If you’re the type to break up with your significant other over email, text message, Facebook message, or AIM, BreakUpEmail can help.

Check a few reasons why you are breaking up, decide whether or not you want to remain friends, choose a typical “break up line” if you must, and submit. You’ll receive a grammatically correct, multi-paragraph text ready for copy and paste.

To begin ending your relationship: See BreakUpEmail.com

Everyone has by now noticed Facebook’s pre-Thanksgiving addition to the News Feed. Now you’ll find a little “thumbs up” and “X” next to each story in the feed. Click on these and your News Feed preference sliders will update themselves. Schweet.

Just thought you should know…

Our new friend Zeke has won the Adult Swim Dethklok and …And You Will Known Us by the Trail of Dead contest! His suggestion for a post that won him the goods was:

How to stock a bar for $100.

I was looking for something online that would allow me to make the maximum variety and quality of cocktails for $100, but I found nothing of the sort. I’d like to see what you guys come up with.

See stay tuned for that post and a few of the others that we enjoyed. We hope our American readers had a great Thanksgiving holiday, wherever they spent it.

 

 Episode 10: Happy Holidays!: Play Now | Play in Popup  Episode 10: Happy Holidays!:

Thanksgiving weekend got you bored? Are your home-friends not as cool as you remember? We’re here to (try to) entertain you.

This week’s topics are:

• Facebook Clarifications
• How To: The Parent-Proof PC
• How to: Disable Facebook Beacons
• First lifehacks
• Thanksgiving
• Christmas
• Talking about oneself

This week’s music:

• “Stadiums and Shrines II” by Sunset Rubdown
  
  

It’s Thanksgiving Break, and many of you are at home with your parents. Are you studying for upcoming exams? Finishing papers? Finally buying the textbook and reading it? None of the above? If you’re looking to procrastinate, why not give your parents a good start on your holiday wishlist. Ask for a digital voice recorder.

Think back on this semester. How many classes did you miss or skip? Of those, how many did you miss or skip because you were coughing, sneezing, hungover, lazy, or just too tired? Probably all of them. Here’s an idea: Get a digital voice recorder. I had one during my undergraduate years, and it was a lifesaver.

If I was ever too tired or just with a head cold, I’d still trudge to class. Maybe I didn’t take notes, but I still didn’t miss anything. I would record the lecture, start to finish, and try to absorb as much as I could without pen and paper. This process was a lot less stressful, and I wouldn’t have a guilty conscience for skipping yet another lecture class.

I used a tape recorder, but I would recommend one that records to .mp3 or .wma. This way, you can store them on your computer and even send your recordings to your friends.

I did a quick search on Amazon and came upon the Olympus DS-40 Digital Voice Recorder. It records to both .mp3 and .wma, has 512MB of internal Flash memory, runs on AAA batteries, has 5 folders for organization, isn’t too ugly, and is priced under $150. But feel free to look around, yourself, for one that you like.

It’s almost Thanksgiving. You’re probably at home. Bored.

So are we. CollegeHumor is fantastic for this:

Watching this video made me think: HackCollege needs some cheerleaders. And a theme song. Anyone creative out there?

After consulting my computer expert (Kelly Sutton), I’ve discovered the best way to keep your incompetent parents from inadvertently downloading porn. It’s called Ubuntu and you’ll probably have it installed before they figure out how to pronounce it. Just in time for Thanksgiving, you can get the whole computer running flawlessly in less than 2 hours – so that you’ll never have to waste away those precious breaks again.

Ubuntu is (one of) the world’s most popular Linux “distributions.” It’s going to replace Windows on your parents’ computer.

Here’s how you know it’s time for Ubuntu: you’ve moved your life on to a laptop and your parents now struggle with your Windows-machine that still has your entire high school career filed in a useless amalgamation called “My Documents.” All they need is: Internet, email and maybe word processing and picture viewing. Perhaps they need a few other basic capabilities, but in general, you’d rather trade limited capabilities for faster, virus-free, spyware-free and free (costs nothing), computer operation. You struggle every Fall or Christmas break, combating malicious programs that are sucked through that little internet cable – programs that you can’t even begin to understand, and once you’re done, you know there’s much more impairing the computer, hidden in the depths of its once-state-of-the-art mainframe. It’s time to start over.

If you aren’t willing to make this kind of a commitment yet, this Lifehacker article (though a tad dated) has helped me for the past two years:

Geek to Live: How to fix Mom and Dad’s computer

For those who dare, read on.

Read on to your heart’s content »

Kelly and Chris discussed Facebook Beacon in the last podcast episode, and Kelly linked to this article in a previous post, but I thought it might be useful to put it up front and center.

If you were against the Newsfeed from the beginning, you’re probably against Facebook Beacon. If this is the case, you can easily block outside sites from accessing your Facebook and sharing information to all your friends about which products you’re buying, which games you’re playing, which sites you’re visiting by doing the following:

1. Download and Install the BlockSite plugin for Firefox.
2. After restarting Firefox select ‘Add-ons’ from the Tools menu.
3. Click the ‘Options’ button on the BlockSite extension.
4. Click the ‘Add’ button.
5. Enter http://*facebook.com/beacon/* into the input box. Note the asterisks!
6. Click ‘OK’.
7. Click ‘OK’ again, and you are good to go. [via the Idea Shower]

 

 Episode 9: European Fashion Show: Play Now | Play in Popup  Episode 8: European Fashion Show:

Chris and Kelly are back in Düsseldorf, Germany, this week after a busy week all around.

This week’s topics:

• Facebook Ads, Pages, and Beacons
• Putting Ubuntu on Your Parent’s Computer During Thanksgiving
• European Fashion
• Scott’s Facebook Invites
• Animoto
• Adult Swim “Live Music for Your Face” Concert Series

This week’s music:

• “Stadiums and Shrines II” by Sunset Rubdown
  
  

Have you already or will you soon be sending in your college applications? AdmissionHook focuses on the importance of the personal statement, and each year they give away a scholarship to a top essay. This year, they’re giving away $1,000.

Between 250 and 500 words in length, your college application essay can be submitted easily on their website. The deadline is in 2 weeks, so do it now.

Who can apply for this scholarship?
Any 9th-12th grade high school, college, or graduate student. There are no age limits but you have to be a U.S. citizen or legal resident.

And if you’re like me and applying to law school, the site also lists some sample essays to get you started. I think I’ll be writing mine on lifehacking.