We're Going to CES!

Slightly blurry but cool nonetheless photo by Revision3.

Although it may be the holidays, we're still hard at work. Right now, we're gearing up for the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. We're setting up meetings and packing our schedules tight. At this rate I'm guessing we will probably review every single gadget there, twice.

If you have any gadgets you'd like our honest opinions on, shoot an email over to dear@hackcollege.com. Stay tuned between January 6 and 10, because we will be releasing a crap-ton of videos.

We will also be winning a lot of money at the craps tables.

Before You Tag That Photo

Some poor guy at the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse recently got an underage. He was caught in the act... though Facebook. Tyrell Luebker tagged photos of himself in an album titled "Not Sober Fest". He then accepted a friend request from a beautiful young girl named Jenny Anderson. Jenny was part of a police office scam to infiltrate underages profiles, and catch them in the act. 

Police Officers Set Up Facebook Account to Catch Underage Drinkers

It does't really matter how you feel about underage drinking, the message here is really about knowing who you're accepting as friends on Facebook. Don't accept anyone you don't know, no matter how hot their profile picture is.

What do you think about this guy getting caught? Comment below to share!

This Week's Best Questions on Discuss Campus - Dec. 19, 2009

Got a question? Ask it on Discuss Campus! Photo by flickr user quinn.anya

Well, the term is over for everyone by now (I hope!), but that still means the questions over on Discuss Campus keep rolling in. Here are this week's best:

What is a good way to start blogging as a student?

More and more of my friends are graduating and getting jobs blogging for big companies. What are some good ways I can start blogging myself? Is there anything that I should make sure to learn?

Best blogging platform for students?

There are so many to choose from. What offers the best range of options for a new student blogger?

What are some good Christmas present ideas for college students?

I was wondering what ideas everyone had for Christmas presents for college students. Answer both in terms of presents for friends (fellow college students) and in terms of presents from parents. Thanks!

That's It! Travel Safely!

That's it for the academic year, school-wise. Pay attention to HackCollege throughout the break.

Safe travels home!

Exercise Daily During Your Finals Crunch

Students at the Chapman University Undie Run during finals week. Stefan over at StudySuccessful reminds us just how important it is to exercise every day during finals week. Depending on your university, you might have to do it in your underwear.

Stefan's motivation strategy involves only one coed and probably more clothing: 

Make the deal with a friend to run every day. This means you can’t get out of it, you have to, you made the deal already.

Run at 8 am. This means you are awake early, which means you can start to study early!

Don’t run a marathon. Running for 20 minutes is just perfect.

Don’t try to compete with a cheeta. Just run on a steady pace.

When you are done, make the deal you see your friend in 30 minutes to go to the library. Another time restriction which makes you study early!

Keep that blood flowing to your brain!

You still have time to line up a running date for tomorrow morning! 

And if you're still looking for finals week tips, we wrote on it extensively during last week's prep-week -- everything from trail mix to studying at the bar. 

[image courtesy of Tom Arthur via CC license]

A Stanford Student Hacked Darts -- Now You Can, Too

 

This month's Wired included a short feature on Ryan Tibshirani, a Stanford statistics student who figured out how to game a... game. He built an algorithm that will help you win at darts, even if you suck. 

The game of High Score places high-valued areas close to duds -- if you risk going for a bullseye, you might end up with much less. So, depending on how accurately you can throw a dart, you ought to adjust your strategy. 

Take about 50 shots at a dart board and then input the results at their applet. It'll generate a "heat map" which will show you roughly where you're best off aiming. 

Or, if you already know that you're horrible at darts -- here's my heat map! Amateurs like you and me should aim a little south-west of middle if you find yourself playing darts over the holidays. 

How to Work Around Facebook's New Privacy Settings

For better or worse, our generation has learned to accept less and less privacy. So, Facebook's new policy -- that your "name, profile photo, list of friends and pages you are a fan of, gender, geographic region, and networks you belong to are considered publicly available to everyone" -- isn't nearly as bad as the time your parents disowned you upon seeing tagged pictures of you naked at a Dave Matthews concert. (They really hate Dave Matthews.) 

All joking aside, we got dicked a long, long time ago. If Facebook ever betrayed its users, it's when they let non-students in in 2006. That was the first step towards less privacy. That's when your employers could see you drinking and your parents could see your weekend plans. So, people like Jason Calacanis and the other tech pundits -- please, pipe down. You wouldn't even be on the social network if it weren't for less privacy. 

I completely agree, however, that Facebook's change in privacy policy is uncool, unethical and possibly unlawful. And though the college student has had to deal with much worse from Facebook, there are a few things you can do to protect that newly-public information: 

Don't list it. You can always take down your profile picture. It might sound lame-o, but it's not, really. Once people are friends with you, they can see all your tagged pictures anyway -- that's the fun part. The same applies for your city and gender. Listing your city and gender is still optional, so you can remove that information and keep it private. (Select "Select Sex:" to disable gender.) 

Lie. As one Facebook rep mentioned, you can still have fun with your profile information even though some of it is public. You can make your profile picture a snap shot of a beer mug or list your city as "Uranus." You can also make your profile picture one that includes other people as well, obscuring what you look like. 

De-friend and de-fan. Probably the biggest privacy overhaul is that your friend list and fan page information is public. Well, it's about time you sorted through your thousands of friends, anyway. If there's a friend that reveals a secret past or a fan-page that indicates a private piece of information, now's the time to remove it. 

That aside, there's a lot more you can do to protect your privacy in Facebook. In general, you should use friend lists, remove yourself from Facebook/Google searches and keep status updates private. All three are pretty self-explanitory if you just go into the Facebook privacy menu but All Facebook has a decent guide if you still need help. 

[photo via CC 2.0, Flickr user PetroleumJelliffe]

Concentrating? There’s An App For That.

Last week David explored some ways to eliminate distractions while studying, I’m here to add another tool to your arsenal. Concentrate from Rocket Software (getconcentrating.com) is an OS X application that allows you to block certain applications and domains depending on the context you are working in (GTD much?). Allow me to give an example. When it’s time to study, I simple choose the Study action that I’ve configured in Concentrate. The app then closes Tweetie, NetNewsWire and blocks Facebook, Digg and ESPN.com. You have complete control over what actions the app performs in each context, just drag actions from over from the library in the context edit menu. Concentrate sets a timer for the activity you are performing and displays the time left in the menubar. Once the time runs down, your locked apps and domains are liberated.

There’s nothing stopping you from ending the timer prematurely so that you can creep around Facebook, but the small nudge Concentrate gives you is usually enough to keep you focused. 

Concentrate is a paid application at $29.00, but the demo version is hindered only by a 60 hour use limit. I’ve set a personal goal to use up my 60 hours by the end of this semester’s exam period. I challenge you to do the same. 

Similar applications exist for those in the Windows world, but none are as elegant as Concentrate. Sorry. 

Give it a shot, post your experience in the comments.

Happy cramming, er... studying!