How To: Make a Better Latte

Caffeine is a necessity of a productive life. For some people, it may be the reason for a productive life. I start every morning with a latte, whether it be from the campus coffee shop or from dad's espresso machine while I'm at home. And I'm a stuck-up prick when it comes to coffee. But who wouldn't want a delectable coffee treat every morning?

Espresso is a very finicky liquid; it can spoil easily and needs to be served at the right temperature. My drink of choice, a latte, is made up of (usually) one to three shots of espresso dumped into steamed milk. They only get messed up every one in awhile.

So, I've got a little known tip for any hot, espresso-based drink. Because brewed espresso will spoil if left out in the air for more than about 10 seconds (Starbucks says 4, sites will say 30). To avoid this potential spoilage, warm up an ounce or two of milk in the microwave, and immediately after the espresso is done brewing pour the milk in. This mellows the coffee taste well; the bitter taste of espresso apparently means that the espresso has spoiled (news to me). I've been using this little trick for about a month now, and it definitely makes a difference. Sure it may be a placebo effect, but I swear it works.

Now you're coffee tomorrow morning will taste nice and smooth. Happy New Year.

A Brief Apology...

Sorry we haven't been posting. We hope you're enjoying your time not thinking about school.

An update:

• Rosario is still without Internet access back home.


• I'm actually (unexpectedly) in RI/MA/NH. One of my close friends suddenly passed away, so I have other obligations for the time being. We'll resume a regular posting routine soon enough.

In the mean time, be sure to check out the HackCollege Pack and the Best of HackCollege over in the sidebar, if you haven't already in your holiday boredom, that is.

Take care.

Merry Christmas

There are probably many topics to post on, but it's Christmas Eve. Rosario is at home with no Internet connection, and I'm in Eastern Washington on a 56k. And I'm sleepy.

So, in lieu of an interesting, lifehack-eriffic post: Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays.

Free Programs: Software for Starving Students

Christmas is in the air.

I didn't know at all about Software for Starving Students until it made the front page of digg yesterday. I'm not quite sure why.

It's an entire downloadable CD full of mostly free (as in beer) software. Party on, Wayne.

Enjoy the Christmas Spirit: Software for Starving Students

Click through for the entire list of programs included.

Q: What software is on the CD?
A: For the 2007.01 release, the titles are:

Windows
* 7-Zip
* Ant Renamer
* Audacity
* Blender
* BZFlag
* Celestia
* ClamWin
* DeepBurner Free
* Dia
* Enigma
* Eraser
* Exact Audio Copy
* FileZilla
* Firefox
* Freeciv
* Gaim
* GIMPShop
* GLtron
* GNU Chess
* Icebreaker
* Inkscape
* Juice Receiver
* KeePass
* MozBackup
* NVU
* OpenOffice.org
* Paint.NET
* PDFCreator
* Portable Apps
* POV-Ray
* PuTTY
* SolarWolf
* Spybot S&D
* Stellarium
* SuperTux
* The GIMP Toolkit
* Thunderbird
* Tortoise SVN
* Tux Paint
* Tux Racer
* Tux Typing 2
* VLC
* WinDirStat
* Wink
* winLAME
* WinSCP
* XAMPP
* µTorrent

OSX
* Acqlite
* Adium
* Audacity
* Bleezer
* Blender
* BZFlag
* Camino
* Carbon Copy Cloner
* Cashbox
* Celestia
* ClamXav
* Crack Attack!
* Enigma
* FreeDMG
* Freemind
* Fugu
* Genius
* GLtron
* HandBrake
* ImageBurner
* Monolingual
* MozoDojo
* NeoOffice
* NVU
* Pac the Man X
* Platypus
* POV-Ray
* Seashore
* Schoolhouse
* Smultron
* Thunderbird
* Transmission
* TypeTrainer4Mac
* VideoLAN Client

You'll just have to trust us when we say most of those are useful. Wink.

DormItem: College Classifieds Done Right

We were a little skeptical when Daniel from DormItem sent us an email asking if we would take a look at his site. It seems like the college-specific version of craigslist has been tried far too many times. I don't know if Rosario and I were simultaneously taking large amounts of narcotics, but Daniel is proved us wrong. DormItem is like Facebook's older, more mature sister: she'll hook you up with her hot friends if you've got money.

DormItem is a straight-forward classified site that is organized by school, just like Facebook. It's got three simple tabs: Buy, Sell, and Jobs. If this catches on, my poor self will definitely be looking at the "Jobs" tab often.

It's got some slick features, such as a Spotlight-esque "itemizr" which searches as you type. It's Facebook integration is fully-functional; DormItem notifies you when new items get posted online. For those fearful of trading online, DormItem has partnered with RapLeaf, an buyer/seller online tracking system. (Note: HackCollege hasn't done the necessary research to endorse RapLeaf, but we'll trust them for now.) And, of course, it looks great and has all that juicy Web 2.0 goodness. In the words of a friend from Kazakhstan: "Very nice."

DormItem has been able to secure some traction in certain place on the Internet. It's even got the Boston Globe's attention:

Unlike Craigslist, DormItem's database is smart enough to tell you if that mini fridge or futon you're looking for is also available at another college in your area.
— Boston Globe

Not too shabby. We're very excited to see how DormItem develops.

Unfortunately, DormItem suffers from the common problem that many Web 2.0 startups do, a lack of users. I wasn't able to effectively test out the entire site because I'm located on the west coast; the site's primary user base appears to be in the MA area.

All in all, DormItem is great and shows some of the rarely-seen thing many investors might refer to as "promise." And besides, its biggest issue right now is not its fault, it's yours. So check it out and sell something... I still need a futon, preferably under $200 and in the LA area with a cover... call me.

Buy/Sell/Live: DormItem

Free Beer: Fact or Fiction

So Kelly decided to answer my rhetorical question a few entries ago by arguing that the Internet does not offer free beer. Now, because I love a Google challenge, mixed in with some Digg dexterity, I set out last night to see what I could find.

To begin, there appears to be some confusion with the phrase "free beer". From Wikipedia:

In hacker slang, gratis is typically referred to as free as in beer while libre is referred to as free as in speech.

Free as in beer refers to things which are available at no monetary cost (like free beer at a party). While one is permitted to use the object (e.g., drink the beer) without payment, one does not necessarily receive any rights (e.g. take the beer home) or ownership. It can be contrasted with the expressions free as in speech, free as in freedom, or free as in rights, which refer to something which is free of restrictions, as in the freedom of speech. One is permitted to use the object, reproduce it, repurpose it, and generally do what one will with it; usually the only restrictions applied are that credit be given to any entity that contributed to any resulting object and that such object be free as in speech as well. An example of a license with such grants and conditions is the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license.

Essentially, "free" can be available at no monetary cost, or it can be referred to in the sense of freedom. Isn't that a kicker.

Using the latter interpretation, Voresoel.dk offers its beer recipe under a Creative Commons License, just like open-source software.

It takes about 3 weeks, but, hey, if not the ladies, I'm sure the guys would be impressed.

Oh, and Kelly: Keep in mind that the day after you’ve blogged drunk, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do to your regular readers.

Housecleaning Update

Hello everyone. Now that we're on break, we've had some time to do some much needed housecleaning around the site. We've made the following minor improvements:

• We cleaned up the categories and made them more specific. Now everything won't be just in the general "College" category. There might be a little shifting around as we decide exactly how to use these new categories.


• We removed some sites from the blogroll (the links on the right) that have gone offline or are no longer being updated. We are surviving.

And currently Rosario and I are talking about updating the site's look, mostly color-wise. We'll let you know how that's going as we make decisions. Or you'll just see the site different one day.

As always, please email us if you have any input. Have a good break.

College Service Trips: A Retrospective

Hello. I'm back in my home town of Everett, Washington for the break watching "Waterworld" of all movies. I know, good movie.

Anyway, I spent Friday through Sunday on a service trip called De Colores in Mexico. It's the stereotypical build-a-house-in-a-third-world-country type of service trip. (Mexico isn't necessarily third world, but I had never seen poverty like this.)

Anyway, I'm usually not one for the hardcore service trips. (I realize service may be less of a consideration at other schools, but LMU is huge on service.) But I'm definitely thankful I chose to take two days out of my break to go on this trip.

And so I recommend considering a service trip such as De Colores. It was by no means a life-changing trip, but I had fun and it changed my perspective a little bit.

For now, back to "Waterworld."