Got a question? Ask us: dear@hackcollege.com

Dear HackCollege,

Where can I find Girl Scout cookies?

Thanks,
Bridgeport ‘08

Check out the new girlscoutcookies.org, but Girl Scout season in your area has probably ended. ;( You can, however, still enter your email address to be notified of future sales.

Want to buy in bulk? Search for “girl scout cookies” on eBay.

Or simply go to your local grocery store on a weekend. You can’t miss them.

Got a question? Ask us: dear@hackcollege.com

Dear HackCollege,

Love the blog. I was curious what your thoughts were on having a silent disco in a dorm room, or rather during a hall crawl kinda deal.

Sincerely,
Emory ‘10

You got it.

Brief History
A relatively new concept, the Silent Disco [Wikipedia] originated in 2002 in The Netherlands [CNN] and is gaining popularity at several European festivals. Outsiders hear no music. All they see are a bunch of people jumping up and down at the same time, wearing headphones.

Originally developed to avoid noise curfews, the Silent Disco is therefore a wonderful idea for the typical college party.

On a Larger Scale
For a huge music festival, everyone is provided wireless headphones. Two or more DJs are streaming music to FM Stations; each listener can tune in to whichever DJ they choose. This creates a good amount of hilarity when half the party is moshing to Nirvana and the other half grinding to 50 Cent.

Smaller Scale Setup
To set this up for a dorm room party, however, a host would really only need to stream their music library or playlist to one FM Station.

Read on to your heart’s content »

Got a question? Ask us: dear@hackcollege.com

Dear HackCollege,

I heard somewhere that there’s a way I can email pictures and songs to my cell phone. Do you guys know anything about that?

Sincerely,
Thatwouldbesocool

Yes, you heard correctly. Although this depends completely on your network and cell phone, in addition to text messages (SMS) you can typically also send and receive short emails and also small multimedia messages (See: MMS [Wikipedia]).

These multimedia messages, however, do have a size limit (generally 100kb or possibly 300kb). This means, the photo or video or song clip has got to be small.

Know your network and your 10-digit phone number:

T-mobile: 5551231234@tmomail.net
Verizon: 5551231234@vtext.com
Cingular: 5551231234@mobile.mycingular.com or 5551231234@cingularme.com
AT&T: 5551231234@mmode.com
Alltell: 5551231234@message.alltel.com

On a different network? See the full list [TechnoTarget].

Dear HackCollege,

I’ve sent my professor three emails, and she hasn’t gotten back to me. Is there any way I can find out if she’s ignoring my emails?

Sincerely,
Wtf

Well, Wtf, some desktop email clients will give you the option of requesting a return receipt when the recipient has received the email. See Thunderbird’s Options here. However, the recipient can select “No” when they get this pop-up. Here’s another way: SpyPig.

Nevermind the cutesy pink and blue background colors. The service is legit, but you’ve only got a minute to set it up. For Gmail and Firefox users, continue reading. For all others, read the Limitations and Requirements listed at the site.

Read on to your heart’s content »

Accidentally delete your work? Or save it somewhere and you can’t find it? Or the power went out? Before you start frantically emailing your professor, follow these steps:

1. Send out a search party.
   In Windows, click Start, Search, All files and folders.
   Type what you remember of the name or simply *.doc to get all your Word documents.
   Select My Computer under Look in, and then under More advanced options, make sure Search hidden files and folders is checked.
   Then hit Search.
2. Still no luck? Check your Recycle Bin.
   Open it up and look through whatever files you’ve got. Did you find it? If so, right-click and choose Restore. Then if you’re not sure where it actually restored to, perform a search for it.
3. Or you can pray for AutoRecover.
   Sometimes if Word crashes or closes unexpectedly, it’ll still save what you had. Re-open Word. If a Document Recovery task pane comes up, double-click your document to open it and immediately Save As.

Read on to your heart’s content »

One reader writes: “Hey, I have this book […], and I was wondering if you knew where I could get notes for it. PLEASE HELP!”

Here at HackCollege, we would love to help you study.

• Sparknotes is probably the best known. Not limited to just literature, its online study guides cover philosophy, psychology, and more.
• PinkMonkey is not as user friendly, but it covers a lot of literature as well.
• FreeBookNotes is yet another.
• SchoolBytes has literature guides and other suggestions.
• JiffyNotes has a few.
• Awerty has literature notes.
• Yahoo’s Education Section has a list of several Cliffsnotes.
• GradeSaver has literature notes and other samples.
• Someone organized a list of popular high-school reading notes over at Tripod.
• LitSum argues that it has more literature study guides than any other website.
• BookWolf has a small selection.
• CliffsNotes has study guides for literature and other subjects.
• Shvoong has literature guides and other samples.
• NovelGuide features several guides to classic literature.
• Homework-Online has a few literature guides, too.
• TheBestNotes is user generated and is always adding new notes.

If any of those sites fail, always try a Google search: "Book Title", "Author", summary or "Book Title", "Author", analysis or "Book Title", "Author", notes or whatever else. You get the idea.

Please add to this list in the comments! And always feel free to ask us for help.

Is Facebook blocked? Oh, no! Recently, A reader wrote to us, asking:

i am at my new job in this cooperate office…and they block access to facebook. how am i supposed to waste my time at work if i can’t stalk my new neighbors? the only website i know that you can, you know, beat the system is ninja proxy and it’s kinda shittty. I looked on hackcollege and couldn’t find anything on this important subject. help

Read on to your heart’s content »

As I was sending a friend of mine a video today of her actions last night, she was unable to open it. This is a problem. So, here is the solution:

1. Get the K-Lite Codec Pack 3.01 FULL. Codecs are the things that decode a media stream, so that you can play it on your computer. And with all the video formats available (like .avi, .mpg, .wmv, etc…), it’s crucial to have a good pack of codecs available. So this is the one I recommend.

Read on to your heart’s content »

So my friend Lindsay sent me a link to Matt B Thompson’s “Light or [Lighter-Weight Apps] to Replace Memory Hogs in Windows XP”, asking me, “There are a lot of programs listed. Which, if any, does HackCollege recommend?”

Alright, I’m not sure I did the “[ ]” right, but, either way, Matt’s got a great list of software that won’t slow down your computer. And that’s definitely one of the things that annoy me with Windows XP! I mean, with all the programs I’ll have running at once, it slows down –which does make sense but nonetheless still pinches my productivity.

Read on to your heart’s content »

My friend Megan (Yale ‘06) asks me, “Hey, is there any way to tell who’s been looking at your Facebook or Myspace?” To which I reply, “Yes.”

Okay, sort of.

To begin, this is easier to do on Myspace than on Facebook because Myspace allows you to put in all this HTML code to create your very own eyesore. But, with the right coding, your profile could be eyecandy, I don’t know.

But, anyway. To track your profile views on Myspace, you’re going to have to use another service. There are so many of these. Some work. Some don’t. Some are just scams. And some even charge you money! The audacity!

Now. I, personally, don’t have a Myspace profile (anymore), so I couldn’t check any of these out, but I will give my recommendations, anyway. Take them as you may:

Trakzor has a sleek interface:

All you have to do is place an image on your MySpace profile, accompanied by a link or two, and you’re good to go. You’ll be able to see when someone visits your profile, where they are from, and if that person has already registered at Trakzor, you’ll be able to identify that person specifically!

And then there is WhoIsStalkingYou. Read on to your heart’s content »