I'm super-excited to announce today that Chris and I have an appearance in You 2.0: A Documentary on Lifehacking. The documentary has been more than a year in the making by a recent Florida State graduate, Joey Daoud. I had the pleasure of meeting Joey as he was on his whirlwind through San Francisco getting this film together.

What makes this really cool is that Chris and I are alongside the big guys: David Allen (inventor of GTD), Tim Ferriss (author of the 4-Hour Workweek) and many others. It's like having a crappy house in a nice neighborhood; your house is worth more by association. We are super excited to have a part in this documentary.

So head over to the site and pick up a copy of the film. It will be 2 hours of solid gold (hey, we're in it!) and you'll be supporting a recent graduate.

Because the Amazon Kindle is not easily accessible by the blind, the National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind sued Arizona State earlier this week. I may sound a little harsh, but what prohobits the sight-impaired to using old-fashioned technology that I still know and love hate?

BYU Unbans YouTube (via the Chronicle)

For the past three years, the students of BYU have had nothing to do during the weeknights. No Keyboard Cat. No Afro Ninja. No nothing. Citing "increased educational opportunity," the Latter Day Saints university did a complete 180 this week.

InsideFacebook has put the whole conference call on their site. This details how the new privacy options are going to work. Facebook wants you to open up your information to the world, or Facebook wants the public information to create personalized ads just for you. Oh, what tangled web they have woven.

Twitter’s Popular Facebook App Has Been Broken Or Exploited For Days. (via TechCrunch)

Facebook has been getting a lot of flack for how their news feed has evolved to strangly resemble the Twitter timeline. Well, it looks like the flames have been stoked a little bit by a third party who has created an app that is currently blocking new users from adding the Twitter application to facebook. Users added the app before "Session Test" was put in to play are still able to use the connection but errors seem to pop up after they change their username or password on Twitter.

Great Wall of Facebook: The Social Network's Plan to Dominate the Internet — and Keep Google Out (via Wired)

Image Courtesy: Wired

There is something to the employees from Google going to Facebook. They are at war. It is an ideological war. Google's constant use of algoritms and dedication to technicality has left designers, like Douglass Bowmann to leave the site. Facebook strategy is to let the hive mind control the web by having searches and problems fixed by contacting people instead of typing something in and "Feeling Lucky".

Facebook Purity Removes Eye-Gouging Quiz Updates (via Lifehacker)

This is a Greasmonkey user script you can install in Firefox that takes away all those annoying quizzes your friends are taking because they can't find jobs.

Image Courtesy: Hans Mast

Champion the Cause

College students love to be down for the cause. Politicians can count on us at every election to walk around for no money to tell people how great they are. 

Get the Word Out

It's more important for you to foreward the emails you get from the American based Iranian Politico-Action groups to the email addresses in your address book (You know, the ones your aunts and uncles gave you at your graduation party but never actually planned on talking to you).

Wear the Gear

As I said before college students will pop-up anytime a political action buzzword slips out of the mouth of a CNN reporter. What college students love about these causes is the shwag they can buy or work for in order to get. It's like the badge of honor you get from going to the indie rock show last night except it's an actual war with real badges of honor.

Anecdotes are slowly starting to trickle in that private scholarships around the country are starting to dry up. Some colleges just aren't accepting applications. Yes, it's the economy, stupid.

Cheerleaders? You're All Cut [via the The Choice Blog]

Florida International University recently decided that its cheerleading squad wasn't worth the cash, so they cut the entire team and are saving $45,000. How will FIU facilitate school spirit? Maybe their new $50 million stadium will help.

Blackboard Promises to Not Be Evil, Function Properly [via the Wired Campus Blog]

Our favorite opaque campus-organization software said this week it would "do more to follow industry software standards, and to participate more actively in their development." The company's head of course-management software even went as far as to admit some degree of failure. Cool. I'll believe it when I see it.

Peanut Butter

This past August I bought a huge jar of peanut butter.  It lasted until the start of summer session and didn't change flavor one bit. It held up to me forgetting to close it at night and the times let it sit in a drawer under the bed for weeks at a time. 

Soy Milk

Okay, soy milk has gotten some flack recently about not being healthy for men to drink.  There's an article recently in Men's Health depicting a man who had dangerously high levels of estrogen from drinking soy milk everyday. He drank 3 quarts of the stuff per day. So for the purpose of this post, soy milk is definitely healthy provided you put it in your Lucky Charms once or twice a week. The stuff stays good for months at a time. 

Granola

Coming back from winter break there was some granola in tow along with yogurt. It's a delicious treat. Anyway the generic brand that was purchased had some faulty ziploc-age. The piece of crap wouldn't close. this wasn't a problem though, as it stayed relatively good for months. If you actually buy some granola with decent packaging, it'll probably stay good for even longer.

Dried Fruit

Stuff like raisins and apple chips are good examples of dried fruit. These are the types of food hikers take with them on trips because they don't need to be refrigerated. The other good thing about dried fruit is it's loaded with calories and energy, hence why you can find it in trail mix. 

Putting Bread in the Fridge

If you have the space to put a loaf of bread in your dorm fridge, go for it. It will extend its freshness much longer. So if you want to put some of the peanut butter you left in you closet shelf, from before between two slices of refrigerated bread, that'll be a possibility for a couple of weeks.

Do you have any other foods that stay fresh for long periods of time? If you do comment below! 

This article details the balance between privacy and what Facebook needs to keep the servers going. Right now, they are taking keywords to put up relevant ads. The company's director of public policy, Timothy Sparapani worked as a legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union before coming to Facebook. That bodes well for people who want to keep their information out of the hands of people who want to make money off of it. 

The Fastest Way to Update Twitter and Facebook From Your iPhone (via Mashable)

This iPhone application allows for quick and easy publishing. The post includes a video to show the speed of application.

More Ways to Share in the Publisher (via The Facebook Blog)

Facebook is beta testing the new feature of its publisher that will allow users to tell it who can see the update. This goes along with the new filters to the news feed. Theses new filters let users see people's updates even if they aren't friends with them and the status updates they're seeing were meant to be public. An update to the article is saying that the default privacy settings to the publisher are not going to change. The posts you create from publisher will only go to the users you want them to.

The farther you are away from distractions, the less likely you are to indulge in them. For me, it has to be the internet. Because of this I make sure my computer is either asleep or completely turned off. One of the benefits of having a laptop is that it fits in the keyboard bay under my desk. This keeps my baby out of site, and out of mind.

Alternatively, if you love reading romance novels go to the nonfiction section of the library. If you can help but turn on the television while studying in your room, go to a lounge. If you have a knack for humping strangers in public, don't go outside.

2. Supplement your reading with short bursts of exercise.

Doing 5 push ups has done worlds of good for my focus. I don't know if its the little bit of endorphins that are secreted by my body or just getting up and around that works the magic. It also has helped to do some intense stretching. Doing this has relieved a lot of tension built up after sitting in the same spot for an hour or two. Here's a guide to what stretches and the areas of the body they help.

3. No matter how small, reward the work you're doing.

Reward reading a chapter. Reward reading a section. Reward reading a paragraph. The key is to not give a unjust reward. Don't spend an hour on Facebook because you became strained after reading the introduction to the introductory chapter of a text. If you need to stop after a short period give yourself a snack, or a stretch. Pushing yourself could lead to burn out in the long run. If you do burn out, don't hesitate to check out this article.

4. Keep at it, it will get easier over time.

When you're a first semester freshman, reading a chapter from introduction to concluding comments seems like a near impossibility. Work with yourself and pretty soon you'll find that you are reading twenty or so pages at a time with out having to stop for a break.

5. The SQR3 Method

This method is really easy to adopt and is recommended by many teachers who say it's helped students get better grades. The acronym stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review. After trying it for the first time myself this summer session, I found that I was reading for longer periods of time. The survey and question sections were a warm up for the bulk and the reading and the recite and review portions were like the cool down of my mental work out. Get the full explanation and other tips here.

Have any other tips you want to share with us? Leave a comment below!

Good: A Virtual Tour On Steroids

If you are planning on attending either of the schools listed above in the Spring, or Fall of next year this will give you a chance to explore a lot of the nooks and crannies of the school without going there. This could potentially save you a plane ticket and a hotel stay. 

Bad: Don't Get Hit By Google's Bikers

It isn't clear whether they will be closing down the quads or doing it right as classes let out. They will probably survey the campus when there aren't that many students. Still you should keep a heads up this fall people on bikes with cameras so they don't hit you while you're texting. 

Good: You could be famous

We've all seen those shots of people doing playing live action role players on Street View. Here's your chance. Google will block the quads off. But if you want to come up with a clever sign and sneak in, cue internet fame.

What do you think of Google Street View Coming to campuses? Comment below to voice your opinion!