TutorLinker: Find/Be any Kind of Tutor! Wow!

TutorLinker.com allows you, without registration (thank God!), to search for tutors within your area (or the address you put in) using Google Maps. You could find a tutor for math, English, Spanish, C++ programming, soccer, tennis, typing, organization, the LSAT, almost anything!

To continue Kelly's last entry on job-searching... You can also sign up to be a tutor, too! The minimum amount you can charge is $10/hour. Sweet!

Note: This latter registration is currently free, so get on it!

New Facebook Layout

The multitude of us college students woke up Wednesday morning and probably felt some growing pains. This should come as a surprise, because puberty is as much as history as the Spanish Civil War in 1937.

Facebook unveiled its most-drastic layout change yet, along with some cool new features. The layout is the first new completely different layout that I've seen; changes in the past have been additions, not reorganizations. More surprisingly--as far as I can tell--there haven't been groups upon groups created proclaiming, "We hate the new Facebook!" I guess it's because these drop-down lists are so damn cool.

The next thing of note, the "network profile," is exactly what users were dying for. It creates a profile for each network (city, school, high school). The best feature of the network profile is the upcoming events in the specified network. Talk about efficient consolidation. I wouldn't be surprised, however, if desperate student organizations start abusing this feature. Also, the discussion board and wall seems out of place and a little too public. Time will sort out these bumps.

How do you feel about the changes that your precious Facebook has implemented? Let us know in a comment. And read the official Facebook blog post.

Want a Job? Start a Blog.

This past week has been remarkable. I'll try to remain as modest as possible, but--I'll admit--it's going to be tough.

Last week, Rosario and I received an email from the SI On Campus editor asking us to write for the section. SI On Campus is the college sports fan wing of Sports Illustrated. This email was completely unprovoked.

Mutually exclusively (and less remarkable), the student media advisor at LMU recommended me for a writing job at an upcoming publication called, Conde Nast Portfolio. Conde Nast is the publishing company that owns Wired, YM, Glamour, Jane, Lucky, Vogue, and the New Yorker. Needless to say, it's like someone has attached an air-compressor to this balloon that is my ego.

Anyway, these two events got me thinking. In a way, a well-formed blog is like a resume that's constantly updating itself. Actually, a I posit a blog speaks more than a resume ever could; a blog is an archive of information proving that you know what you're talking about. And here at HackCollege, we pretend to know what we're talking about.

Hell, a good blog could even get you some pseudo-celebrity status. If you're good enough at blogging, there's a chance that--whatever industry you enter--your employers will already know you. We can dream.

So go get a blog started. If you need help, don't hesitate to email us or leave a comment on this post. Here are a few resources to get you started (and that we used):

• 21 Surefire Tips for a Successful Blog Launch


• 8 Steps to Growing Your Blog Community One Person at a Time


• 10 Things To Do After You Launch Your Blog

Happy Easter! (and subscribe to our RSS!)

Happy Easter to all the reader out in the world.

Just a friendly reminder, subscribe to our RSS feed if you haven't already to receive regular updates to your browser/RSS client.

If you don't know what RSS is, check out Wikipedia's definition:

RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as blogs, news feeds or podcasts.

Users of RSS content use programs called feed "readers" or "aggregators": the user subscribes to a feed by supplying to his or her reader a link to the feed; the reader can then check the user's subscribed feeds to see if any of those feeds have new content since the last time it checked, and if so, retrieve that content and present it to the user.

Productivity: With 6 Firefox Extensions

If you like Star Wars, here's a cute "Easter" Egg inside Windows XP:

1. Start > Run
2. telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl
3. Enjoy!

But,

That's not the point of this entry.

Since I will be spending this holiday working on my senior thesis, I thought I'd share with you all some of my frequently used Firefox extensions (you know, the ones that actually HELP productivity):

1. Adblock Plus
This will block all those annoying ads that are absolutely everywhere nowadays (even on this site!).

2. BugMeNot
Are you searching for a specific article from an online journal? Are you a student without the $19.95 to pay for the access to just that one article? The BugMeNot Firefox Extension grabs login information from BugMeNot.com. I use this all the time. I rarely have to sign up anymore for websites I know I will only use once.

3. Faviconize Tab
While you're doing online research, you most certainly have a bajillion tabs open. With this useful extension, you can double-click on a tab and have its length shorten to just an icon, letting you view more tabs at once!

4. Google Images Re-Linker
This extension will skip the "context" of a Google Image, going right to the Full Image. Oh, this saves my sanity.

5. Google Preview
While searching through Google, this extension will give you a thumbnail screenshot (preview) of the websites listed.

And...

6. LeechBlock
This has got to be my favorite. Currently, I have it set up to only allow me to visit HackCollege.com, Facebook.com, YouTube.com, RosarioDoriott.com, etc. (aka the "unproductive" websites) during the first 10 minutes of every hour between 11am and midnight. All other times, they are blocked. This is essential for getting anything done!

For the same effect,
Enter the Time Periods: 1110-1200,1210-1300,1310-1400,1410-1500,1510-1600,1610-1700,1710-1800,1810-1900, etc...

Happy Productivity!

Road Trip It with Trippish

First of all: Yes, I'm posting at 1:30am on a Saturday morning. I swear I did not sit at my computer the entire night. To follow-up Rosario's most recent post regarding the illustrious PublicRoutes.com, I've dug up (or just spotted on the front page of digg) another travel-related site.

Enter the world of Trippish, an advanced road trip calculator. Type in your coordinates and it calculates total travel distance, time, weather along the way, and the best time of day to leave. Shazamm (sp?).

One of the big caveats (or just an unfulfilled personal preference) is the choice to use Microsoft's Virtual Earth rather than the favorite Google Maps. Minor qualm, but I gots to have my Google Maps.

Either way, I'll definitely be using Trippish when I drive home for the summer in early May. Thank you semester system.

Road Trip 'Till You Slip: Trippish

Getting Around: Public Transportation

For those students in Boston, Chicago, CT, Dallas, Los Angeles, Miama, NJ, NY, Philadephia, San Francisco, and Seattle, PublicRoutes.com offers a new service for using public transportation!

Similar to other services, PublicRoutes asks for your start address and your end address. Click "Get Directions", and it'll give you the best transit route --using subway, train, bus, and walking. Oh, I am very excited about this.

New Stuff at Facebook

The peeps over at Facebook have some new stuff going on and they're letting you know about it. Last Wednesday they added a new page that "chronicles what's new on Facebook."

Along with the page that announces new features, Facebook has also added a sneak preview group to give people the inside scoop.

For more information, check out the detailing on the new stuff they have in planned to keep students informed about... new stuff.