

Photo from flickr.com user indigotimbre.

The tangent has come up with some rather brilliant fake Facebook features. Check them out:

Upcoming Facebook Additions

The tangent, a monthly publication of the Los Angeles Loyolan released its first issue of the school year. THe tangent prides itself in comedic wit and interesting information.

This month’s glorious tangent is the result of Aria Castillo, Siobhan Hagan, Kelly Sutton and cartoonist Tony Wilson’s genious. Has the world ever witnessed such magnificence? Click on.

September tangent

I woke up this morning, and–just as any other college student does–I checked facebook. I was greeted with a slick Web 2.0 update to what often seems to be the center of college life.

Two features were added, the “News Feed” which compiles all friend information updates into one slick interface and the “Mini Feed” which summarizes all of your recent activity on the college social networking site.

The reaction I have observed from nearly everyone that talks about it has been negative. Thanks to my “News Feed,” I saw that many of my friends obligatorily created and joined new facebook groups proclaiming disdain for the updates.

I think, in the long run, the updates will be beneficial to everyone. Two of the hotter topics concerning facebook in recent months have been privacy (especially in regards to future employers) and facebook wasting hours upon hours of free time.

The feeds really add nothing new to facebook, they simply just organize the information that already exists. By doing this in a rather stalker-friendly way, it forces students to think twice about their actions on facebook.

In regards to the free time, you can just skim over your “News Feed” and be done with your facebook obligations for the next few hours. I don’t know about you, but I’m all about saving time.

So, while the 9.5 million users will experience growing pains for a little while, they changes will be beneficial to everyone in the end.

For more reading, please see
New Facebook Redesign More Than Aesthetic and the facebook blog.