New Hotness: Rosario Doriott

HackCollege.com for the past few months has been the sole effort of me, Kelly Sutton, but it's time to change that. And the change will be for the better.

The new writer/contributor/editor/elitist/what-have-you is Rosario Doriott. She hails from Yale University and is also a computer science major. She's a nice first addition in the relatively new site.

With Rosario onboard, readers should expect more articles and a fresh, new voice. While I realize I am the most intelligent and interesting person alive, a reader may become bored with my diction.

I welcome Rosario to HackCollege.com, and it's onwards and upwards from here.

By the way, if you read the site and have some feedback, shoot me an email at michael.k.sutton@gmail.com. We'd love to hear from you.

Laundryhack: Folding T-shirts Quickly and Consistently

Well, tomorrow's Sunday. For most, Sunday equals laundry day.

I saw this awhile ago and have been using it since then. Sure this method gets your shirts folded quickly, but I'm more of a fan of the consistency: you get a perfect fold ever time.

Take a look and save yourself some time tomorrow:

Sleephack: Waking up for that 8 o'clock class

It's soon going to be that time where everyone needs to play chess with the schedules for next quarter/semester. After figuring out my schedule, I'll have an 8:00 a.m. class all five days of the week. Yuck.

Then I remembered a great article I read a few months ago over at StevePavlina.com. The article goes into great depth (as Steve usually does with his topics) on his methods of waking up early.

I personally tried a few of his tips over the summer for my job. I used to stroll into the office around nine, but after his tips it was easily 8 a.m. Did I mention I also had more energy and put in two more hours of work each day? 50-hour weeks are easy if you wake up early.

If you're looking at 8 o'clock classes next semester, read on: How to Become an Early Riser

Life Saver: Zotero the Bibliographer

One of the most annoying and pointlessly time-consuming tasks any student ever does is craft a bibliography. Let's face it, they are lame beyond all comprehension.

Thankfully, for those using Firefox, there's a handy extension that can expedite your bibliography process. It's called Zotero.

Zotero is a slick little bibliographer tracker/organizer. If you're browsing a site and find a quote you want, you bring up the Zotero window with Ctrl+Alt+Z, then click a button. Zotero instantly logs the site's address, time of visit, and presents a window to fill in other information. Blickity-blam.

You can also keep track of books and other sources, so that all of your sources are in one place.

When you're all done, you can export your bibliography to a few different bibliography files or a text file. Now you can just import that into whatever program you wish, and you just saved yourself an hour or two constructing a bibliography. Zing.

Never worry about a bibliography again: Zotero

Video: Fire-breather

I don't usually post link to videos, but since this one is pretty amazing and short, I post.

A guy goes to take a shot en fuego and well... take a look. Yikes

Make Some Extra Cash in College without a Work-Study (or Real) Job

Work-study jobs are nice: you're paid to study for a few hours while doing a task every once in awhile. Unfortunately for some, not every student always gets work-study money or the work-study dollars may just not be paying the bills.

For further reading on this subject, check out these two articles (1)(2) on collegev2.com.

• 
  Stock Photography

  Stock photography has recently moved out of the hands of professionals and into amateurs, largely due to the advent of "prosumer" cameras like the Canon Rebel. But with most newer digital cameras today, you shouldn't need a bag full of lenses to take your own stock photography.

  How do you make money with some pictures of relatively boring subjects? Take a look at iStockPhoto.com. The site has single-handedly driven professional stock photographers out of business. They pay each amateur (now considered professional?) photographer each time a magazine, newspaper, what-have-you downloads the file for a nominal fee (anywhere between $1 and $25).

  If you create your own iStockPhoto account and submit several stock photos, you could potentially have a steady stream of income flowing into your bank account for some initial work and periodic maintenance. Score.
  

• 
  "Gigs" on Craigslist

  While it's easy to find free couches on the other side of town on Craigslist, finding a suitable "gig" may be tougher.

  "Gigs" are more-or-less one-time jobs or tasks that someone needs done, not British rock shows. It's a good way to make quick cash if you've got the time. There are gigs for just about any talent and they are always numerous.

  Word to the wise: Craiglist is unmoderated, so you potentially dealing with "shady" or "sketchy" folks. Make sure your terms of service are clearly worked out before doing any work. Make sure their checks don't bounce when you cash them and make sure you have their real name/organization.
  

• 
  Medical experiments

  A friend of mine was describing a sleep deprivation experiment he participated in once. He had to stay up for 36 hours straight while being monitored and made out with $550. That's not too bad.

  Well, they did take nine blood samples over the course of the 36 hours. And he wasn't allowed caffeine.

  So, if you're willing to be a lab rat for a little while and want to meet some "interesting" people who also need money, see if local universities (or your own) are putting on any experiments in the near future.

  Hope you live to tell about it.
  



• 
  Start tinkering around in the stock market.

  If you've already got some money in savings, this could be a way for you to spend money to make money.

  Start an account at an online trading site (I use Charles Schwab) and do some research. When you think you've found a good stock, jump in and buy it. See what it does.

  I used $1000 I made over the summer to buy some shares of Apple Computer. I bought the stock at $68, and now it's somewhere around $80.

  If I sold today, that'd be another $200 in my pocket (minus commission and trade costs). Not too shabby.
  

• 
  If you have the skills, freelance

  There are many businesses and individuals that turn to freelancers to get the job done for them. Whether it's editing a wedding video or designing a logo, freelancing is any easy way to make a significant amount of cash. The same warning goes for Craigslist though: make sure you've got your terms worked out before you start working, no matter what.

  A good place to get started is freelance.com or a site like it.
  

• 
  Auction off anything you don't need

  I remember first arriving at school my freshman year, and I brought twice as much stuff as I needed. Even now I still have more clutter in my dorm room than I need.

  It can be difficult to part with your possessions though. For me, I'm considering selling off my laptop and Mac Mini in hopes of getting a MacBook or something. But parting with two computers might be too much for me.

  You have two main routes for efficiently unloading your belongings: eBay and Craigslist. eBay will probably land you more for your money, but you'll have to bother with shipping and setting up an account (if you don't already have one). For Craigslist, you'll probably get less for your item, but you won't have to hassle with shipping it.
  

• 
  Create your own website

  It's what I'm doing at least. It's probably the hardest way to make money. After three months of dedicated posting and revising and publicizing, I've made less than $5 from adveritising. It's a tough road, but maybe traffic will pick up.

  If you take this route, I highly recommend GoDaddy. I've had no trouble with them and they are very competitively priced.
  

Uh-oh: Drink Calculator

No one really likes someone else to tell them how much they are messing up. The bearers of bad news in history have been executed or excommunicated. But, regardless of how pleasurable the news may be, it is sometimes necessary. The Drink Calculator puts one of the most common habits among college student in a(n unfortunate) reality.

The site is pretty simple: it's a flash-based little site that calculates how much you spend per year on alcohol after you enter in the amount you typically pay per week. If you drink 6 beers per week at reasonable L.A. prices ($4), you would end up spending $1248 per year on alcohol.

Maybe I'll take up cycling instead...

Click through to figure out how much money you're spending on your favorite addiction: Drink Calculator

Party-Saver: iPod -> Folder

Oh no(es)! It's 15 minutes before that gut-busting party you were planning on throwing and you realized you don't have enough/the right kind of/funk music! Well, you do, except it's spread out across your closest friends' (and auxilary hosts) iPods.

iPod -> Folder to the rescue!

While it has a clunky and awkward name, "iPod -> Folder" could potentially save any music-needing situation from the bowels of "cool" "retro" 90's hits. It copies all of the music from an iPod onto a computer simply and easily, thus opening doors of crunktastic mixes and hyphy beats.

So dance to the latest musics from around the world without pulling your hair out while trying to use myTunes or OurTunes.

Save your next dank, dorm room party: iPod -> Folder