We're Looking for a Sophomore Writer

We're looking for a younger writer... Photo by Timlewisnm and licensed under CC By-SA 2.0

Many of the writers at HackCollege are getting along in years, and graduation looms, so we're looking for a younger student to give our tired old bones a break. This time around we're strictly looking for a rising undergrad sophomore. Sorry, no exceptions.

So if you like the stuff we post on HackCollege, and can spin a few words together yourself, send us an application. Here's what you'll need to send shep@hackcollege.com.

• Basic contact information (including Twitter, if you're on it)
• Resume
• A few recent writing samples
• A list of five post ideas for HackCollege, one of which you should flesh out into a full guest post

If we like what we see, you'll be hearing from us before too long. Good luck!

Bedphones are the Solution for Those Who Need Tunes When They Snooze

Earbuds + sleeping = bedphones. Photo courtesy of Engadget. I am the type of person who has to have some sort of loud, constant white noise for me to fall asleep. It drowns out noisy roommates and suitemates and just helps my body calm down from the chaos of the day. However, with a roommate sleeping in the same room, I couldn't exactly put on a loud white noise track on through my speakers and expect her to be okay with it. Thus, I used my earbuds and iPod to play a nice soothing track to fall asleep to.

When I tell people that this is how I slept throughout my entire junior year of college, they usually say that they can't sleep with earbuds in their ears. Even though I never had this problem, I can understand how headphones can be super annoying when you're trying to sleep. Thus, introduce Bedphones, customized earphones that are designed specifically to fit around your ears to be comfortable while you sleep. Genius, and for only $30.

However, the most genius part about this product is the accompanying Android app which you can download for free. Based on what settings you decide on, the app will slowly lower the volume of your music and even shut it off when you fall asleep, which it apparently determines based on your movement. I don't know how that works, but it sounds pretty darn awesome to me.

For college students on a budget who can't afford those super expensive sleeping earbuds, Bedphones sounds like a great solution to the noisy dorm halls that can make it almost impossible to sleep. Check them out here.

And for more tips on how to fall asleep, check out these previous HackCollege articles.

Have you heard of Bedphones? What do you think of this product? Let us know in the comments!

[via Engadget]

Home Screen Week: Emily's Android

Yes, they're shaking hands. Image courtesy of the author. Licensed under CC BY-NC-2.0.So, as you may have noticed from Sean's post earlier this week, it's kind of hard to screen shot an Android phone--at least without rooting it. (His images were taken with another smartphone's camera.) Given that the other smartphone users in my house are AWOL and my homescreen is not that exciting, I present to you instead my phone wallpaper, which was taken with my Optimus V's built-in camera. For the full phone experience, just imagine some small squares over the dinosaurs.

Now, on to the apps! I use many of the apps already covered here (particularly Evernote), but I'll try to avoid being redundant. In addition, I'm leaving out Twitter, Foursquare, and the GroupMe app, because they're easy.*

Fruit Ninja ($1.27):

I only even know this game exists because Shep and Laura introduced me to it at SXSW. Despite its weird price tag, it is a truly excellent purchase. If you're not familiar with the game, it's a mindless touch-screen time-killer in which you use your finger to slice apart fruit and avoid bombs. It is the best possible way to use the random 3-minute intervals I have waiting for the bus, and it's the only game my entire family enjoys.

TransLoc (Free):

If your school has an on-campus shuttle service that uses TransLoc, download this app. It allows you to pick the transit route your looking for, and then will tell you where the nearest stop is and how long it's likely to be until a new bus comes along. You can even follow the buses along a map in real time. It's super-useful if you're a transit user.

TuneIn Radio (Free):

I have an embarrassing love for really bad pop music. This app lets me listen in on the web streams of any of my favorite radio stations and will stream podcasts. Particularly if you don't like to store a lot of music locally, and want to keep up on recent music rather than just the music you like (which will happen with Pandora), it's a great little app.

Google Navigation (Free):

I'm pretty much convinced that this is one of the few things that Google does better than it's iOS-y cousins. The navigation app for Android phones is truly, awesomely phenomenal. Of particular fun is the ability to tell your phone where you want to go, rather than typing it in.

Savage Love (Free for Android/$1.99 for iOS):

When I'm not playing around on Fruit Ninja, this is how I kill time. The app presents a daily advice column letter and response written by Dan Savage, the author of the sex advice column Savage Love. If you like his column, the app's great--it gives you easy access to the daily letters, the Savage Love podcasts, and (should you be so inclined) a button to ask Dan a question.

* And the OKCupid app, because it's embarrassing. And kind of a sucky app. But, you know, great site!

To Be Focused or Spread Out? On Cal Newport's Zen Valedictorian Strategy

Is it better to focus all of your energy on one pursuit, or try a few different things? Photo by Balusss and licensed under CC by 2.0Cal Newport, the original college hacker, recently shared an email from an Earth Systems Science student in California who put Cal's Zen Valedictorian system to the test, and fell in love with it. For the uninitiated, the Zen Valedictorian philosophy is a three pronged system.

• Underscheduling of classes
• Focus on a single area
• Innovation within that area

The emailer told Cal that he only took 12-15 hours per semester (underscheduling), but spent 25-30 hours per week in the lab, concentrating on perfecting his craft (focus). As a result, he earned a fellowship and his name on the cover of a published scientific paper (innovation). As a cherry on top, he got to describe himself as the least-stressed science major he knew (Zen). It's all very impressive.

Personally though, I think it's a niche philosophy for a niche student, not something designed for everyone as Cal might suggest. Focusing exclusively on one project or one area of study is a classic case of putting all of your eggs in one basket, which always carries some risk. 

I'm very glad I didn't only major in Political Science, and instead chose to do a double in Communication, because I'm certainly not as gung-ho about politics as I was three years ago. I'm glad I didn't only intern and work part time with the Spurs, and chose to take on HackCollege as well. Did spreading myself a little thinner keep me from achieving more in a particular area? I can't say for sure, but I doubt that achievement would be as valuable as the experiences I've had and the people I've met by focusing on multiple activities.

I realize majoring in a science is a different beast, and maybe Cal's logic holds water for the brave souls studying the -ologies. Still though, if you have time to get an internship, start your own project, or just pursue a hobby that could lead to something bigger down the road, I think it's always worth it to take the plunge. 

What do you think? Is it better to dedicate yourself to one pursuit, or try a few different activities? Discuss in the comments!

Chameleon Window Manager Adds Extra Buttons to Title Bar for More Window Control

The snapping feature that Windows 7 offers is pretty much awesome, and as the only PC user on the HackCollege staff, I can say "ha." But anyways, by downloading the Chameleon Window Manager, you can make window snapping on your PC even more awesome. This download adds up to six buttons on your windows title bar (you can see them in the picture above). They add the options to snap the window left, snap it right, change the window transparency, always have the window on top, hide everything but the title bar, and minimize the whole window to the system tray.

Yes, you can make keyboard shortcuts for these commands, but personally, I like having them up in the top right corner where all of the other window size control buttons are. It makes everything so nice and organized. Because I usually have so many windows open at once while I work, it's really nice to just be able to snap a window with a click of a button.

This download is for PCs only, and free for Windows XP and up. Download it here.

[via Lifehacker]

Stay in touch with roommates for low-stress move-in

I bet they used GroupMe. Image courtesy of Flickr user Adam Sacco. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.If you're going to be living with a new group of people this fall, you probably already know that organizing an apartment can be pretty stressful. You've got to figure out who's contributing what to the place, who already owns things you'll need, and when everyone's going to get there. Luckily, there are a few pieces of technology that can make the whole process run smoother.

GroupMe: GroupMe, for those who don't already use it, is a group chat app. If you've got a smartphone, it can run in its own app. If you're still rocking a dumbphone, that's fine too--the group messages just get sent to you as texts. Go ahead and add everyone in your new living space to a GroupMe group, and that way you have an easy way to send messages to the whole group--for example, if wine glasses are on sale at Target, you can tell everyone that you already nabbed some. You can use it on move-in day to figure out when everyone's arriving, so that you're not all trying to move in at once. The best part about the app is that you really don't need to worry about who has what phone, since it works on anything that can receive SMS messages. It's even useful during the school year, when you can use the same GroupMe group in order to ask if anyone needs something from the grocery store, or let everyone know when you'll be out of town for the weekend.

Google Docs: Use a Google Doc shared among your roommates in order to list off all of the things that anyone can think of to need for the apartment (check Laura's kitchen article for inspiration). Then, make a header for each member of the group, and cut-and-paste the things that each person already owns or is bringing into their subsection. That way, you avoid duplicates and everything still gets purchased. Plus, it's easy to see on a shared document if one person has gotten saddled with buying way more stuff than everyone else in the group, which can be easily fixed in order to avoid resentment.

Split The Rent: This site is more for people living in a free-standing apartment or house than those in suite-style dorms. If you're in a place where some rooms are clearly better than others, though, the service allows you to figure out what the fairest allocation of rent is among the roommates. Everyone's happy, and there's less of a suspicion of favoritism when an app is doing the splitting than if an individual is. (via Lifehacker)

Do you have any apps that you'll be using to smooth relationships with your roommates? Let us know in the comments!

Home Screen Week: Shep's iPhone

All this week the HackCollege writers are showing off their phones' home screens and discussing their favorite apps.

My home screen hasn't seen many changes over the years, and I consider it to be a high honor for a new app to crack the top page. Here are some of my favorites, listed in order of their appearance on the page. 

Calvetica ($2.99)

Calvetica is a beautifully-designed replacement calendar for all iOS devices. As the name suggests, the interface leans heavily on a Helvetica typeface, and incorporates clean lines and pleasant colors throughout. The app plugs into an API that allows it to read and write directly to the default iOS calendar app, so as long as you have your calendars set up already there's nothing you need to configure. 

PlainText (Free)

PlainText is a Dropbox-syncing notepad written for all iOS devices. The clean interface and fast launch time alone make it a no-brainer replacement for the included Notes app, but the fact that you can access your notes instantly on any device or computer via Dropbox truly makes PlainText a must have on my home screen.

Reeder ($2.99)

Hands-down the best Google Reader client available for the iPhone (or iPad or even OS X). The interface is attractive and clean, and you can star or mark items read with just a swipe. An outward pinch on any article summary will even pull in the full text and images (sans ads and poor web formatting) of the article via the built-in Readability integration. You haven't experienced Google Reader until you've experienced Reeder.

Evernote (Free) 

I would be lost without Evernote. I use the cross-platform application for taking notes in class, managing this site, and remembering all the little details of the day. The iPhone app is perfect for accessing all of your notes, especially with the offline caching available to Evernote Premium subscribers, and is a formidable tool for saving and syncing photos and audio notes captured with your phone. 

AudioPress (Free)

It may be tucked away in my "Audio" folder, but that don't think that's a reflection on AudioPress's value. The app is a full-featured podcast and internet radio catalog that lets you access a dizzying array of free audio on demand. This app is indispensable for long road trips, and whether you're into tech, sports, entertainment, or whatever else, you're sure to find something entertaining in the massive catalog. 

Readability Browser Extension Makes Reading the Internet Bearable

The internet is a wonderful place, full of knowledge and awesomeness. However, it is also full of headache-inducing graphics, fonts, and ads. How are we supposed to learn with all of this crap clogging up the internet? We just want to read our articles in peace. Stop assaulting our eyes, you horrible internet monsters! We just want to read!

Well, thankfully Readability thinks the same thing. By downloading this little browser extension for Chrome (woot!) and Firefox, you can turn visually harmful websites into beautifully simple pages with uniform font that can be easily read with just a click of the Readability button. It's really pretty awesome, and I think I'm going to be using it quite a bit. In addition to simplifying pages to read them, you can also send them to your Kindle, which is definitely awesome.

You can grab this browser extension over at readability.com.

[via Maximum PC]