Travel Like a Champ: Spring Break Travel Roundup

By the sea, you and me... Image courtesy of Flickr user Kevin Tostado. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.It's the end of February and that means Spring Break will soon be upon us. HackCollege has your back with a collection of tips and tricks to organize your travel, remind you of airport basics, and fold your clothes completely wrinkle-free. Check out these blasts from the archives.

Road trip safety: For those of you who will be traveling by car rather than air, check out this list of basic safety supplies to keep in your vehicle. Particularly if you don't have AAA and are traveling in an at-all-remote areas, a well-stocked emergency kit can be a lifesaver.

Plan Spring Break with TripIt: I'm kind of in love with TripIt. For those of you who don't already use it, it is one of the most painless ways to keep travel information organized and accessible. TripIt's also useful for those of us with parents who worry--sharing all of your travel plans with them can soothe their fears about wherever you're going for the break.

Pack Everything into a Suitcase Without Wrinkles: Though the New York Times favors rolling your clothes to pack them in to a suitcase, I've found that this method is more compact and leaves clothes way less wrinkly. Particularly since Spring Break clothes are light-weight anyway, this can make packing unbelievably easy and compact, leaving more room for novelty magnets and beer.

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The Paperless Professor

Dr. Medina's paperless class hub.

If you have a few minutes, you should check out this blog post from an old professor of mine, Dr. Cynara Medina. I had her for Media Audiences last semester, and she was pretty savvy in her use of classroom tech, as you can see from that list of her favorite web apps. This semester though, she's pushing for an entirely paperless classroom with the help of Google Apps. Pretty cool. I just wish more classes were run like this. Let us know in the comments about what apps and technologies your professors are incorporating into the classroom.

[Tech reviews: A few of my favorite things | Teaching with new media, or how I went paperless...]

Some Quick Site News

Check out our fancy new search bar!Last night, Kelly grabbed a 6-pack and set to work on his HackCollege to-do list. This morning, we were graced with a snazzy new search feature (just click the magnifying glass on our top banner), a HackCollege Tumblr account so we can reblog each other and complain about server downtime, and a less-aggravating RSS Feed, by popular demand.  Enjoy everybody!

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.

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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.

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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.