1DollarScan Will Digitize Your Textbooks for Only $1

Last September I wrote a brief overview on the various methods to digitize a textbook, at that time BlueLeaf was the premiere textbook scanning service despite their hefty price tag. That may no longer be the case. 1DollarScan (the most unoriginal name ever…) is a new book scanning service that will convert your print books into a PDF for only $1. 

Sounds too good to be true? In fact, it is. 1DollarScan’s pricing is based on a rate of $1 per 100 pages scanned, up to a maximum of $6. Still, it’s amazing that you could have a full course load worth of books turned into PDFs for reading on an iPad for $30. There appears to be a few drawbacks to 1DollarScan’s inexpensive solution, most notably the fact that they use destructive scanning to convert your books into bits and bytes. Environmentalists rest assured, they will recycle your book after two weeks unless you request to have it shipped back to you, albeit in pieces. You’re also responsible for covering the cost of shipping your books to 1DollarScan.

I’ll be sending an old textbook of mine off to 1DollarScan over the weekend to see if the service is all that it’s cracked up to be. Stay tuned for an update in the coming weeks.

[Via TechCrunch]

How To Make Cleaning a Habit Instead of a Chore (Part Two)

If you don't make cleaning a habit, this is what could happen to your work space. Photo courtesy of Inha Leex Hale. Licensed under CC BY-2.0.Yesterday, I wrote the first part of this cleaning series that is teaching students to turn cleaning into a habit, rather than an annoying chore. By making it a habit, it becomes second nature and we become more organized without even thinking about it. Check out these additional tips to help you turn into a cleaning fan.

Everything Has A Home

This is something that my mother has told me since I was old enough to pick up my stuffed animals and put them in a box-- "Go find your giraffe a home." It is the single most important rule of cleaning. Everything must have a home, no matter what it is. If it doesn't have a place to be put when you're not using it, either find it one or throw it away. Find places for your cleaning supplies, for your fruit, for your scissors, for your shoes, for everything. If things don't have a home, then they will continue just to sit randomly on the ground, on your bed, on the coffee table, and your place will continue to look messy and unorganized.

It is a remarkably simple concept, but putting into practice can take a lot of time and organizing. However, once you do find everything a home, your place will be completely organized.

Create a Daily Routine

At the end of every day, I like to go through my apartment and just do a quick clean up of everything. I put my shoes in my closet, my jackets on hooks, my dishes in the dishwasher, etc, etc. I found this nightly routine extremely helpful when I lived in dorms because they got so messy so easily after a day of hard studying. Put your books back on their shelves, your notebooks back in your bag, and just generally tidy up your area. This will make everything more organized right away, and will be less for you to do whenever you need to do major cleaning.

Create a Weekly or Bi-Weekly Routine

Some people can do the weekly routine, but I'm much more of a bi-weekly routine person. It's whatever works for you. Your bi-weekly routine should involve some bigger cleaning tasks like cleaning your bathroom (toilet, sink, mirror shower), kitchen (wipe down your fridge, microwave, sink, and mop your floors), and desk (trash old, unnecessary notes, get rid of non-working pens, and organize your useful notes).

Everyone has their own version of this more major cleaning routine, but mine usually involves the above tasks plus laundry and changing my bed sheets. On weeks I'm feeling especially ambitious, I vacuum too (I hate vacuuming). Create a routine that works best for you and that addresses the areas that you're most messy in.

What do you do to make sure your area is always clean and organized? Let us know in the comments!

[via Pick The Brain and Re-Nest]

How to Use Your Laptop Safely

This cute couple won't be so cute when they're hunched over in 20 years. Photo courtesy of parislemon. Licensed under CC BY-2.0.

I often blame my poor posture on the fact that I’m a student. Although I’m not sure that’s completely true, one thing if for sure though, after working for a couple of hours straight on my laptop, my neck and back get sore. I’m not a Kin major, but it’s no secret that laptops are ergonomically poor. The angled screen below your line of sight forces you to look down, causing your body to compensate by slouching forward, rounding the back and placing strain on your neck. Despite this fact, students seem reluctant to do anything about it. Yes, I know, you’d look like a dork if you followed all of the recommendations UC Berkeley outlines in their Ergonomic Tips for Laptop Users document. The way I see it, by optimizing your regular working environment you can alleviate much of the strain you put on your back each day. Here are my recommendations to avoid looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Raise Your Screen

In last years Hack College Dorm Room Essentials Guide , Kelly mentioned the Griffin Elevator laptop stand. The Elevator raises your laptop so that the screen is at eye level, allowing you to look straight ahead to maintain proper posture. Other laptop stands exist, but if you’re on a budget, a pile of textbooks will suffice. You’ll need to purchase a mouse and keyboard with this type of setup, but these costs are minimal compared to the medical bills you could be paying in the future.

Purchase A Secondary Display

The price of monitors is plummeting each day, as Laura highlighted a good sized screen can be had for under $250 these days. By plugging your laptop into a screen you eliminate much of the ergonomic problems associated with a laptop, while simultaneously doubling your screen real estate. Win.

Work on Your Core

At its root, poor posture is the result of muscle weakness, tightness and imbalance. If you’re slouching, chances are your core (abdominals, obliques and erector spinae) is weak, your chest and neck are tight and your hips are tilted. You’ll need to meet with a professional to evaluate your own personal decencies, hopefully they’ll be able to set you up with a back fixing regime. Personally, I’ve had success following Cressey & Robertson’s Neanderthal No More program. A word of caution though, it’s not for the weak stomached and uncommitted.

Move Around

Living a balanced lifestyle has become cliche term, but it’s one thing we do advocate at Hack College. Get outside, go for a run, play intramurals, take a dance class. It’s not healthy to spend all day everyday in front of your computer. At the end of day, your brain, social life and back will all benefit from some time away from your screen.

I hope these suggestions have at least made you aware of the postural downfalls of using a laptop for extended periods of time. If you notice that you’re beginning to slouch, make the fix right away before it’s too late. Personally, I’m moving to a standing desk this upcoming semester, but I’ll save that discussion for another day.

College 101: Dorm Move-In

Welcome to Cribs: Dorm Life. Photo courtesy of esc861 on Flickr. 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 inevitable topic of moving into the dorms.

Congratulations. Your endless summer has finally come to a close. Whether it was a summer of toasting goodbye to friends with late nights by beachside condos or late nights watching Arrested Development and Firefly reruns by your lonesome, your high school life has ended and you are officially beginning life as a college freshman by moving into your dorm.

I understand that not all freshman students choose to live in residence halls, and I bid mine adieu after my freshmen year, but more often than not, the majority of first-years choose to live on-campus in residence halls and some schools even mandate freshmen live on campus. For off-campus tips, check out Laura's recent posts on moving in.

Everyone has their own story of moving in - some are horror stories, others are tearful goodbyes. For me, it was a combination of the both. I'll explain what I did wrong and how to avoid that in your move in after the jump.

Click to read more ...

Get Your Papers Proofread For Free on Kibin

Kibin's web-based editor means you don't have to email word documents back and forth.

Being a student means writing a lot of papers, but if you actually want to get good grades on them, it's usually best to let another set of eyes check them over. Unfortunately, your friends are busy and usually not interested, so what should you do? Put your faith in the online masses of course!

Kibin is a new service that connects you with other users who will proofread your paper, for free. The catch is, in order to get your paper checked, you have to proofread someone else's first. It's all based on a credit system, where you earn credits for reading, and spend them to be read. If you don't have time help others, you can pay to get your paper read at a rate of $.01 per word. Sounds cheap, but you might need to scrimp and save for a long term paper. 

Kibin's staff doesn't actually do any proofreading, but they do scan each completed paper for quality standards before handing out credits, and their criteria sound pretty strict. They want editors to offer advice about a paper's overall structure, not just point out a few comma splices. This does mean you'll need to invest some time to build up your credit bank, but you can expect the same care in return. 

[Via Lifehacker]

TweetMemeFace+: Think Before Crossposting

This is where Facebook oversharers go when the wifi's out. Image courtesy of Flickr user Mike G. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.So, as you probably aren't aware, I spent many hours of my formative years reading fanfiction on the intertubes. (Mock it and I will cut you.) Turns out, fandom is actually a pretty good place to learn the social media ropes for a variety of reasons. Most importantly for our purposes here, there's a big internal rule within fandom that crossposting (posting one story in multiple places) is noted, apologized for, and rarely done.

Social media should be more like fandom.

If you've got the usual array of social media accounts--Twitter/Google+/Facebook/LinkedIn/SkankJank--it's easy to make it so that your single post can be sent off to every single one of those networks in one application. When the information you're conveying to people is widely applicable and the massive crossposting is rare, that's fine.

Easy crossposting starts to be an issue when every single one of your updates goes out to every single one of your networks. For people who follow you on multiple networks--and if you're networking well, there will be a few of them--this is incredibly annoying. People who are following you on multiple networks are also the people you least want to annoy, as they're your biggest fans or people you know in real life.

Mass crossposting is usually an indication that you're using each network in exactly the same way. That's a rookie mistake. Each of your social networks should serve a distinct purpose in representing you online, and the information that's relevant to one channel should most likely not be relevant to all other channels unless you're a Kardashian. Here are some guidelines for each network.

Facebook: Keep it primarily personal, though you can post when you get a new job or something similar. Privacy lock everything so that you can be more open on here if you want. Post infrequently. People who status update more than twice a day have a special place in hell.

Google+: Doesn't have its own protocols yet, so do whatever you want. If you crosspost everything from Twitter into G+, your techsavvy friends (which are probably the only ones on G+) will mute you on one of the networks. You can probably afford to make your G+ feed the same as your Facebook feed without angering that many people. Tech-focused content will do well here.

Twitter: Try not to post more than once an hour. If this is an issue for you, use Twuffer. If you link your Twitter stream to Facebook, you're probably being annoying. If you keep your account public, which you should, never speak badly of an individual, and aim for bon mots. On Facebook, people are willing to listen to you just being you. On Twitter, you should be singing for your supper by being funny or useful, particularly if you're using Twitter in a professional capacity.

LinkedIn: Keep posts industry-related and useful. This is not the site for personal updates. Crossposts between here and Facebook or G+ should be carefully thought about and most likely avoided. Crossposts between here and Twitter only work if your Twitter account is career-related. When in doubt, don't.

If following you on multiple networks provides distinct, rewarding insights, people are going to be more likely to actually listen to you. Hopefully, that's why you're on social media in the first place.

Win an iPad 2 Courtesy of Vonage Time To Call

Editorial Note: Vonage provided me with iTunes credit for test calls, and is also providing the Apple Gift Card valid for an iPad 2 (or other Apple products) to give away to our readers.

Did that headline get your attention? Good, but you'll have to read through the rest of this post to get to the contest details.

At many schools, more than 50% of students spend at least a semester abroad. If you've been on campus long enough, you've undoubtedly tried it yourself, or had a good friend who did. Now a new app from Vonage promises to make it easy to catch up with your friends. 

Time to Call, a free app available for all iOS devices (and Android in the future), allows you to make a one-click purchase (Either $.99 or $1.99 in the US, depending on the country you're calling) for a 15 minute call to pretty much anywhere. There's no account to sign up for, and no credit card information to enter. The entire process is handled by Apple's In-App Purchase system, so all of your billing information is already filled out. As an added bonus, your first call is free. 

While you can use your Apple device to call out to any phone number (including landlines), the app doesn't accept incoming calls, which is a bummer. Also, while unused minutes roll over to future calls (for now), those minutes can only be used for the same country or region that they were purchased for. 

No, Vonage Time to Call is not a perfect app, nor is it the cheapest way to stay in touch, but it makes the process of calling phones in other countries about as simple as it can ever be, and that may justify the price for many students abroad. 

Want to win an iPad 2, courtesy of Vonage? Read on to find out how!

Click to read more ...

Choose Your Own SXSW Adventure

33% is much better than 0%. Licensed under fair use.Just last week, we told you how you can write your way to SXSWi 2012 in Austin. Regardless of whether or not you will be in attendance next Spring, you can vote what panels will get to present for the Music, Movie, and Interactive portions of South by Southwest 2012.

My friend and fellow higher education blogger Jeff Young is hoping to present on a panel similar to our previous dicussion - technology in the classroom. But he's just one of many panels you can pick for all three divisions of the festival.

Make your voice heard and pick what you want to see and hear in Austin next Spring!

[SXSW Panel Picker]