SplitTheRent.org Helps You Dodge Roommate Drama

Splittherent.org can be the perfect arbiter when negotiating rent payments with your roommates.

If you're planning on moving out of the dorms next semester, odds are you're already neck deep in the hectic college housing scene. Checking out apartments, finding roommates, and filling out applications add up to be quite the hassle, but negotiating the rent split with your roommates always presents opportunities for drama if the bedrooms aren't the same size. That said, it's better to get this out of the way before you sign the lease, rather than deal with hurt feelings later.

Enter SplitTheRent.org.  This simple site will let you fill in a number of parameters about your aparment.  It takes into account everything from the relative size of each bedroom, to the presence of private bathrooms, to the quality of the views.  Some questions get oddly specific too, asking if each room as its own door, or if any are awkwardly shaped.  After filling out the survey in its entirety, the site will spit out its recommendation for the each roommate's share of the rent, and invite you to give feedback to improve the algorithm.

Of course, you'll want your roommate present when you use the site, and you may want to agree beforehand to abide by its decision. There's no point using the site if someone is going to feel cheated afterwards.  If you'd rather just split things 50/50, you can always switch rooms midway through the lease.  

[Via Lifehacker]

Whiteboards Make Productivity A Little More Fun

Whiteboard doodles are epic. Loving the Lost references. Photo courtesy of melissaclark. Licensed under CC BY-2.0.Whiteboards. What are they good for except to make awesome huge murals that make no sense? Well, actually whiteboards can be an extremely useful tool for college students. So here is a list of things that I bet you didn't know about whiteboards and how they can help you with your college life.

How to Get Rid of Stubborn Marker Residue

The number one thing I used to hate about whiteboards was how messy and dirty they eventually got. I would have important things written up on my whiteboard for several weeks or months at a time, and when it was eventually time to erase them, they wouldn't come off. I would buy that special dry erase cleaner stuff and spray and scrub and spray and scrub, but to no avail. The words would still be perfectly visible or I would only succeed in spreading a nasty combination of all the colors all over the board. It's frustrating to say the least.

However, there is a very easy solution. Simply take another marker and scribble over the particularly stubborn bit of residue. Completely cover the old markings with fresh marker. Then just take a tissue and wipe it off. The residue should be 99% gone. It's a great way to get your board looking nice and white again. This trick also works with permanent marker on your whiteboard. If you want to write something long term on your board, don't feel afraid that you'll have ruined a whiteboard. Just do the same thing, and the permanent marker will disappear as easily as other dry erase markers.

Click to read more ...

HackCollege Exclusive: Tim Ferriss' Tips to Hack Your Body

Only 4 hours? Tell me more! Image used courtesy of Fair Use doctrine.There's many superstars in the productivity world: David Allen, Merlin Mann, and Gina Trapani come to mind. Obviously we've got some budding minds here at HackCollege as well.

There's many superstars in the fitness world as well. Beyond Jillian Michaels and and other popular diet/exercise gurus (Atkins, the people behind Weight Watchers, Jack LaLaine), there's been some intelligent discussion regarding fitness on the Internet. Here's looking at you, Mark Sisson and Steve Kamb.

But there's only one person whose come out as a leading voice on both productivity and fitness. His name is Tim Ferriss, and he's now got 2 #1 New York Times bestsellers - The 4-Hour Workweek (4HWW) and The 4-Hour Body (4HB). Tim is big on a no-nonsense philosophy, and his approach turns a few people off. I had purchased 4HWW but had only thumbed through it, and Tim seemed a little arrogant for my liking. I felt that way until I actually got to talk to him for HackCollege and realized he's one of the nicest guys I've had the pleasure of working with. I'm not editoralizing, Tim was incredibly courteous and dealt with me through a few dropped calls and a bit of technical failure. For as busy of a guy as Tim, that speaks volumes. 

Tim and I got to talk about one of my favorite issues - health and fitness, and I asked him to elaborate on how 4HB would apply to college students.

You might be surprised that Tim thinks college should be more than a factory for high-wage jobs. How is he able to drink cocktails, wine, and eat a multi-course meal while maintaining his figure? Find out more in our conversation below.

Click to read more ...

Kno Eschewing Hardware to Focus on Apps?

The dual-screen Kno seemed like the perfect e-textbook reader, but the $900 price tag seemed way too high for a single-use device.

Last month, we had a special opportunity to sit down with the people behind the Kno tablet at CES, and came away with mixed feelings.  The Kno tablet does indeed seem to be the best way to read an e-textbook, and the company has a lot of publisher deals already in place, but I can't imagine many students shelling out $600 or more for what amounts to a single-use device.

It seems Kno, Inc. may have the same reservations, and All Things Digital is reporting that they're looking to sell off the hardware side of their business, and focus on bringing the Kno experience to the iPad and Android tablets in the form of apps.  If this comes to pass, it will ultimately be for the best. Kno has the potential to turn the tide in the fight to digitize our textbooks, and getting their software on mainstream tablets is really the only way that a lot of students will get to use the service.  None of the tablets I've seen can match the 14" screen size or pixel-perfect handwriting capabilities, but I'll trade that for better e-textbook selection any day. It will be interesting to see how this pans out. 

What do you think? Would you be more likely to consider using the Kno as an app than as a full-fledged tablet?

Unplug Your Laptop to Boost Productivity

Focus in and you'll soon have those vocab terms memorized. Image courtesy of Flickr user Dani Ihtatho . Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.For most students, laptops are like desktops that can move--when we're not out and about, they stay plugged in to the wall. However, if you find yourself wasting time online and wondering how to cut down on those three-hour Facebook binges, de-tethering can be a huge help.

Unplugging your laptop gives you a de facto time limit: once the battery runs out, you have to go find an outlet and take a break from your work. Seeing the time left on your battery gives you some incentive to actually stay on track--something about seeing the time ticking down makes it more like a contest or a race, instead of a boring assignment.

Since most laptop batteries last around 2 hours max (netbooks excluded), this technique gives you a nice, workable chunk of time in which to focus on being productive. You won't have to sit there for two hours, and you don't have to stop your work every 15 minutes.

When the battery runs out, that's your cue to both plug back in and to take a break. Looking for your charger forces you to look away from your laptop screen if nothing else, and that can prevent eye strain and headaches.

Though there is some great productivity software out there (some of which we've covered before), sometimes it's not necessary to cut down on distractions and hone in your focus. Try unplugging first and see if it helps you work.

Use Facebook to Augment and Restore Your Photo Library

Now if my computer were to explode, my high resolution photos of Luke holding keyboards would be safe on Facebook.

Earlier this week, we all got to endure irate status updates and Tweets about Facebook's new photo viewer, which ineviteably faded away after a few hours.  Now that the dust has settled, it's clear that Facebook has emerged as a tremendous last-ditch backup utility for your cherished photos.

For a few weeks before the new lightbox viewer went live, Facebook has been giving users the option of uploading their photos in high resolution, which compresses them to 2048 pixels wide, rather than the paltry 720 pixels that we've been used to.  Though the difference isn't evident in the viewer itself, you can download the high resolution via a link on the bottom left of the photo.  This is great for archiving pictures of yourself that friends took, or saving albums from parties without risking your own camera.  The images aren't full resolution, but they're big enough to look good on your computer screen.  

Read on to learn how to use Facebook photos in a crisis

Click to read more ...

How to Turn that Frown Upside Down

This is how I feel this week. Photo courtesy of Moto@Club4AG. Licensed under CC BY-2.0.I don't know what it is about February this year, but I feel like everyone is going through this kind of life-suck stage. We're in that weird state of mind that comes around this time of year. We're pretty much over the excitement and relaxation that winter break gave us. We're far enough into the spring semester that our classes are no longer "new and exciting." Now they all just suck. And Spring Break sure seems like a hell of a long way from here.

With this "suck stage" that February seems to bring, there are going to be a plethora of bad days. Sometimes, your days just suck. Maybe you know going into the day that it's just going to be shitty or maybe you find yourself in the midst of hell unexpectedly. Whatever the case is, there are a couple of things you can do to help make your shitty day... well, less shitty.

Give Yourself a Breather

When I have a bad day, sometimes I just need to "take a chill pill," as my mother always says. I retreat into my space for maybe just 15 minutes or half an hour. I turn on some music or turn on a completely mindless show on Hulu. And I literally just sit there. Sometimes just taking a short little break from life is what you really need to turn your day around.

On the other hand, sometimes you can use this breather to organize yourself. Today, I felt my academic workload crashing around me and felt completely overwhelmed. I spent a lot of time panicking until I finally just sat down with my computer and calendar and literally scheduled out everything that I needed to get done today. After I had organized my brain and thoughts, I felt immensely better. It helped me be in control of everything, even though just moments before it had felt absolutely out of my hands.

Click to read more ...

Guest Post: Evaluating Your Employability

Fun though it may be, this is probably not how you should dress for a job interview. Image courtesy of Flickr user TedMurphy and licensed under CC by 2.0

Today's guest post is from Thomas Frank, a longtime HackCollege reader, and founder of collegeinfogeek.com. Thomas has some great takeaways for students from The Personal MBA. Enjoy!

One of the most interesting books I've been reading lately is The Personal MBA by Josh Kauffman. The book is centered around the idea that you can save thousands of dollars by not pursuing an MBA, instead reading lots of books in your free time and educating yourself. The book is a very broad overview of business that is broken down into chunks based on each factor that goes into running a business, including value creation, marketing, selling, finance, value delivery, and more.

While the actual value of an MBA is beyond my perception at this point in my life, I've come to realize that this book is a great starting point for business self-education. It's written in bite-size passages, each one based on a particular concept that falls under its chapter's main idea. 

In the chapter on value creation, one of the concepts that stuck out to me was the concept of economic values. These are the values of a product or offering that will influence how much people will want to buy it. The economic values Josh lists are

Efficacy - how well it works
Speed - how fast it works
Reliability - whether or not you can depend on it
Ease of use - how much effort does it require you to expend
Flexibility - how many things it can do
Status - how it affects the way others perceive you
Aesthetic appeal - how attractive or aesthetically pleasing it is
Emotion - how it makes you feel
Cost - how much you have to pay to get it

Click to read more ...