Winning Friends and Influencing People: College Cause Edition

Manners go a long way in life. Image courtesy of Flickr user Paula Bailey. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.College is a time for people to get really involved in something they're passionate about, whether it's a Free Tibet, vegetarianism, their college political party of choice, or something else entirely. However, what starts out as a well-intentioned passion for social change can quickly take a nosedive into the realm of irritating (and alienating) everyone around you. Here are some tips to prevent that from happening and, hopefully, encourage others to listen to you.

Don't get confrontational: This is the particular problem of newly-converted vegetarians (especially if they came to it via PETA). There is nothing wrong with not eating meat (or only buying fair trade, or campaigning for a candidate), but there is something wrong with being rude to people who disagree with you. If, to use the vegetarian example, you rag on your friends every time they sit down with a dining hall steak, they will grow to hate you. However, if they simply begin to notice that you don't eat meat and ask about it, it can be the opening for a great conversation about why you've made the switch. You don't want your defining feature to be your cause, because that alienates people who don't initially agree with you. You want to be "Tim, my lab partner who uses Linux and doesn't eat meat," and not, "Tim, that asshole who glares at me when I grab a burger." There's a difference.

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Google Docs (Finally) Goes Mobile

Microsoft Office sucks and should go die, at least in my humble opinion, so I ditched it this semester and have been using Google Docs full time. You should too; I haven't regretted it for a moment.

Unfortunately, I could only read my Docs on my iPhone and iPad, but not edit them. You can't do this with Office documents either, but this should be expected, as I would like to throw my copy of Office into an active volcano anyway.  Anyway, Google stepped their game up yesterday as they started rolling out mobile editing to iOS and Android 2.2 and above.  Android users even get built-in dictation, which might result in some amusing typos.  I worked a bit on my paper with an iPad the other day, and it performed pretty much like you'd expectit to; which is to say much better than my DocsToGo app, which I actually think I like less than Office.

Anyway, check out the video below for a quick overview, as well as some fun lifehacky uses, of the new feature. 

My Netbook is Haunted

I just picked my rarely-used netbook off my desk, and this is what happened.

Conquering Group Projects

Remember when this was what "group project" meant? Ah, to use crayons again... Photo courtesy of gradin. Licensed under CC BY-2.0.

As I begin to work on an end-of-the-semester group project for one of my classes with fellow Trinity student and HackCollege writer Shep, I decided it would be prudent to write out a few guidelines to make group projects as painless as possible. Love them or hate them, every college kid is going to have to deal with them at some point. The main goal of a group project is to expand on original ideas and observations and to collaborate them to create something much more successful than any one student could have produced. Unfortunately, sometimes group projects turn into unwelcome burdens where one or two people are left with the load while the other members slide by without caring too much.

While you can't always pick with who you work with for a project, there are a few things that you can do for your project to make sure that things go as smoothly as possible.

Brainstorming is Key

As amazing as email and other forms of mediated communication are these days, there is just no substitution to a good, old-fashion brainstorming session to start off your group project. First off, this is a good strategy to become familiar with the strengths and weaknesses of your group, especially if you don't know the members of your group. Listen to how your group members talk about the project to figure out how serious they are about it. Someone may take charge immediately, and sometimes it's okay to let them. Just make sure you're paying attention to what they're saying to make sure they actually know what they're talking about. Don't be afraid to speak out in the brainstorming sessions if someone starts to take too much of a lead. Similarly, be aware if a member seems to be bored or doesn't volunteer many ideas. It will help your group when it comes time to divide up responsibilities to know who is a good member and who isn't.

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Four Loko Is Going the Way of the McRib - Here's How to Make Your Own

Given the recent cases of alcohol poisoning and whatnot, I can't say this is very surprising, but it looks like the FDA is about to ban Four Loko nationwide.  I won't touch the stuff, but if you can't imagine Friday night without the colorful concoction, Buzzfeed has posted this excellent tutorial on crafting your own version.  Looks incredibly nasty, but it will definitely keep you drunk and awake.  

Seriously though, be careful with that stuff.

[Via BuzzFeed and Gawker]

HackCollege Reading List: Concerning the Soul

That kid looks happy. I bet he hasn't learned to make small talk yet. Image courtesy of Flickr user Scott Ableman. Licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

"Yes, then you remember that once a professor said something like this to you, that the world was suffering from materialism and intellectualism. He was quite right, but he cannot be your physician any more than he can be his own. With him intelligence goes on discoursing to the point of self-annihilation. He will perish."

-- "Concerning the Soul," Hermann Hesse

The essay that that quote comes from (which a kind person has scanned, along with a variety of other excellent books, here) was sent to me this morning by a friend. It urges honesty in communication and, when speaking, true expression of feelings. If you're excited, it seems to say, share that with people.

It's a sentiment that college students should take to heart. Simply agreeing with others around us because we don't want people to judge our actual opinions and feelings is common and it is sad--and, in class, it makes for poor class discussions. You know the type: no one says anything new, and everyone's an echo chamber for everyone else. Those classes suck.

So, instead of being part of that, go ahead and say something new--whether in class, or in a club, or when you see your friends from high school back home over the holidays and they want to know how you feel about school. You gain almost nothing from small talk. At least if you express your honest feelings, you have the possibility of finding someone who feels the same way--and those unexpected connections are part of what makes the college experience truly great.

Grab a Bigger Chunk of the Cloud with SugarSync

SugarSync might not have Dropbox's ease of use, but it's hard to complain about 5 GB of free cloud storage.I'll admit, I hadn't really given SugarSync much thought before today.  For reasons unknown, Dropbox seems to own an incredible majority of mindshare when it comes to free online storage, despite the presence of SugarSync's essentially identical 2 GB free offering.  

That may have just changed though, as SugarSync has upped the ante by increasing their free account's storage space to a more-usable  5 GB, with referral bonuses of 500 MB each.  If you've never heard of the program, you can use it to back up and sync the contents of selected folders on your computer (rather than Dropbox's single-use proprietary folder) to the SugarSync web interface, as well as all of your computers and devices.  Basically it's Dropbox, but with a lot bit more control at the expense of simplicity.

I used MobileMe for a year, and what I miss most is the ability to upload large files like videos to share with friends and coworkers.  My Dropbox is too full and too small to do this, so SugarSync's cushy 5 GB should come in handy as supplemental storage space.  If you're serious about your cloud storage needs, they'll be happy to sell you 30 GB for a reasonable $50/year or $5 per month; a much more college-friendly option than Dropbox's 50 GB for $100/year.  

If all you're interested in is the free version though, there really isn't a good reason not to try it out...so go do it.  

How do you use cloud storage as a college student? What's your preferred provider? Let us know in the comments.

Show Your OS Some Love: Contest Winners

We don't know what our real winners look like, so we're taking a guess. You guys have great hair! Image courtesy of The Oregon Trail Red Cross. Licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Thank you to everyone who entered our contest! We've picked the winners of the copy of Office 2010 and the two Cinch licenses.

Office 2010: The winner is commenter Crystal, who says that:

"If I had Office 2010, I would use it design newsletters for the literacy non-profit I work at. Our newsletter reaches the underserved Native American and low-income middle and high school students we mentor (we read books along with them and discuss them through online forums and school site visits to inspire a lifelong love of reading), the educators we support, and the donors who support us."

Cinch: The winners are commenter ZenStealth, who says that:

"My favorite Mac OSX feature is both Expose & Spaces (renamed Mission Control in OSX 10.7). I have a lot of open windows on at all times, and by using Spaces to create virtual desktops, I can easily organize all my windows into convenient categories (which is really awesome to me, because I have mild OCD)....I am currently running the trial version of Cinch right now, and unfortunately I can't buy it (even for $7) because I am a poor high school student. I would love to win one of the two licenses, because having auto-sizing windows is one of the things I miss using when I switched PC to the Mac."

and commenter Cary, who says that:

"I'm also a fan of iCal. As a CA (same thing as an RA), I can check class times, test/quiz dates, meetings, programs, and so much more... And when you're OCD like I am, the color-coding is great to use."

If you're one of the winners, please get in touch with us at emily@hackcollege.com. Thank you to everyone who entered! You are a creative, talented bunch.