Google SMS (Beta): What Doesn't Google Offer?!

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.

Game Cheat: Windows XP's Freecell

Now that you know your laptop won't die on you in class, the next thing that's probably got you distracted from achieving your full potential in college is Freecell. Don't lie! I've seen so many of you playing it!

If you really want that screen at the end, that illustrious victory, that subtle edge over the kid setting next to you, let me give you a few shortcuts, in response to the questions I know you're asking me.

1. Emo Kid: "I just want to read 'Congratulations!' --like I did when getting in to college! What ever happened to those letters?!"

Well, Emo Kid, try this:
Hold down Shift and Ctrl. Then hit F10. You'll be prompted with a choice, but don't worry. Just hit Abort. ...Oh, sweet victory!

2. Independent: "I don't need your help, you know. I can do it myself. Just, maybe uh, get me started, would you?"

Well, Independent, try these:
From Game, go to Select Game. You'll have to go against the grain here, but i know you've got it in you. Try putting in a "-1". The cards will be in ascending order!
Or try putting in a "-2". The cards will be in descending order (depending on how you look at it). You are also on your way to great things.

I hope this helps, guys! But, really. Playing games in class, you're only cheating yourself.

UCLA Taser (Brutality/Use)

While it's kind of irrelevant to HackCollege.com, this story hits a little close to home, mostly because UCLA is right up the street from LMU.

On Tuesday night, a student was tased in the library by the UCPD, UCLA's on-campus police. The craziest part is that another student captured everything on video and YouTube'd it.

Decide for yourself what to make of all of this.

Link:
Daily Bruin Article

Black Friday Deal: $19.87 Atari Flashback Game System

I'm not sure how many of our readers remember, but...
It's still only $19.87 at Target. Kelly, this deal is for you!

MyRatePlan.com: 15 Minutes Could Save You... Loads!

I've got a cell phone. So does my brother at Harvard. So does my mother in Indiana. My father, well, he's holding out.

We're all with T-mobile, but it's not a family plan. In my case, I like T-mobile because I get free T-mobile-to-T-mobile minutes, and I also get unlimited texting. I pay $30 a month, but I've only got 150 minutes during the weekdays and 500 minutes during the weekends each month. But, hey, it works. I don't like to talk on the phone that much.

But many do.

So MyRatePlan.com looks to accomplish what, as my title suggests, Geico.com offers with auto insurance. You can compare lots of cell phone plans; you can also find out which plan supports that particular Nokia mobile phone that you've been dying to have (or maybe that's just me).

As a college student, you're almost on your way to total independence. Why not start now and pay your own cell phone bill? But be informed about it!

(Oh, and I've also heard about MobileBurn.com)

Laptop Batteries: 10 Tips for Immortality

I arrive to class. I sit down. I open up my laptop to take notes. The lecture is 50 minutes long. The professor saves his "conclusions to remember" until the end. I've got 46 minutes of battery life... No worries!

With a few tips, I can keep my laptop on throughout the lecture, get all the notes, and even chuckle to myself the next time I see another kid have to power down from a dead battery.

1) Power down all nonessential functions: If you're not using it, turn it off. Your wireless card consumes a lot of battery life even if you are not using it because it constantly is searching for networks. If you are running any large programs that you don't need, shut them down.

2) Laptop Screen Brightness: The screen brightness is one of the fastest way to drain a battery. Be sure to turn it down a few levels to help consume battery life.

3) Turn off Monitor: Set the monitor to turn off after one minute of the laptop being inactive.

See the rest of the Top 10: Here

Syndicated School News: Campus Reader

While reading your own campus paper is interesting and all, it would be nice to be able to be updated on other schools in the area. Take a look at Campus Reader.

While I don't really care about the opinions of people that go to Pepperdine--since they are usually wrong--it's nice to see how they like to spin their inevitable losses to our superior basketball team. But seriously, the site's pretty cool.

Campus Reader detects your incoming IP address and deduces which school are in your area. The site sees I'm visiting from the LMU campus, so I see news feeds from the USC, UCLA, Cal State Northridge, and Pepperdine papers.

There's also a slick "Reader Roulette" that will give you a feed from a random campus newspaper somewhere around the country.

Check it out and keep your eyes on the competition: Campus Reader

Cooking 101

Getting an on-campus apartment at LMU is reasonably rare; you probably have a 1 in 10 chance as a sophomore of drawing a lottery number good enough. I'm sure on other campuses, off-campus housing is more so the norm.

Either way, now is about the time of year (at least at LMU) when on-campus food options start becoming absolutely unbearable, thus the students who have been living in dorms start seeking out "friends" in apartments for cooking alternatives.

This article can help initialize your cooking and put you on the road to a delicious meal.

Read on and stop starving: Cooking 101: 20 Lessons to kick start your cooking skill