So today while I was driving my car through the blizzard, I was desperately trying to keep myself warm by screaming to the radio. (Note: My car is currently without a front passenger window. See my last post.) Now, this might sound lame, but I really like Linkin Park’s new “Shadow of the Day”.

But before I go out and buy the cd, I might want to hear the song a few more times. Instead of firing up Limewire, let’s try Google. A quick search for:

"shadow of the day" intitle:"index.of" "parent directory" "size" "last modified" "description" [snd] (mp4|mp3|avi|flac|aac|ape|ogg) -inurl:(jsp|php|html|aspx|htm|cf|shtml|lyrics-realm|mp3-collection) -site:.info -site:franceradio.net

gave me two results. Clicking the first one led me to an actual .mp3 file. Nice.

So here’s the trick. Highlight and Copy what I searched for, but put your own song title or artist or composer name inside the quotation marks at the beginning. Yes, the quotation marks are important.

And enjoy.

Last week, Google added onto their expanding arsenal of Microsoft Office-replacement products. Much like HackCollege favorites Google Docs and Google Spreadsheets, Google Presentation offers a stripped-down, online version of Microsoft’s ubiquitous PowerPoint.

As we mentioned in the third episode of the podcast, we are all about minimal functionality. If making a presentation for a class requires fancy slides and graphs, maybe you should read up on how to give a presentation. For our needs and wants, Google Presentation is all we need. And all that information is in the cloud, which is a huge plus.

Creating group presentations for a class is now a breeze, with the same collaboration features from Google Docs available. Soon, you will never even have to leave your room to meet your classmates. We will each live in pods controlled by machines…

For now, Google Presentation’s functionality is expectedly limited. We would like to see a few more font choices. It doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of PowerPoint but hey, we don’t miss ‘em.

I just found this interesting article about how colleges are moving their mail servers to the GMail system. I hope American universities follow suit.

Now you can use Gmail to fire files up to 20MB in magnitude. Unfortunately, with such an explosive file size, you won’t be able to drop these bombs on people with other email carriers. But if you still insist on sending a file to the enemy, try one of these warships:

http://www.divshare.com/
http://www.mediafire.com/
http://www.senduit.com/
http://www.sendspace.com/
http://www.snapdrive.net/
http://www.sharebee.com/
http://www.sharebig.com/
http://www.wikifortio.com/
http://www.yousendit.com/

Because I was so inspired by Facebook Sync earlier today, I started wondering if there was a method to bring all of my new addresses into my GMail accounts.

Turns out, there is a way. It’s called A to G.

So get on it and put your contact list “in the cloud.”

Over the past week, I’ve been experimenting with Google Calendar as a personal planning device. Although it’s still in beta (like every other Google product), it boasts an amazing set of features.

You will find many articles scattered about the Interweb about syncing Google Calendar (GCal) with iCal. This article is not about that; this article is about using GCal as a real calendar is used, no matter the situation.

Read on to your heart’s content »

I’m right smack in the middle of finals week, and that means I am more prone to distraction and procrastination than ever. But let me show you a little something before I get back to writing my last paper of the semester.

An Introduction:

I’m enrolled in the honors program here at LMU. The LMU honors program is a little different compared to most colleges. There are only about 30 people from each class year in the program, and we all take the same humanities classes, regardless of our major (or how much we beg and plead). I had to take a class called “Republic to Prince” for the honors core.

“Republic to Prince” is a western civ class. I am not interested in western civ.

Solution:
Read on to your heart’s content »

Whenever I’m searching for something inappropriate on Google, like communism, I often have trouble getting to exactly the right site. And I also don’t like doing more work than I have to.

In the spirit of studying for finals and not doing work, I’ll just link to a trusted outside site, College v2.

Get your Goog on:

• Search with Google Like a Pro: Part 1
• Search with Google Like a Pro: Part 2

I present Google SMS (Beta).

Google SMS (Beta) offers great features. Helpful features. Features absolutely perfect for Student 2.0. With a simple “translate apartment in german” sent to 46645 (or GOOGL), Google SMS (Beta) will hit you back with:

“Google Translation:
‘apartment’ in English means ‘Wohnung’ in German.”

After spending a semester in Berlin, Germany, studying at the Freie Universitaet, I concur. How sweet is that! Not just limited to translation, though, Google SMS (Beta) also offers a glossary, a calculator, currency conversion, and even your local movie listings.

Check out all the options.