HackCollege

HackCollege Podcast: Episode 2

2010-09-01T15:39:24Z

In this week's episode, we discuss an awesome infographic, what we keep on our desks, and some of our tech horror stories from the first weeks of school.

Note: we're using the html5 tag for the media player this week, and it should work fine in Chrome and Safari. If your browser isn't supported, go ahead and download the .mp3 file here, or subscribe on iTunes.

Your browser does not support the audio element.

Show Notes:
Lifehacking Infographic
Shep's Desk
Griffin Elevator

Consider Our Spammers Banished

2010-09-01T15:30:05Z

The Disqus system is cleaner and has much better spam control.A lot of you guys may have noticed that the site has recently fallen victim to a huge influx of spam comments. With apologies to readers who want to click links to buy fake Louis Vuitton purses and replica watches, we decided it was time to take action. You'll notice that we've installed the excellent (and amazingly, free) Disqus commenting system at the bottom of our posts, which should provide you with a better experience, and us with better tools to fight spam.

Unfortunately, this change effectively deletes all of our previous comments on every post, but this inconvenience is worth it for the fresh start. Now go read some old articles and try it out :)

Curing Dorm-Induced Insomnia

2010-09-01T15:00:39Z

Don't let living in a dorm keep you from falling asleep on your textbooks. Image courtesy of Flickr user quinnanya. Licensed under CC 2.0 BY-NC-SA.There are three basic things that college students need and spend most of their time trying to get: Food, sleep, and sex. It’s true. We’re just as predictable as Maslow said we are. Sure, grades and homework, those things are important too. But I’m talking basic needs here. If you haven’t eaten all day, there’s just no way that chapter in your chemistry book is going matter until you get some food in your stomach. And if you haven’t had any kind of release for your pent up, college-hormone, unruly horniness, it gets a little difficult to concentrate on anything, even that short three page paper (y’all know exactly what I am talking about, don’t pretend you don’t).

While the other two necessities are pretty important, I’d have to say that one need that is hardest to come by is sleep. I’ll go ahead and state the obvious: sleeping in dorms sucks. It sucks a lot. We’ve got to deal with roommates, suitemates, wallmates, hallmates, and all the other kind of mates that sometimes just make it impossible to sleep. Dorms are noisy. They can be uncomfortable. They’re shared by hundreds of students who are pretty much guaranteed not to have the same sleeping schedule as you. When you’re ready to call it a night, the obnoxious sorority sisters across the hall might not agree with you. So while sleeping in dorms sucks, there are some things you can do to make sure you get your beauty rest while living on campus.

Make Your Bed Comfortable

Mattresses in dorm rooms have probably been around the block a couples times. They’re not always the most comfortable things to sleep on. So give your bed an upgrade and get yourself a foam mattress pad or some other form of cushioning to make your bed a little more soporific. Mattress pads tend to be a bit on the expensive side, especially for college students, but if you buy one of good quality, it should last you all four years of college. They can help with mattress that have sunken in the middle too, like mine was last year. Hopefully a more comfortable bed will make it easier for you to sink into a deep sleep.

Block Out Sounds

The Huffington Post recently wrote an article about tips to get to sleep in a dorm room and focused some of their tips on blocking out sounds in order to get to sleep in a dorm room. (I will have you all know that I came up with the idea first. They clearly read my mind and stole my idea.) HuffPo suggests noise cancelling headphones. After my suitemates kept me up until 3:30 am one night last week, I immediately looked into getting some of these babies. However, they are ridiculously expensive and way outside the budget for any college student. Additionally, most sets are big and bulky. Seriously, how are you supposed to sleep in those massive things? Try my $0.99 remedy instead—buy a white noise song off iTunes or wherever else you get your music. I set my single song to loop on my iPod, put one earbud in, and I’m asleep within minutes. The white noise track I chose essentially sounds like a big fan. If people in the hall or the next room get louder, I simply turn up the volume and it just sounds like a loud fan. Coincidently, HuffPo also suggested a fan to provide white noise to help you get to sleep. However, unless you have a megasuper fan, a little desk fan really isn’t going to do much to drown out the sound of loud neighbors.

Seek Help

If none of the measures you take in your dorm room help you get to sleep, you might need to actually go talk to people. I know. How inconvenient. But most dorms should have quiet hours, in theory at least. If the noise is coming from your suitemates, wallmates, or across-the-hall mates, knock on their door and ask them to please keep their noise level down. Decent people will probably apologize and lower their loudness. However, it’s not uncommon for the noise to magically go back up to its original level. In these cases, you’re going to have to enlist the help of an RA. Send your RA an email or knock on their door to ask them to act as an enforcer.

What methods do you use to get to sleep in a dorm setting? Let us know in the comments!

Stay Focused with an iPad and GoodReader

2010-09-01T02:07:24Z

GoodReader will save all of your class files locally, so you can access them even when you're offline.Well, I'm only a few days into classes this year and am already starting to consider my iPad as indispensable as my laptop. I've been at this long enough to realize that schoolwork is split fairly evenly into consumption and creation. You consume books, readings, and notes, while you create papers, projects and tests. My MacBook Pro is terrific for creating things, and I always thought it was just as ideal for consuming the PDF readings Trinity professors kindly assign us in lieu of extra textbooks. Boy was I wrong. One day of using GoodReader ($0.99) on my iPad has completely changed the way I study.

GoodReader is basically that; a really good reader app for the iPad. You can open PDF's from mail attachments in the iPad's default email program, or download them from Blackboard (or your school's hopefully superior equivalent) via the app's built-in browser. GoodReader will also read Word Documents, save web pages, or even open .zip folders, making it ideal for just about anything a professor can throw at you. Once you open a file for the first time, you'll immediately understand why this is one of the best ways to organize and consume your class materials. The reading screen gives you the obvious iOS pinch-to-zoom and swipe-to-flip pages, as well as the ability to rotate the file and change your viewing options. It's also boasts a surprisingly good text-recognition system, empowering you to search for keywords on any file, or even transform the a crappy scan of an old library book into a customizable, distraction-free, scrolling list of clean text.

This is a pretty low-quality scan of a library book, but GoodReader can detect the text and make it searchable.GoodReader simply works the way it should, but its best feature is the fact that you use it on an iPad, and not a laptop. I've never had the easiest time consuming class documents on a computer. Usually I'd open them in OS X's Preview, and read the first few pages straight through. So far, so good. Then my computer would alert me to a usually-not-so-important email, so I'd check that. From here I figured I should catch up on Google Reader, so I'd get trapped in there for 20 minutes. After this little vacation, I'd usually go back to the PDF and skim the next few pages really quickly before tweaking my fantasy football team or checking Twitter. Coming back to the PDF, maybe I'd glance at the subheadings for the next few pages before heading to Facebook, and then I'd often end up skipping the last few pages entirely. I got by alright, but distractions, and my habit of falling for them, prevented me from absorbing everything I should from class readings.

GoodReader on the iPad made a world of difference. Today I laid in bed with nothing but my iPad, and I read articles cover to cover for two hours straight. While a laptop allows you to fit chat windows and web browsers next to your PDF file, the iPad forces you to focus on one thing at a time. The lack of a multi-window interface, which many people consider a weakness, is actually the device's greatest strength as a consumption tool for college students. While I'm on record predicting that the iPad will really catch on at college campuses, it wasn't until I started using GoodReader that I was convinced that it can actually enhance learning and truly make you a better student.

Give Killer Public Presentations With These Public Speaking Tips

2010-08-30T16:00:09Z

There's no reason to fear public speaking, even if you're talking to the future droids in this lecture hall. Image courtesy of Flickr user Squirmelia. Licensed under CC 2.0 BY-NC-SA.Public speaking can be terrifying--an estimated 95% of people experience some anxiety when speaking in front of groups. Unfortunately for everyone except that lone 5%, college is full of public speaking requirements: speaking up as a member of a club, for example, or having to give the first of many class presentations. However, with these tips you can hopefully reduce your public-speaking stress and give killer presentations.

Be Prepared - Part of the terror of public speaking comes from a fear of screwing up publicly. You can reduce this chance (and as a result, the fear) by preparing beforehand: make a bullet-pointed outline for your speech, for instance. If you’re doing a powerpoint presentation in class, be sure not to have everything on the powerpoint--instead, put bullet-pointed cues on the slides and expand upon them while speaking (it’s okay to have personal notecards with the expanded information on them). This way you’ll look like you know what you’re talking about by giving the audience information that only comes from you, rather than your visual aids. In addition to looking competent, an outline or notecards will give you something to go back to should you get completely flustered.

Rehearse - Your visual aids and notes won’t amount to much if you act like you’re seeing them for the first time. You may feel like an idiot doing it, but practicing in front of your mirror will make you more comfortable with what you’re saying, will help you grow less dependent on your notecards, and will give you a sense of how long your presentation is running so that you’re not taken aback by time constraints during your actual presentation. After you’ve gone over it in the mirror a few times, find some friend (preferably someone who will be a part of the audience for your real presentation) and do your spiel in front of them. That way you’ll get a little bit of a sense of how people will actually respond to your presentation (do you need to pause for laughter? Are you being unclear?) and you won’t be quite so taken aback by a group of people responding. Of course, if your audience member has to present something too, it’s only good form to offer to be an audience for them in return.

Make Eye Contact - This is part of why you were aiming for someone in your intended audience for the last step--when you present, ask them to sit somewhere you can see them. That way, if you get freaked out by being focused on by lots of people, you can just make eye contact with someone you’ve already presented to. If that person helped you rehearse, they’ve already got some investment in you--they’ll be an encouraging presence. If you can work up the nerve to do it, make eye contact with other friendly faces during the presentation. If nothing else, it will reassure you that you have at least a few people paying attention, and it will reduce a seemingly faceless audience into individuals. You can talk to individuals--you do it all the time!

Smile - This goes along with making eye contact. Smiling a little will encourage your audience to smile back--people like being smiled at. Since your smile will be mirrored back by at least a few people in the audience, it will multiply your humble little facial expression back at you, and if a bunch of people are smiling at you while you present it will help calm you down. If an audience puts you at ease, your presentation will be light years smoother, and that will put your audience more at ease. It’s a cycle of reciprocal excellence.

Put it in Perspective/Be Okay With Change - I have a professor who consistently seems like he’s on the verge of a nervous breakdown during lecture. It’s not that he doesn’t know the material--he does--it’s that he has a complete inability to deal with changes to what he’s rehearsed. So, when the SMART Board breaks or he doesn’t bring a book, or switched his bag with his daughter’s, he clearly gets nervous and stressed out in front of us. But you know what? None of the class judges him--we like that he seems human, and he has a devoted student following in part because his frantic lecture style makes us trust him. If you’re presenting, try not to freak out about changes (it’s just stressing you out), but be okay with being startled or nervous--chances are high that you’re presenting to a room full of your peers way more focused on themselves than on you, anyway. If they do bother to notice, chances are high that their sympathies lie mostly with you, their fellow student.

Volunteer to Go First - If you can, just bite the bullet and do it. First off, it makes you look courageous (in the eyes of your peers) and prepared (in the eyes of your professor). Secondly, and perhaps even better, if you go first and the presentation happens to totally bomb? Everyone will forget about it as soon as the next person stands up in front. It’s a win-win for you, the nervous presenter.

Commenters: Got any public speaking tips or tricks that have helped you out? Like to imagine people in their underwear? Let us know!

Featured Desk: Shep's Productivity Nook

2010-08-28T16:01:01Z

Shep's desk makes him a lean, mean productivity-blogging machine.If there's any piece of furniture that college students are tied to, it's the desk. Where else can we convince ourselves to power through that 12-page final paper instead of taking a much-desired nap?

With that in mind, we're introducing a new feature where we highlight the most interesting desks that our readers send us. First up is not from a reader, but a writer: Shep McAllister, a student at Trinity University.

Shep was eager to submit his desk to the pool in part because this is the first year that he's had a real, organized space to use as a desk. To celebrate his swanky new space, he's hooked up dual monitors and purchased a nice desk chair from Ikea.

The above-desk shelf allows him to store a printer, spare paper, and his laptop case, while a below-desk trashcan ensures that he can toss his snacks once he's finished without having to stop working. Perhaps for inspiration, he's got a Dilbert strip taped up to the wall.

As you can see above the light, Shep's zip-tied his computer cables together so they're out of the way--an easy, cheap way to make a desk seem less cluttered so you can focus on writing rather than decluttering.

Click for more photos of the desk after the jump, and if you'd like to submit your own, email emily@hackcollege.com with photos and a description of how you've hacked your desk and why.

Dual monitors for dual productivity! Also take note of the external wireless keyboard and mouse. (And, in the background, a poker chip.)

Extra lighting reduces eye strain and allows you to take lovely, saturated photos of your workspace.

12 Essential Items for Your College Backpack

2010-08-27T16:00:13Z

Okay, so mine's not Eddie Bauer. Photo courtesy of Flickr user ToastyKen. Licensed under CC BY-2.0.This week, I started my first week of classes as a college student. And dear Lord, how different that was. I experienced WiFi in classrooms (some of them at least) and as a result, Facebooking during class, professors who weren't afraid to say what they thought, and the first appearance of the mythical TA.

Last week, Lifehacker welcomed us back to school - with a combination of some of our posts and some of theirs. Lifehacker asked its commenters what's in their backpacks and as cool as some of the responses were (I'd want to be researching for a Ph.D in Botswana!), they just weren't relevant to most of us university students. I also find some things to be "pocket items" - their presence is a given, and I keep them in my pocket (girls might use a purse) instead - those include a cell phone, a wallet, a Moleskine notebook, and my iTouch.

After the jump below, I've got a list of what is absolutely required in every college backpack.

Laptop

This is just a given. Even if you take notes on a notebook (might I suggest Luke's awesome DIY notebook), the computer is a staple. If you're not using it in class to access your course's online site or to take notes, it's nice to have around campus to keep you connected to the world - during a Starbucks break or a trip to the library.

Books

Number one rule I've learned this week: textbooks are not necessary in class. Mostly. But some materials are necessary - lab notebooks or a small paperback book. Even if it's not a necessary book for class, some light reading is nice to have for those moments where a laptop would be too much.

Computer Charger

Just in case. You never know when you're battery is going to run out (I survived on less than 5% during a lecture the other night) and when an outlet is going to open up, either in a lecture hall or a nearby public location like the library or food court.

USB Cords

If you're an iPod touch user or an iPhone user, USB cords are nice to have for charging purposes. They also sync notes you've just taken from your computer to your mobile device.

Binder with Paper

As much as I'm a technophile, computers can't solve everything. If the professor wants you to work something out and you don't have paper, you're SOL. Always good to keep just in case.

Notebook

Yet again, I'm supporting Luke's awesome DIY notebook. But any notebook is good for when a computer just can't serve - and it keeps your notes organized. You just have to pop up the notebook, find your notes, and study. It has you avoid using loose pieces of paper.

Folders

You never know when you're going to get handouts in class (though paper syllabi are on their way out...), but it's nice to keep a folder around for that. Not to mention the campus organizations who are going to flyer and table and pass out coupons and other goodies.

Chapstick

Especially in colder climates, chap stick is nice to keep on deck so you can save yourself some annoyance and pain. It's easily accessible, and doesn't take up much space.

Sunglasses

The Florida sun is brutal. I like to keep these in my backpack, and wear them on campus not to be a hipster, but because they're genuinely needed.

Umbrella

The Florida sun is brutal, but the Florida weather gods are also quite bipolar. It can be brutal sunshine at 12PM and raining heavily by 12:30. Rain isn't a unique phenomenon to the Sunshine State (heh) though, so bring your umbrella along as well.

Transportation Lock

If you walk, skip this one. If you ride a bus, skip it too. If you're a bike rider, keep your lock in your backpack when you're riding - peace of mind. If you're a driver, keep your keys in a designated place in your backpack, so you can get in and out of your car without having to fumble for them.

Pencil Pouch

This might be cheating - because the pencil pouch (though it's so high school) carries so many things. I keep my graphing calculator in there, pens, pencils, erasers, colored pencils, Sharpies, and highlighters in there. You never know when you can use what you've got in there - pens and pencils mostly obviously, but colored pencils, highlighters, and Sharpies can come in handy for studying.

Campus Newspaper

I'm a big fan of my campus newspaper - the Independent Florida Alligator - the largest daily in the nation, and a source of great information. Worth it as true "light reading" - between where a laptop, iPad or Kindle would be too much and texting your friend is too little.

HackCollege Audio Podcast: Take One

2010-08-26T16:00:12Z

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for... the very first episode of our impromptu audio podcast! We get together on Skype every week for a conference call, so we figured we'd stay an extra 15 minutes and record a podcast of sorts where we discuss college-related news and tips. Yes, it's janky and a little awkward, but it was our first try, give it time :)

We're going to try to keep this up on a weekly basis, so subscribe to us on iTunes and give us a listen on your commute to class.

So what do you think? Leave your feedback in the comments!

Prevent Hunger Pains with On-The-Go Snacks

2010-08-25T15:00:40Z

Peanut butter is a yummy way to combat hangriness during the day. Image courtesy of Flickr user thisisbossi. Licensed under CC 2.0 BY-SA.
han•gry, adjective—characterized by crankiness due to lack of food; moodiness as a result of hunger.

That’s right. Hangry. From the English words "hungry" and "angry." Whether or not “hangry” is technically a word is irrelevant because it certainly is a feeling that every college student feels at sometime or another. It’s not unusual for us to be in class during normal lunching hours or for us to simply be too busy to have the time to sit down and have a decent lunch. Sometimes lunch lines in the dining halls are too long for us to even get something at eat on our way to class. To beat the irritability that comes with an unsatisfied stomach, pack yourself a snack to eat on the run so you don’t fall victim to hangriness.

Peanut Butter

Why is peanut butter so awesome? First of all, it’s tasty. I practically grew up on peanut butter, so its delicious creaminess almost always hits the spot when I’m in a hunger crunch. Secondly, peanut butter has protein in it. Protein is like brain food. It’s good for you and it fills you up so you can stop thinking about your stomach growling and start thinking about your professor’s lecture. One of my favorite things to do is put peanut butter either on crackers or on tortillas. Get some crackers of your choice (I prefer Saltines, but whatever floats your boat), put a small blob on a cracker, and put another cracker on top to make yourself a little nice peanut butter cracker sandwich. Make five or six sandwiches (or more if you’re going to be super hungry), pop them in a sandwich bag, stick them in your backpack, and you’re good to go. If crackers aren’t your style, try peanut butter and tortillas instead. I like flour tortillas for this little snack. Just spread the peanut butter on, roll up the tortilla, and put it in a bag for an on-the-go snack.

Cheese

Cheese is seriously like the best thing in the entire world. It’s yummy, it’s good for you, and it goes amazingly with crackers. When I neglected to schedule myself a lunch break last semester, cheese and crackers was my absolute go-to lunch. I bought some Colby jack singles slices at the grocery. Because they’re already sliced, all I had to do was tear the slices in smaller bits to fit on the crackers. Two slices of cheese meant eight cheese-and-cracker duos. Yum. If you’re weird and don’t like crackers, pretend you’re in middle school again and grab yourself some string cheese. Perhaps the only downside to cheese for lunch is that you pretty much have to keep cheese in the fridge before you eat it. Soft, mushy, warm cheese is gross. I was able to keep my cheese slices in the fridge where I worked. I spent a few minutes eating and then was right back to work.

Nuts

Another good snack to eat when you don’t have time to get a meal is nuts. Chris has his own recipe for student trail mix, and so I’ll tell you what mine is. I go to the grocery and buy bottles/jars/bags/whatever of cashews, peanuts, already shelled pistachios, and raisins. Before I leave for class (or the night before if I’m really being awesome), I mix in equal amounts of nuts and raisins in a sandwich bag. If I eat the entire bag that day, great. If I don’t, then it’s still in my bag for the next time I need a little pick-me-up. Check out Chris’ post to see what else you can mix into your own version of trail mix. If you don’t feel like mixing up your own nutty snack, you can buy prepackaged versions as well either at your grocery store or college snack store.

Granola bars

Granola bars are also good meal-substitute choices when you have limited time to eat. They’re small enough to fit in that little pocket in your backpack, they don’t need to be refrigerated, they come in lots of brands and flavors, and they don’t require any prep work from you. I prefer the Nature Valley bars, especially the Oats ‘N Honey kind. Delicious. I usually don’t eat many granola bars simply because I’m hungry about half an hour after I eat one. But hopefully these healthy little bars will help you make it to your next meal.

What are some of your favorite snacks that you eat to combat hunger during the day?

Guest Post: 8 Android Apps for Students

2010-08-24T20:57:44Z

Android apps can make college life a little easier. Image courtesy of Flickr user tomsun. Licensed under CC 2.0 BY-SA.

The HackCollege staff primarily uses iPhones or "dumbphones," so we probably haven't written as much about Android as we should. Luckily, we have a guest post written by Brendan O'Neil, who is a junior at Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is also the editor of Officeal and an active Twitter member.

Dropbox

(Free, requires an account)

Dropbox is a must have for students regardless but the mobile application is a welcome addition to the family. Supporting Microsoft Word, PDF files, audio and video files. This is great for having all your documents at your fingertips but the ability to send files via email from the application makes it extremely useful.

Slide Screen

($6.99)

Among home replacement applications for Android, Slide Screen stands head and shoulders above all for students. With it's unique row scheme, Slide Screen is perfect for getting a ton of information in one glance rather then checking a bunch of applications or swiping through homescreens, especially ideal for stealing that habitual peak during class.

Course Pro

($2.99)

Course Pro is a class organization tool that allows students to keep track of assignments and grades throughout the semester, even calculating current grades and GPA based on the data put into the application.

Pandora

(Free, requires an account)

A must have for most students. The free streaming music application is perfect for walks to and from class or getting work done in the library. While using Pandora be sure to watch that data usage or switch to wifi when available though!

NPR

(Free)

When it comes to news applications NPR is far and away the best out there. The key feature in the Android app is the ability to create custom playlists of audio news stories. Much like Pandora this is a great option for walks between class or any other down time.

Mint

(Free, requires account)

Keeping track of personal banking is a must, one of the best tools out there is Mint. The online money management tool now has a mobile counterpart to help keep track of your spending and when to make that omnipresent call home for a potential refill.

Remember the Milk / Astrid

(Free*/Free)

We students can get buried under a myriad of tasks, why not get things in order with a powerful to-do list? Both Remember the Milk and Astrid are to-do powerhouses. While Remember the Milk requires a Pro account ($25 a year) Astrid remains free but is not as powerful as it lacks an online counterpart and a few other perks.

Evernote

(Free, requires an account)

Evernote claims to be the users "external brain" and who among us couldn't use one of those? Evernote is a platform that can save documents, web pages, text files and images while making them all searchable. This is handy for keeping track of forms, receipts, potential gifts, class notes, pretty much anything. So this fall don't let anything slip your mind, just place it in Evernote.

What Android apps do you use as a student? Do you find any of these helpful?

Beat Grime Using Cheap, Green DIY Cleaning Tips

2010-08-23T16:00:39Z

Mr. Clean supports your cheap, green cleaning attempts. Image courtesy of Flickr user elycefeliz. Licensed under CC 2.0 BY-NC-ND.Dorm rooms and college apartments are not known for being the height of stylish (or well-maintained) living--add in less-than-fastidious college students, and you can pretty quickly get some depressing living arrangements. Not much can be done to fix beat-up facilities, but even the shabbiest freshmen dorms can be kept passably clean in ways that are cheap, eco-friendly, and non-toxic.

Supplies: Before you can clean anything, you’ll need to invest in some basic supplies: baking soda, vinegar, a sponge or washcloth, and possibly your choice of eco-friendly soap. Discounting the soap, this will cost you about $4--cheap enough for anyone to not have a rank dorm. If you have stains on your walls (it happens), spring for a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser--they’re a little pricier than the other suggestions, but they’re pretty much amazing.

Stuck-on Toothpaste in the Sink/Stained Countertops: It’s gross, but it happens to everyone (especially if multiple people in the room are using the same sink). If you’ve scrubbed with a washcloth and the stuff won’t come off, try sprinkling baking soda on the offending spots and using a damp washcloth or sponge to scrub at it. The abrasive qualities of the baking soda should help get the sink clean, and it won’t make your room smell of Fresh Mountain Meadow Rain the way that commercial cleaners will.

Room Odor: First, be hyper-vigilant about throwing any food waste away in a trash can outside of your room: rotting food will make your room smell disgusting very, very quickly. If the odor is coming from the carpet, sprinkle a half-cup to a cup of baking soda onto the carpet. Let it sit for a half-hour before vacuuming it up or sweeping it out (your residential life office probably has vacuums you can check out). For linoleum or wooden floors, mix up a solution of 1/4 cup vinegar and 5 cups of warm water and use it to mop the floors. If the odor still is hanging around, wash all of your linens and towels (and curtains if you have them) and add white vinegar to the machine at the beginning of the cycle. The vinegar smell will disappear and you’ll be left with softer, odor-free sheets and towels.

Clogged Sink: Especially in older dorms, sinks clog at the slightest provocation. If you have an electric kettle, boil water in it and pour it down the sink--with luck, the heat will help dissolve the clog. If that doesn’t work, you have two fun-with-science options: pouring hydrogen peroxide down the drain and hoping the bubbles help things along, or pouring baking soda down the drain and following it with vinegar to create your own mini sink-volcano. Either way, the clog should be dissolved due to bubbles. If none of these options work and you’re in school housing, go ahead and call building maintenance: cleaning out the catch in your sink may be easy, but if something goes wrong, the school will most likely charge you.

Glass and Mirror Cleaning: If you have a mirror above your sink, it will get spattered with toothpaste within a week. If you’re looking for a way to clean the mirror without leaving streaks, go hunt out some newspaper on campus and take it back to your room. You can either put plain water or a water-vinegar mix into a spray bottle and spray it onto the mirror (or just flick it onto the mirror with your hand). Use the newspaper to wipe the mirror down, and it will magically get most anything off without leaving a trace behind. Once you’re done, recycle the paper.

Wall Stains: Walls get stained--generally in ways that we don’t notice until we’re cleaning up for move-out. Whatever you do, don’t try re-painting with white-out or something similar: whoever looks over the dorm after you leave will hate you. If the paint is chipped or peeling, leave it alone. However, for scuffs and stains, there is hope in the form of the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. You can cut the generous pads into smaller ones for extended use, and with just a little water and a lot of elbow grease, the little foam pad will clean almost any scuff off of your wall while leaving the paint alone. Its cleaning power supposedly comes from the chemical makeup of the foam, but I prefer to take the product’s name at face value and call it what it is: magic.

[Cleaning tips and recipes courtesy of Mothering.com, DIY Life, and The Daily Green, and BUST magazine.]

Follow @HackCollegeRSS for Up-to-the-Minute Updates

2010-08-23T15:00:21Z

Twitter: it's like RSS, but even simpler! Follow us at @HackCollegeRSS and @HackCollegeDo you prefer to follow RSS feeds through Twitter, rather than Google Reader or some other service? Then today is your lucky day! We've started a new Twitter account just for our RSS feed--@HackCollegeRSS. Our main Twitter account, @HackCollege, will still be providing its mix of links to our articles and other pieces that are of interest to HackCollege readers.

Commenters: What would you like to see from our Twitter account going forward? Comment here or shoot us an @ reply. We love hearing from you!

DIY Ultimate Note-Taking Notebook: A Follow Up

2010-08-22T19:20:48Z

Our DIY Ultimate Note-Taking Notebook post at Lifehacker.com has received quite a bit of buzz over the past week. After reading through the comments I thought it would be a good exercise to address some of the questions and concerns readers are having.

Cost

When designing the Ultimate Notebook, keeping costs down was a relatively low priority. Premium materials were chosen to create a notebook that would be enjoyable to write on and durable enough to survive a semester of heavy use. As a student, your notebook is a tool of your craft, you shouldn't hesitate to spend a few extra bucks on an item of such high importance.

That being said, I believe many readers are overestimating the cost to make an Ultimate Notebook. The paper chosen is expensive at $20 dollars for a ream (500 sheets). With a full ream you can make five 100 page notebooks, $4 each. The paper perforator is a machine which you can use for the length of your college career to make notebooks. Although it’s a small investment up front, $45 on a tool used for several notebooks each semester is well worth it. To put it in perspective, that’s one night of drinking at a bar. Your other option is to have Staples perforate the pages for you at $0.20 a sheet. Finally, binding with nice plastic covers and coil binding will cost $7. Ink cost will factor in as well, but this will vary from printer to printer (Hint: take advantage of the office photocopier in the last few days of your summer internship). All in all you’re looking at a price per notebook of approximately $11, a small price considering the thousands you’ll spend in tuition, books, computers and coffee.

"Paper sucks. Cornell Notes suck."

At HackCollege we cover a wide variety of note taking methods and tools. Admittedly for certain classes, a laptop just seems more efficient than paper. On the other hand, I find writing notes out by hand with drawn visual aids takes learning to a whole different level. This varies greatly from person to person, we encourage you to employ what ever technique gets you the grade. Similarly for Cornell Notes, the extra processing and massaging of recorded information has shown to be beneficial in many subject areas. Quality Regular lined notebooks are widely available, this is isn't the case for Cornell Lined notebooks. The Ultimate Note-taking Notebook is attempting to solve this problem. Drawing out the Cornell lines on a blank page prior to the start of lecture is a pain in the... It’s much easier to let your printer do the work all at once at the begging of the semester.

"You're pretentious."

That's quite possibly true, but there is a premium niche that needs to be satisfied in all markets. Many buy a Mac because they "just work", others buy BMW's for the "German engineering", the Ultimate Note-Taking Notebook is designed to be a joy to write on and make it through the whole semester. If that's what you're are looking for, then I suggest you put in a few minutes of effort and whip up a batch.

Fend Off Wrinkles and Stains with These Laundry Hacks

2010-08-21T15:00:59Z

Make laundry day suck a little less. Image courtesy of Flickr user dotbenjamin. Licensed under CC 2.0 BY-SA.It is a most unfortunate event when I wake up on a Thursday morning only to discover the dress I was planning on wearing has a big, ugly grease stain or that my last clean shirt is bundled up at the bottom of my dresser drawer. I have a zero tolerance policy for unwearable clothes-- If you are wrinkled or stained, you will be forever banished to the back of my closet because, honestly, who wants to fuss with ironing and dry cleaners? Not me. Thankfully, I've found even more laundry hacks have helped me take care of my clothes without taking up much of my time or money.

For stains that won't come out in a normal wash cycle, go ahead and invest in a bottle of Shout. It won't discolor your clothes like bleach can and it will get out most stains. Just spray it on the stain in question, rub it in a little bit, let it sit for a few minutes, and then toss it in and wash it with everything else in the washer either with your own store brand detergent or your homemade detergent. Piece of cake. For the more stubborn grease stains which are notoriously hard to get out even with Shout, try using a bit of Palmolive or any other grease-fighting dish soap, like Dawn. You should have some around, especially if you keep dishes in your room. Since dish soap is designed to get grease off dishes, it'll also get the grease out of your clothes. Just squirt a little soap on, rub it in, let it sit, and toss it in the wash with the rest of your clothes.

The only thing I hate more than stains are wrinkles. Because I usually end up stuffing my T-shirts into drawers instead of folding them up nice and neat as I should, I have to suffer with the occasional wrinkled shirt. Hands down, one of the best things I have ever bought in college is Downy Wrinkle Releaser. Slide the shirt onto a hanger and simply spray the desired wrinkled shirt with the Wrinkle Releaser, give it a good shake, maybe lay it flat and smooth the wrinkles out for a bit, let it hang for maybe five or ten minutes, and the wrinkles should have disappeared from the shirt.

Button-down shirts can be de-wrinkle-fied with Downy Wrinkle Releaser too, but if you really want them to look sharp, this next method works better. In lieu of an iron, the best way to get a nice shirt looking like it's been pressed is to get it when it's come right out of the dryer. But if you are like me and forget about your laundry for about four hours, this usually isn't going to happen. However, what you can do is throw your shirt back into the dryer along with a wet hand towel and dryer sheet. It doesn't need to be sopping wet, but run it under the faucet for a bit, and wring it out just so it's not dripping everywhere before you throw it into the dryer. Turn the dryer on high for about ten minutes (maybe more, maybe less depending on how awesome your dryer is) and hang the shirt up or put it on right away so it doesn't get wrinkled again. This method of de-wrinkling also works great for slacks that should be pressed.

Do you have any clothing hacks that have made your life easier? Let us know in the comments.

It's Back-To-School Week with Lifehacker and HackCollege!

2010-08-20T03:36:00Z

Wow, summer seems to go by faster every year. Most of you should probably be in the midst of packing your things and getting back on a semi-healthy sleep schedule, because back to school season is here again! For the third year in a row we're working with Lifehacker to share our back to school tips to the masses, so be on the lookout for some of our content over on their site all week. Here's an up-to-date list of all the articles we've contributed this week:

If you're coming to the site via Lifehacker for the first time, feel free to look around; the keg's in the back. You could also find us on Facebook or Twitter, if you're into that. Below are a few posts from the summer that may suit your fancy.