Things Your New Apartment Needs That You Probably Forgot

Congrats on the new apartment! But you might be missing a few things... Photo courtesy of crschmidt. Licensed under CC BY-2.0.Okay, call me crazy, but when I moved into my apartment on Monday (!!!), there were a few things that I had forgotten to bring or buy for my new place. I would go to grab something from a cabinet and drawer and all of a sudden realize, "Oh. Dammit." So here is a list of a few things that I found that I didn't even think about needing until I all of a sudden needed them. Hopefully you remember them as you move into your new place.

• Toilet Paper - Clearly, this was a stupid thing to forget. But let me just tell you, it is super awkward to take a quick bathroom break as you are moving in all of your stuff and then realize that you didn't bring any toilet paper with you.
• Kitchen Garbage Can - I packed my dorm room trash can that I've had since freshman year, but it's pretty bitty and is definitely not study enough to be my kitchen trash can. Until I went out to Target to buy one, I just used a plastic grocery bag hung on my pantry door handle. However, having a kitchen trash can is pretty important, especially when you start cooking.
• Paper Towels - It's really annoying to try to find something to wipe up a drop of milk and realize that you have nothing.
• Dish Detergent - Again, this is so obvious. You need dish detergent now that you have a dishwasher. DUH. However, never having a dishwasher when I went back to college, I completely blanked, and realized I couldn't wash my dishes until I ran out to the grocery. Again.
• Salt and Pepper - Usually when I go on my grocery runs, salt and pepper aren't on my list because they're just always there. They're the ominpresent seasonings. However, in a new apartment, they are, quite obviously, not there. Put them on your shopping list to avoid dinner sadness.
• Soap - Another thing that I took for granted as always being there was soap, both dishsoap and hand soap. It's hard to wash anything when you don't have it.

What were some of the things you totally spaced on packing or buying when you moved into your apartment? Let us know in the comments!

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

If you don't clean all the time, your kitchen sink could start looking this icky. Photo courtesy of alancleaver_2000. Licensed under CC BY-2.0.If you've gone more than a week or two without cleaning your room or apartment, you'll realize very fast that disorganization and messiness can get out of hand right in front of your eyes. Cleaning and organizing may not be your favorite thing to do (unless you're one of those people), but it is a necessary evil, especially for college students who are living in very small spaces that get messy very easily. On HackCollege, we've given you tips on various cleaning methods, but in this two-part article, I'll explain some tips you can use to turn cleaning into a habit so that your space is consistently clean.

Have a Stock of Cleaning Supplies

Clearly, you can't clean if you don't have cleaning supplies. It's really easy to say, "Ah well, I don't have any cleaning stuff so I guess I can't clean." In order to avoid that excuse, stock up on some good cleaning supplies now. My favorites include Clorox wipes (which can be used for basically anything), a Swiffer, Windex (for mirrors and windows), paper towels, and 409 (a good tile and kitchen surface cleaner). Also, you should also have an ample supply of laundry and dishwasher detergent. To make things even better, keep some smell-good stuff around your place. For non-chemical fragrance options, check out this article, and for additional articles on cleaning supplies, check out these two articles.

Clean As You Go

It's a lot easier to clean up a mess as soon as it happens. If you spill spaghetti sauce, for instance, on the kitchen counter, it's super duper easy to just wipe it up with a paper towel. But if you wait even just for an hour or two, it's dried and now you might need cleaning supplies to get it off the counter. The same goes for things like toothpaste. It's really easy to wipe extra toothpaste off the sink just after you've brushed your teeth, but leave it there for a whole day and now it's all gross.

Instead of waiting three days to wash your dishes and now having to put away three times the amount of dishes, just clean your few dishes right after you use them. This way, your sink is always clean and clear, and you won't have nearly as much to do when you finally do decide to clean. When you clean as you go, it turns cleaning into a habit and soon you won't even have to think about it.

Break Cleaning into Chunks

When your space is really out of control messy and dirty, it can feel entirely overwhelming to even begin to clean it. How the hell are you supposed to get through all of this shit? The easiest way to do this is just to systematically go through it by breaking up what needs to be done into increments or chunks. For instance, spend an hour cleaning one part of your space, whether it's the kitchen, bathroom, or your desk. Keep moving onto different sections of your room or apartment until you've done it all.

The chunks you break your cleaning into can be time-based or area-based. I prefer to do area-based. When I moved into my apartment Monday, my stuff was everywhere and needed to be organized desparately. I first started in the kitchen. Yesterday, I did my bedroom and closet, and today, I'll finish up with the bathroom. By chunking areas, you'll see a great improvement in one specific area, which will probably make cleaning feel less overwhelming. If you are in a time crunch, try time-based cleaning. Spend 15 minutes in each of the messiest areas to do some damage control.

Make Cleaning Fun

Okay, so maybe that sounds oxymoronic. But it isn't. Cleaning can actually be fun, if you have the right attitude. Put yourself in the right mood by putting on some awesome dancing-cleaning music. Dance, sing, and clean all at the same time. It's a great stress booster too. I like putting on a mindless TV show when I clean too (Millionare Matchmaker is my total guilty pleasure right now. Patti, I adore you). Having something else going on in the background will make cleaning go by faster, and you'll be amazed how much you can get done when you're on a roll.

Look for Part Two of this article tomorrow!

[via Pick the Brain and Re-Nest]

Startino Offers a Clean, Simple Task Manager and To Do List

Startino is a pretty sweet, free task manager.I've never really been one for online to do lists. I'm much more of a physical notebook kind of to-do-lister. It's always there when I need it, and I just think better when I write things down. However, I am pretty intrigued by Startino, which is a free online task manager that has a very simple interface that actually make organizing your stuff easy. Some sites that provide task managing features actually end up complicating the whole thing. Startino, however, is very simple to use and understand.

According to its website, "Startino is a free web-based to-do list. It is designed to be straight-forward, with a simply interface and layout. Therefore, by design, it doesn’t offer any sophisticated features . However, it is quite sufficient for managing one’s daily personal and/or professional tasks. An advantage of Startino is that it incorporates a Google search box, so that if you set up Startino as your browser’s homepage, you will always have your tasks right in front of you."

You can sign up for Startino's features for free with any Google account. I think the most interesting thing about Startino, besides its easy to use features, is that you can share tasks and to do lists with other people. If there is every a major group project that you are working on in a class, you can start a new list with your group members and assign everyone a list so that everyone knows exactly what he or she is responsible for.

For anyone who has had a group project nightmare, Startino might end up helping you in future group projects. (And for kicks, here is some bonus reading on group projects.)

What do you think of Startino? Let us know in the comments!

[via Addictive Tips]

How to Safely and Effectively Sell Your Stuff on Craigslist

Who wouldn't want cash for their old stuff? Photo by Global X and licensed under CC BY 2.0.As college students, we tend to accumulate a lot of stuff that we only have use of for a short time, be it textbooks or furniture. Of course everyone wants to get a little extra cash for stuff they no longer need, and thanks to the wonders of the Internet, you now have more options than ever before. While you could turn to eBay, why deal with the hassles of shipping your item, dealing with fraud, or giving away a cut of your earnings? Instead, take advantage of Craig Newark’s free brainchild, and stay local to turn stuff you no longer want or need into cold, hard cash. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or have never sold anything on Craigslist, follow these tips to make the selling process as quick and easy as possible.

1. How Patient are You?

Economics (and more obviously, common sense) tells us that buyers want to buy low and sellers want to sell high. As a seller, the more you list your item for, the harder it’s going to be to find a buyer. Right off the bat, decide your personal preference when it comes to how much money you’ll take vs. how quickly you want to get rid of the item. You can do a quick eBay search to get a rough estimate of the going market price for your item and adjust your listing’s price accordingly depending on how quickly you want to make a sale. Usually, for cheaper items like fans, microwaves, or lamps, I find it best to list on the low end because those items go up on college-area Craigslist sites all the time, so you’d rather make a sale for less than no sale at all. For more expensive items like iPods or laptops, be willing to hold out longer and don’t be surprised if lots of people contact you with ridiculous lowball offers – this is Craigslist after all. If you’re firm on your price, just let people know that in your listing and keep away negotiators.

2. Put Some Effort into your Posts

Would you want to buy from a posting that just said: “ipod for sale $80”? Of course not! I know how lazy we college students can be, but it takes less than five minutes to include some pictures of your item and give a thorough description of 1) the item’s condition, 2) if you’re including any extras, and 3) if you’re open to negotiation or trades. Remember that quality posts attract quality buyers.

3. Refresh your Post ASAP

Most buyers never even look past the first page. If you live in a busy area, your posting will drop off most people’s radars within hours. Craigslist lets your renew your post every 48 hours. Take advantage of the feature, and bump your post to the front of the line as often as you can to get as many eyeballs on your item as possible.

4. Call, Don’t Text

Emails and texts might be great for communicating with classmates and friends who can be expected to be reliable, but Craigslist might be home to the flakiest community of people on the planet. Ask people to call you if they’re serious about actually buying what you’re offering – it requires a lot more gumption and conviction to make a call and speak to someone than it does to send a text or email. Often times, you’ll even get sketchy emails asking you to ship the item in return for payment via PayPal. Ignore these emails and stay local. 

5. Be Smart

So you’ve navigated through the mud of Craigslist and finally found a buyer for your item. Now what? When it comes to actually making the exchange, be cautious and remember that you are dealing with strangers. Don’t waste your time, and ask for confirmation that your buyer is actually leaving – I’ve had deals fall through at the last minute before because my buyer just stopped answering the phone. Always meet in a public place with a lot of people around and never at your home. Always bring a friend with you to watch your back and make sure there’s nothing suspicious. Ask them for their name and what they’re wearing so you know whom to find. Finally, use common sense. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is, so wait for something that’s more realistic.

At its worst, Craigslist is full of flaky, unreliable, and just plain creepy people trying to scam you out of your stuff. But if you keep these tips in mind, you’ll screen out most of those folks and experience Craigslist as it was intended to be: a free local marketplace full of great and reasonable people.

Do you have any Craigslist horror stories? What about extra tips not mentioned here? Let us know in the comments!

What the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Hack Attack Means for Students

How safe is your identity? Photo courtesy of mikebaird. Licensed under CC BY-2.0.Last week, hackers breached the security of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee by planting malware in the university's computer systems. The result was the exposure of social security numbers of students, faculty, and staff. Though forensic experts don't believe that the motive behind the hacking was identity theft, the social security numbers and names of over 75,000 people associated with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

As college students, we are required to give our social security numbers to a variety of institutions for financial and background reasons. However, when a computer attack like this one happens, it can cause unease for us to feel vulnerable to attack and identity theft. The lesson college students should take from this incident is to always be cautious when dealing with personal information. Even when you trust the institution you are giving your information to, like your university, be aware the things can go wrong. Even upstanding places like colleges aren't safe from hackers.

To protect yourself against stolen identity, follow your credit reports closely and check up on anything that seems out of the norm. Always check your bank statements to make sure that there aren't any purchases listed that you don't remember making. Constant vigilance!

[via Maximum PC]

What University Facebook Pages Mean for Students

Liking is not the same as friending. You don't need to worry about privacy when dealing with your school's Facebook page.

If you've been accepted to a college in the last few years, odds are you've received invitations to join some of your school's official Facebook groups. These could include umbrella pages for the whole university, pages specific to your graduating class, or even pages designed for your residence hall and managed by an RA. Despite what you may have heard, these pages are not evil.

Most Facebook users have never been an admin for a Facebook page, so it's not always obvious what permissions they enjoy. As a result, many students avoid these pages like the plague, worried that the Dean spends his days looking for evidence of underage drinking, vandalism, and other tomfoolery. Others worry the individual users of the page will be able to access their profile without sending a proper friend request. Fortunately, neither of these rumors are true.

As an admin of the HackCollege Facebook Page, I can only see what users post to the page, not anything else associated with their profile. I have access to broad analytics such as the number of fans we have from certain cities or countries, but none of that information can be traced back to individual users. I can click on the name of anyone who likes us, but I'll only be able to see as much of their profile as their standard privacy settings will allow, unless of course I send a personal friend request. So basically, as long as you aren't posting illicit photos directly to your school page's wall, or using one as your profile picture, you have very little to fear.

In fact, there are many advantages to liking your school's page. Incoming freshmen can connect with each other, or even find roommates. Your school can create instant polls to get student feedback on things like dorm ammenities, dining hall food, and campus events. You can even be the the first to know if classes are cancelled due to snow or power outages. The benefits far outweigh the privacy concerns, because frankly, there are none. 

What you do need to watch out for though is if your school set up a profile (with full access to your information), rather than a page. A school setting up shop as a profile could be an attempt to spy on students, or it could be a university employee not knowing what they're doing. Either way, don't "friend" your school, "like" it. My high school once created a fake profile of someone supposedly moving into town that summer. It was clearly an attempt to spy on students, and it got really ugly once we found the 16-year-old Rhode Islander's profile picture on a Brazillian modeling website. I don't think many colleges are small enough or care enough about what you do on weekends to try a stunt like that, but it's a stark reminder to make sure you really know who you're friending. Liking a page though is perfectly safe, and there's no reason why you shouldn't.

Do you like any of your school's Facebook pages? Do they use them effectively? Sound off in the comments!

Use Hazel to Organize Your Class Documents

As higher education continues its push towards the web, students are handling an ever increasing number of digital files. At many institutions, everything from the class syllabus to daily Powerpoint lectures are distributed online for students to download. If you’re like myself, at the beginning of each semester you take the time to create a folder hierarchy for the classes you’re taking that semester. Once the hustle and bustle of classes starts though, you may find that your Downloads folder quickly become a mess of files that you neglected to drag into the appropriate class folder. Hazel solves this.

Hazel is a small Preference Pane utility for your Mac that monitors a folder of your choosing and executes an action when the contents of the folder match a set of user defined rules. Setting up Hazel to automatically sort class files into their appropriate folder on your computer is a breeze.

After installing Hazel.prefPane, take a look at your Downloads folder. If you’re lucky, each one of your Professors uses a unique naming scheme when distributing class documents. In Hazel, after adding your Downloads folder to the left sidebar, create a new rule for the class you wish to auto-sort. You’ll need to configure the rule so that only the files associated with that particular class will match the rule. In this case, all the files for Biology 373 have spring11-biol373 as a naming scheme, so I would select name + contains + spring11-biol373 as my filter criteria. Now it’s time to select the actions Hazel should perform if it matches any files. Here I’ve told it move the file to the appropriate class folder and to display a Growl notification of the action. Since Hazel runs silently in the background, firing off a Growl popup is a nice unobtrusive way to know that Hazel is doing its job.

I should note, although Hazel appears to works like magic, everything Hazel does can be accomplished with Applescript or for that matter, Automator. So why pay $22 for the small utility? Simple, Hazel’s ridiculously easy to setup and use.

If you’re tired of organizing your Mac one click at a time, I encourage you to give Hazel a try. As Ron Popeil would say, “Set it and forget it!”

Show Off Your Creative Skills, Win Lots and Lots of Money

The folks over at Adobe were nice enough this summer to provide us with a couple copies of Creative Suite 5.5 to give away to our readers, and now they're looking to give away lots of money. 

You can check out their contest page for all the details, but here's the good stuff:

• It's only open to students
• Create something, anything, that shows off your imagination using CS products for a chance to win
• Five winners will get $10,000 cash, 36 winners will get $550, and they're giving away $50 per day just for voting
• There are four entry periods, and you can submit a new entry for each one
• Even if you haven't purchased the software, you can try it out free for 30 days.

I have a feeling a lot of our readers know their way around Photoshop, Flash, Premiere et al, so I wouldn't be surprised at all to see one (or more) of you take home the big prizes. If you enter, show off your creation in the comments!