How To: Dot Your I's, Cross Your T's, and Properly Place Your Em Dashes Before School

While cruising through the vast Internet today--I swear I've just about read every single site--I came across a delightful find: The Grammar Girl Podcasts.

This podcast is a great supplement to one of my favorite educasts (lame word alert), The Word Nerds. I would go so far as to to say The Word Nerds podcast got me interested in writing. The hosts fall into the category of "cool old guys." And it seems like they know more than Webster himself.

So, while your mind simmers on the luke-warm pan of indignation, sloth, and ineptitude this summer, tune into some educational podcasts. Your brain will thank us later.

The Links:

• The Grammar Girl


• The Word Nerds

Are You Learning a Foreign Language This Summer?

We've already discussed how to perfect a foreign language with Skype, but there's another player out on the field now: xLingo.

xLingo is a community for both learners and teachers. Upon signing up, you can designate which languages you're currently learning or would like to learn; you can also designate which languages you can teach, along with your level of fluency.

Then, it functions like a "tandem partner". You can meet those wishing to learn the language you can teach, and you can meet those teaching the language you wish to learn. Exchanges can occur through forming a penpal relationship, an IM relationship, or even meeting in real life.

The site also allows you to create flashcards and tests for yourself and others. Very useful.

So Many Ways to Tie Your Laces

I've always said "tennis shoes", but I bet you say "sneakers". Either way, I bet both of us tie ours in the same boring way. But we can change that!

Ian currently lists 31 different ways to tie your laces, and SneakerFreaker displays a list of 15 that are more popular. Check them out.

A New Kid on the Block: college being

Around for exactly one month starting on Wednesday is college being, another new addition to the ring of serious college blogs popping of everywhere. We like the blog, started by Chris Mendes, so we're promoting it.

college being is a great supplement to HackCollege. Chris focuses more on the entertaining and quirky side of college life, while providing the occasional life hack.

We've added it to our Google Readers (Google's RSS feed-reader), maybe you should to: college being's RSS feed.

Or you can visit the site: college being

College Fashion (for Girls)

While looking through the sites that link to HackCollege--a process made painless by WordPress--I noticed a new link in our little box: College Fashion .Net.

I eagerly visited the site, hoping to find information to instantly woo any woman upon first meeting her. Unfortunately for me, the site is specifically for women's fashion. Damn.

Check out the site, it seems like it's pretty good. (I can't tell you too much about women's fashion, sorry.) This is a great addition to the College sphere of blogs.

Get Your Dress On for Cheap(er) and Look Good Doing It: College Fashion .Net

While I Was Gone...

Sorry everyone, I haven't made a post in awhile, two weeks to be precise. I have a valid excuse, I was in Korea. I hope everyone else's summer travels are treating them well. If you are staying and home and working a nine-to-five, here's what's been up in the student's world in the last two weeks:

• The iPhone was released [Apple.com]. I pray that you already knew this.


• Facebook reached 30 million users [Facebook Blog]. Lookout MySpace.


• This summer's biggest movies are out [Rotten Tomatoes]. Go rekindle some high school romance.


• CollegeHumor's Drunk-O-Vision makes the Digg front page [CollegeHumor]. I'm usually not a fan of most of CollegeHumor's stuff, but this one is too good.


• HackCollege makes the Google #1 spot for the query "hack college." [Google] It's taken awhile, but that's okay =).


• HackCollege has some changes ahead. More on that soon...

Quick Post: Starting a Conversation

I'm still in Seoul with not much time to post posts, and this article I found is not much use to me now because identifying people to talk to in Seoul is relatively easy for an American: just look for other Americans/Canadians. Granted, it would be foolish to assume that all Americans are worth talking to.

For those of you in the States: How to Initiate Conversation

How To: Take Great Naturally Lit Pictures with Your Point-and-Shoot

Hot poop. It's been awhile since I've posted anything. My excuse: I'm in South Korea. What's your excuse for not getting work done?

On this trip, I find myself taking quite a few pictures--as you would on any trip I suppose. I discovered that the flash is "evil" in the programming sense (i.e. you should only use it when you absolutely need it). Natural light, in almost any photograph, looks much better and the people don't look like ghosts.

Because of the way camera technology works, when you don't use the flash, you'll need to hold very still. Or you will need a tripod. I don't know about you, but when I go out with friends I don't carry a tripod with me. So there are a series of steps that I do to take pretty good low-light pictures:

• Seek out a sturdy object in your environment. Preferably one that you can set the camera down on.


• Turn the flash off.


• Set your camera to the timer function. (You know, the one that takes the picture after 10 seconds and plenty of blinking.)


• Turn down the ISO as low as it will go. (Optional, but it makes the picture have less grain.)
  
• Have everyone hold still. (Important!)


• Let the camera do the rest.

With any luck, you will have a great, naturally-lit picture. This does have some drawbacks, such as not really being able to shoot candids. Also, you need a ledge if you want to be in the picture.

In the past, I have pushed the side of my camera against a pole or a wall for added stability when I was the photographer. As long as you keep pushing, the picture should turn out okay.

Here are two example pictures to demonstrate. These are pictures of the group I'm with in Korea on a boat cruise on the Han River in Seoul. Neither of them are very good, but I hope you get the picture. (Zing!)