Friday Fun: Put Cheap Vodka to Good Use

Looks like she brought us a bottle of anti-dandruff rinse! Photo by Betsssssy and licensed under CC BY 2.0You probably have a $15 plastic bottle of vodka hiding in your dorm room sock drawer. Since that stuff tastes like gasoline, why not put it to greater use?

Instructables has a great tutorial with 15 less-than-obvious ways to use that vodka. For example, if you wear glasses, vodka and water in a spray bottle makes for a great lens cleaning solution. The same combination would also make for a great glass cleaner to clean up your bathroom mirror and windows without shelling out for Windex. You can even use the mix to clean up any sticky gunk left by spilled drinks. 

This is all great, but vodka is good for more than just household cleaning. If your shoes or clothes are a little rank, a spritz of vodka between wears acts as a great deodorizer. You can even take a bottle of vodka into the shower for a great anti-dandruff rinse.

Yes, the uses for cheap vodka seem nearly limitless, but if you're intent on drinking it, Instructables also shows you how to filter it with a standard Brita pitcher, or infuse it with the fruity flavors of your choice.

Make sure you head over to Instructables to see the whole list, because if vodka is going to be part of your weekend, you should know the awesome power that exists in that plastic bottle. 

Kindletodo Puts a To-Do List on Your Kindle

It looks like this on a Kindle, except more book-like and pretentious.

There's a lot to be excited about for Kindle owners these days. Whether you're excited about the new hardware on the way, or using free 3G data while studying abroad, the Kindle's a great buy for a number of students. For students without a smartphone though, it could afford to pick up a few extra features. Luckily, Kindletodo is a web app that adds a to-do list, calendar, and notepad to any Kindle. 

Simply visit kindletodo.com on the Kindle's rudimentary browser to get started. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. You can add and check off to-do items, access a simple calendar (though it doesn't handle events, so it's utility is essentially nonexistent), and type away on a notepad if you're struck with a moment of inspiration.

Obviously, this won't be a life changer for many of us, but if you don't have a smartphone, and tend to carry your Kindle around, it could certainly come in handy.

[Via Lifehacker]

Readfa.st Lets You Tear Through Articles at Double Speed

It wasn't long ago that I found a service called Spreeder that promised to double text skimming speed by eliminating your subvocalization, or inner reading voice. It seemed like a pretty underground idea at the time, so I'm both surprised and thrilled to see a legitimate-seeming startup attempt to perfect the idea.

Readfa.st takes the idea of Spreeder, but improves on it with a paginated interface that gives you the sense of moving through a page of text, rather than watching word after word whiz by your face with no sense of how much has passed, or when new paragraphs begin. Readfa.st basically greys out an entire page of text except for a string of five or six words that you focus on. As it snakes through the paragraphs, you'll find that you can follow along at much faster speeds than you might expect. In my experience with both, I feel I retain more of the information with readfa.st's approach. 

The service starts you off with a simple exercise to determine your baseline reading speed, and you can take more once you're done to refine your tastes. Once you get into the service, you'll find the usual assortment of badges and sharing features, a news feed and friends list to find content, and a handy bookmarklet to import web articles. 

Unfortunately, it seems the bookmarklet is the only way to import an article at this time, but hopefully they'll allow file uploads or copy/pasted text in the future for some added flexibility. UPDATE: Copy/Paste functionality is available here. My bad.

Still though, if you're anything like me and spend far too much time reading web articles each day, readfa.st could shave a valuable few minutes off your routine.  

[Via CollegeCandy]

We'll Miss You Steve

This may be outside the realm of what you normally see on HackCollege, but I'll make an exception tonight.

It's not hyperbolic to say that Steve Jobs was the greatest inventor of his generation; a modern day Thomas Edison. It would be remarkable enough for anyone to play the role he did in inventing the personal computer. Or in redefining the music industry. Or in bringing mobile technology to the masses. Or in ushering in a new era of tablet computing. Any of these alone would be a superlative achievement for any mere human being. Steve Jobs did them all.

Whether you're reading this on a Mac or a PC, an iPhone or an Android phone, a gaming desktop or a cheap netbook, the device you're using was influenced in no small part by Steve Jobs. A friend of mine texted me tonight and said that nearly everything that's happened in the tech industry over the last 30 years has been in response to Steve Jobs' work, and looking back, it's hard to find flaw in this statement.

Genius often exacts a toll in what we might call social norms, and there's no doubt that Steve was a polarizing figure in many ways. However, any criticisms (or accolades) we may have for how he conducted himself and his business are ancillary to his lifelong accomplishments. Steve, his products, and the competitors they spawned have affected all of our lives in a very tangible way, and the world is undoubtedly a better place for his efforts. 

I don't mourn his death as much as I mourn what he could have accomplished had he not left us so soon. Steve had been innovating for 30 years, and had he been a healthier man he could have gone for 20 more. After his passing, we can only hope that someone, whether they work for Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, or any other tech company, can fill the void and steer the industry for the next 30 years with the same vision, creativity, and love that Steve so consistently demonstrated throughout his life. 

Thanks for everything, Steve. We'll all miss you. 

Transform a Wii Into the Ultimate Dorm-Friendly Entertainment Machine (Part 2)

This is a Wii emulating a Commodore 64. Your argument is invalid. Photo by Andrew Mason and licensed under CC BY-2.0

Note - if you missed Monday's Part 1 guide to unlocking your Wii's potential, you'll need to catch up here for this post to make any sense.

By now you've had a few days to unlock your Wii and install the Homebrew Channel and Homebrew Browser, so now it's time to stop working and start having fun! So start by firing up the Homebrew Browser and I'll show you what to download.

Read on to find out how to play DVDs, video files, and old-school video games on your newly-unlocked Wii.

Click to read more ...

Transform a Wii Into the Ultimate Dorm-Friendly Entertainment Machine (Part 1)

The Wii is great for foolish-looking gaming, but with a little work it can be a great all-around entertainment machine. Photo by JoshBerglund19 and licensed under CC BY 2.0 The Nintendo Wii is a fun, cheap choice for a video game system, but it isn't usually thought of as a media powerhouse. But with a few fairly simple hacks, it can be the hub of all of your entertainment needs. 

If you don't have a game system yet for your dorm room, you won't have much trouble picking up a used Wii for under $100 on eBay, but a new system (in black!) bundled with Mario Kart can be had now for under $150, so that might be the way to go. You'll also be needing a small SD card; 2GB should be plenty. For certain applications you'll also want a Gamecube controller for navigation. There's no reason you should spend more than $160 or so on this project. 

Disclaimer - This walkthrough involves hacking a Wii and installing unauthorized software. Though I've never had any issues, it's possible that you could end up with a bricked Wii. Attempt at your own risk.

If you want to unlock you Wii's full potential, read on.

Click to read more ...

Our Top Posts from September

We hope everyone's settling into their classes alright, and midterms aren't too hellish. Here are some of our most popular and talked-about posts from the first full month of school. 

• How to deal with stress as a student
• Pimp your dorm: Magic walls
• Is the MacBook Air ready for college?
• Best note taking apps for students
• College students don't know how to search
• Get control of your late night snacking habit
• Kindles are going to be more popular on campus than cheap beer

20 Things Students Want to Tell Teachers and Staff

Students discuss education's biggest shortcomings at NBC News Education NationNeed a laptop? We've teamed up with Intel to bring you the HackCollege Laptop Chooser. If you share the Laptop Chooser, you'll be entered to win a Intel Core i5-powered Samsung Series 9 Notebook!

If you need something to read this Friday morning, check out MindShift's recap of the final panel of this week's Education Nation conference in New York. 

The panel featured several students, and Nnamdi Asomugha from the NFL for some reason, discussing things they want their instructors to know. Some of the suggestions seem a little whiny (You need to love a student before you can teach a student), and not all were college-specific, but several in there will probably strike a chord with HackCollege readers. Some of my favorites are below, but you should click through to see the whole list.

1. I have to critically think in college, but your tests don’t teach me that.

14. We appreciate when you connect with us in our worlds such as the teacher who provided us with extra help using Xbox and Skype. Author's note: if you've ever experienced a teacher helping you over Xbox Live, please let us know how that works in the comments, because I'm at a loss.

18. You need to use tools in the classroom that we use in the real world like Facebook, email, and other tools we use to connect and communicate.

What would you add to the list? Let us know in the comments.