OS Tips – Control Mac Dialog Windows from your Keyboard

Wish you could navigate around these boxes from your keyboard? Now you can!Last time, I showed you how to access the Mac menu bar from just your keyboard. But let’s say you’re installing a program from a .pkg and you have to navigate dialog boxes à la Windows. For students trying to reach a Zen keyboard state, what are they to do but reach for their mice?

After today, you can keep your fingers squarely planted on the home row because I’m going to show you how to control Mac dialog windows right from your keyboard.

First, you’re going to head to System Preferences, then Keyboard, and then Keyboard Shortcuts. Down near the bottom of the box, you’ll find some text about “Full Keyboard Access” – this is the trick to letting you control those dialog boxes straight from your keyboard. Click the button that says “All controls” and you’re setup and ready to go.

Once a dialog box pops up, use tab to navigate forward through the various buttons and shift-tab to navigate backwards. The button you’re currently on will be highlighted with a blue border around it. To choose the option, hit the space bar. For those blue buttons, you can skip this altogether and just hit the enter key to move forward. In certain dialog boxes like System Preferences, you’ll be able to navigate around the items with the arrow keys after you’ve tabbed over to the right buttons. Play around with it and it should become pretty obvious based on the GUI when you can access this functionality.Soon enough, you'll learn to love that blue halo.

From now on, you can choose pretty much any Mac menu option with just the tab button and the space bar. This has helped me to navigate around my Mac significantly faster and should speed up your productivity regardless of what you’re doing.

Have you encountered any problems with this OS Tip? Let us know in the comments!

App of the Week - Text for Free with Google Voice

Save some green, and ditch your carrier's texting plan with Google Voice!Nowadays, our smartphones do so much with our always-on Internet connections that we forget about the phone part of our devices. However, take one look at your phone bill and you'll get a stark reminder of just how much you're paying for your minutes and texts - often more than you're paying for that oh-so-precious data. Want to save some cash every month? Grab the Google Voice (GV) app, ditch your carrier's texting plan, and start texting for free!

Platform Availability: iOS 3.0 and up, Android 1.6 and up

You can use GV with any phone, but you need the app to unlock the true potential of GV (i.e. free texting).

Cost: We always love pointing out free stuff, so set up a free account here, get the free iOS app here, and get the free Android app here.

What it is: GV is a phone service the folks in Mountain View provide that associates your existing phone numbers to a new GV number that's tied to your Google Account. This GV number in combination with the GV app provides a number of cool features like:

1) Free unlimited texts

2) Voicemail transcription

3) Call forwarding and blocking based on user-defined rules

And so much more…

How does it work: After you setup your account, just log into the GV app with your Google account. Both Android and iOS feature the same basic interface: To send free texts, it's as easy as going to the Dialer tab, adding a number (there's great native contacts support), and sending as many drunk texts as you want without any monetary repercussions (although the social ones may be far more costly). Unfortunately, texts from people whom text your GV number will only show up in the app and not in messages on iOS (although you can fix that with this $2.99 tweak if you have a jailbroken iOS device). Edit: Reader Gotlactose mentioned a similar Phone GV Extension, which also costs $2.99 and can be downloaded here.

GV features an intuitive and uniform interface on all devices.Features: Free Texts – Text as much as you want as long as you have a mobile Internet connection. The only limitation is that you can’t send MMS (picture or video messages).

Visual Voicemail – GV will send you emails and texts notifying you of new voicemails with text transcriptions of your messages. From the app, you can then see all your voicemails and play them back just like your mp3’s with fast-forward, rewind, etc.

Cheap International Calls – Do you have family overseas? Dial directly from the GV app and spend just pennies per call to keep in touch. Think Skype already fills this niche? GV features cheaper international rates and no mandatory connection fees, unlike Skype. 

The Competition: There are several free texting apps out there:

Textfree with Voice – Free - iOS Download, Android Download

textPlus Free – Free - iOS Download, Android Download

First off, these apps constantly barrage you with ads, which GV does not. Secondly, these free options don’t integrate with your phone nearly as well as the GV app. They don’t feature the wonderful visual voicemail, call forwarding, or call screening features that GV does. For free texting and enhanced calling, GV is simply unmatched.

Summary: Why spend money on expensive texts when you can just use your data plan for these tiny messages? Save some money, text as much as you want, and unlock fantastic calling features with GV. Once you start using GV, you’ll never want to go back to using your phone without it.

Do you know of any other options to get free texting? Why do you prefer them to Google Voice? Let us know in the comments!

How to Build the Ultimate Beer Pong Table: Part 2

Beer pong HackCollege style at the 2010 Summit in New York.In Part 1 of our Ultimate Beer Pong Table build we learned how to turn a big piece of plywood into a regulation size playing field for the best party game in existence, beer pong. Today in Part 2, we’re going to learn how to turn our generic tables into beautiful works of art. I’ll be honest, this part of the build is pretty tedious, but after amazing your friends with the finished product, it’ll all be worth it.

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College 101: Textbooks

Don't let textbooks make you lose a bucket of money. Photo courtesy of pmccormi. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.Welcome to College 101, a weekly series HackCollege will be providing with how-to's and what-not-to-do's for incoming college freshmen, and those who think they need a refresher course. This week - the most corrupt industry in higher education and also the reason this column was delayed a day - textbooks.

Need a laptop? Our Back to School series is brought to you this year by Intel. We've teamed up to bring you the HackCollege Laptop Chooser. If you share the Laptop Chooser, you'll be entered to win a Samsung Series 9 Notebook!

There are some universal truths in this life - death, taxes, and if you're in college, textbooks. Few classes can survive without offering them, and they make an expensive higher education THAT much more expensive. Only in the textbook industry can online access codes sell for nearly $100 while bundles of books and codes sell for near $60. I wonder how much it cost to generate a series of random numbers.

Textbooks are getting more user-friendly with the rise of e-readers like the Nook and the Kindle, but the industry is quick to adapt. Thankfully for us, the everyday college students, the market is just as quick to adapt. Enter Amazon and Chegg into the textbook market and the university bookstore's reign on textbook purchasing begins to slip.

Read on below the jump for more tips on how to not fall into the textbook swindle.

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Watch, Read, Make: Muppets, Money, and Beer

Welcome back to another edition of Watch, Read, Make. This one's special, because I'm back in school now (boo/yay). This week, we've got Alice Cooper dancing around like Satan with the Muppets, a breakdown of how one freelance blogger makes a living without a regular job-job, and a way to reuse your empties in order to heat up some water (science!). Check 'em out and keep yourself busy this weekend.

Watch: You know how I know the past was sometimes much better than the present? Because in the past, apparently Alice Cooper could go on the Muppets, sing "School's Out for Summer," and everyone was just okay with that. Also delightful is the fact that Alice Cooper is some sort of unidentifiable goth clown and is doing a conga line with the Muppets while wearing a red leotard devil costume. This clip almost compensates for class. Almost.

Read: Are you interested in making money on the internet as a self-employed person? (Of course you are, you web 2.0-er!) Then read Dear Professional Blogger: How Do You Make Money? It's a good outline of the upsides of self-employment (getting to do work you're engaged in, not having to deal with office politics, and--in that particular author's case--being able to travel regularly), while still making it clear that part of how you stay solvent as a freelancer is working all the time (something that Chuck Wendig, also a professional freelancer, is clear about). In general, posts from people that really specifically break down how their money is earned and spent are rare--the whole series of posts that that author links to in the original post are worth checking out if you're at all interested in personal finance.

Make: This solar water heater made out of beer bottles (followed by several variants on the design) is delightful in every way. At least two of the versions of the water heater on the linked page appear to be do-able with pretty common supplies. If you've living anywhere where hot water is at a premium and/or you enjoy making things out of the remnants of your drinking, try making one. Impress your friends!

Don't Buy a TV for Your Dorm, Buy a Home Theater PC

Need a laptop? Our Back to School series is brought to you this year by Intel. We've teamed up to bring you the HackCollege Laptop Chooser. If you share the Laptop Chooser, you'll be entered to win a Samsung Series 9 Notebook!

A tiny PC and monitor will get you way more bang for the buck than a TV and standard dorm cable.It might be tempting to spend hundreds of dollars to have the biggest TV in your dorm, but you might get more bang for your buck by buying an external monitor and small home theater PC (HTPC) instead.

First, the monitor. Large HD monitor prices have plummeted in recent years, and you're missing out if you haven't picked one up yet. The extra screen real estate can increase productivity by letting you do things like work on your essay on one screen, while viewing your research on the other. More importantly, having a monitor will encourage you to get work done at your desk with proper posture, rather than in bed. A quick Amazon or Craigslist search should turn up a number of affordable options, so even if you want a dedicated TV, you'll want to pick one up. 

So how can you turn your beautiful new screen into a full-fledged television? Well, for just a few hundred dollars you can pick up a small nettop (the desktop version of a netbook) to act as your HTPC. This tiny and attractive Lenovo will get the job done for about $300, and won't take up much of your room's precious space. Just hook it up to your monitor and start enjoying Netflix, Hulu, iTunes rentals, or whatever else your entertainment needs require at any given moment. If your dorm includes cable, you can even tack on a USB TV tuner for around $50, and use your new setup as a full-fledged TV and DVR. Try doing that with a run of the mill TV set.

Did you skip the TV when decorating your dorm? Let us know how it went in the comments. 

Back to School: How to Start Your First Week Off Right

Your first day of school isn't like this anymore. Photo courtesy of Flickr user woodleywonderworks. Licensed under CC BY-2.0.

Need a laptop? Our Back to School series is brought to you this year by Intel. We've teamed up to bring you the HackCollege Laptop Chooser. If you share the Laptop Chooser, you'll be entered to win a Samsung Series 9 Notebook!

Sometimes it's hard to get back into the mentality of going to school again. Your brain is still resisting thinking about those complicated equations and theories, and wishes it was back in bed in summer. In order to get you back into the right mind set, HerCampus wrote a great article about how to start off your first week of college right. These are great tips for freshmen and upperclass students alike because everyone needs a little reminder of what it takes to be awesome your first week. You can check out HerCampus' full article here, and here are several of the tips that I thought are the most helpful.

Map Out Your Schedule

There is nothing worse than having no idea where you're going on your first day of class. I am extremely directionally challenged, and so it makes me incredibly nervous to not know where I'm going. To prevent a panic attack in the ten minutes between classes where I'm supposed to find my next class, I map out my schedule ahead of time so I know exactly where I need to go. I write down exactly when each of my classes are and what room they're in. Obviously, being me, I color coordinate this too.

The next thing you should do is go to every classroom that you'll be in that semester. You may know kind of sort of where the room is in that building that is possibly over there, but in order to make sure you're not late for anything, you're best bet is to actually go to the classroom so you can be absolutely sure you know where you're going on your first day of classes.

Get to Class Early

This may seem like a super nerdy, brown-nosing technique, but it is actually a really good tip. You will make a good impression on your professor if you show up early. Also, you'll be able to settle yourself into your surroundings if you get there earlier. Take out your notebooks, your notes, and maybe your laptop so that you're ready exactly when class starts. It really sucks when you slip in the door at the last minute, and you're still pulling out your belongings as the professor starts his or her lecture.

Getting to class early also ensures that you'll have your ideal pick of seating choices. Sitting in the front is often a good choice because you'll be able to make sure you're not sitting behind a guy on the basketball team who completely blocks your view of the board. Sometimes it also helps to sit at the front because professors can be hard to hear, especially if they have accents or are just soft-spoken. Adjust yourself in the classroom to make sure you are getting everything out of class that you can.

Keep An Eye Out for Potential Study Buddies

It may seem early in the semester to be looking for someone to study with, but it's never too early in fact. You may already have a friend in the class. If you don't, make conversation with the people next to you. Try to gauge what kind of student they are. If you notice them taking extremely detailed notes, be friendly to them and then when it comes time to study, you'll already have a relationship built so that you can form a rocking study connection that will help both of you ace the test.

This is also a really good thing to do even if you don't like studying with people, like me. I like to keep my eyes on who takes good notes in case I fall sick later in the semester. It's good to know who you can trust to take good notes so that you know what was going on in class while you were gone.

Explore Other Buildings on Campus

This is a really great tip that HerCampus gave and that even as a senior I plan on using this semester. Once you know where all your classes are, you might feel that you don't even need to go into the other buildings on campus. For example, as a Communication and Classics major, I don't think I've ever even set foot in the engineering building. But it is actually a good idea to just go explore the other buildings on campus. You'll get a better sense of where everything is and you might even see some really interesting things that will encourage you to try out a class you never though you'd try. You might see an flyer for an event that sounds interesting to you. Get out of your comfort zone and see everything your university has to offer.

What tips do you have for rocking your first week back to class? Let us know in the comments!

[via HerCampus]

Use TextExpander to Supercharge Your Notetaking

Need a laptop? Our Back to School series is brought to you this year by Intel. We've teamed up to bring you the HackCollege Laptop Chooser. If you share the Laptop Chooser, you'll be entered to win a Samsung Series 9 Notebook!

Taking notes in class can be  stressful. A lot of brain power is required to simultaneously listen to the professor, observe the blackboard or projector, integrate the stimuli and transcribe notes onto a literal or figurative page. I’ve always got my eyes open for any tool that’ll make taking notes during lectures a little easier. Recently, I discovered TextExpander, a small Mac utility by Smile Software that expands abbreviated words into any kind of text.

I’ve always admired the students that can write in shorthand, it makes sense to replace common conjunction words with single letters and symbols, but I just find the fractured text difficult to read after the note has been taken. Using TextExpander is kind of like typing in shorthand, except the shorthand words you type are automatically replaced by snippets of text that you setup in advance. Efficiency gurus often use TextExpander to insert long pieces of text that they type frequently by simply typing a single word and allowing TextExpander to handle the rest. For example, to type your full address you could type hhome and have TextExpander expand it for you. The beautiful thing is that you can make your own snippets for anything that have to type often.

So how do you put TextExpander to work in a lecture environment? Perhaps there’s a word that is used frequently in one of your classes, but it’s long and you can’t spell it to save your life. Personally, I find typing atherosclerosis super difficult, so instead of racking my brain on the word, I just type asvd and let TextExpander take care of the hard work for me. With respect to = wtr, low socioeconomic status = lses, you get the idea.

TextExpander can take some time to integrate into your note taking arsenal. For one, you have to remember to use it in the first place. Typing is a pretty mindless task that is reliant on a fair bit of muscle memory. You’ll need to train your hands to type in snippets, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to keep up with the professor and relax a little in class.

TextExpander is $34.99 in the Mac App Store, but as part of our Back to School Week, we're giving away three TextExpander licenses! To enter, simply tweet the word you stumble on the most when take notes in class followed by the hashtags #HackCollege and #TextExpanderGiveaway. The contest closes at 12PM EST on Sunday.