Idiotproofing Your Facebook Photos and Videos

Yep, THAT red cup. Photo courtesy of Flickr user Chris Makarsky. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

So it happened. Your first red cup picture has made its appearance on Facebook. Most likely you're underage - and you're probably a freshman who let your squeaky clean high school reputation slip a bit. But the question is - what do I do now?

In the United States, drinking under the age of  21 is illegal. However, for some reason, social networking sites like Facebook are hotbeds for photos of underage beer pong, keg stands, Jello shots, and undercover vice cops. 

Wait, what? Follow these tips below to protect yourself from getting into trouble by not being cautious enough on Facebook.

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Use a Hair Straightener to Combat Wrinkles

Are you a girl? Do you know a girl? If so, this trick is for you. Image courtesy of Flickr user Beebit and licensed under CC 2.0I'm officially convinced that women invented the concept of lifehacking centuries ago, and only recently did men decide to give it a name and create blogs about it.  It seems like every day my girlfriend gives me a lifehack she picked up at home without realizing how awesome it was, so I started writing them down to share on the site.

Anyway, not everybody has an iron and ironing board in their dorm room, so wrinkled clothes can be a real menace.  You could try to use downy, or hang your clothes up in the bathroom while you take a hot shower, but honestly neither of these options are ideal.  Luckily for you, you either a) are a girl, or b) have convenient access to a girl. My apologies for our friends at all-male colleges.  This is great, because most girls in my experience own a hair straightener, and it just so happens that this is all you need to get rid of wrinkles in a pinch.

I never thought twice about the device until my aforementioned girlfriend whipped it out when I had some wrinkles on the sleeve of a dress shirt.  Without so much as a word she plugged it in and closed my sleeve between the two heated ceramic plates, and slowly slid the iron down the length of the fabric.  Obviously, be sure you aren't wearing the shirt you're trying to iron.  It worked surprisingly well as a dual-sided iron, and the wrinkles were all but gone! 

This solution isn't necessarily ideal.  Most of these irons don't use any steam so you have to be wary of starting a fire in your closet. Also, since they close onto the fabric like a big pair of tweezers, ironing the main part of a shirt won't be as easy as getting to the sleeves.  Even so, it's easier than using a real iron, and it's probably a lot easier to find too.  Now that your wardrobe is freshly-pressed, don't forget to brush up on how to keep your clothes wrinkle-free when packing for a trip.

Practicing Safe Texting

Don't be like this guy. Image courtesy of Flickr user mrjasonweaver and licensed under CC by SA 2.0So you're driving home from work and you hear that familiar buzz coming from your pocket, purse, cupholder, passenger seat, etc, etc. It's your phone announcing that it has a brand new, juicy text for you to read. You look from your phone back to the road. To your phone. To the road. Do you pick it up? Do you leave it? Do you wait for a stop light? Do you have the self-control to resist reaching over and grabbing it? You might say, "It's just a peek at the message. Oh, well, actually, I need to reply to that, but it'll just take a second, and we're going down a straight street. No big deal." 

Unfortunately it is a big deal. According to statistics released by the Washington Post in January of this year, 28% of car accidents occur when people are talking on their phones or texting. 200,000 crashes every year are blamed solely on text messaging. So for text-addicted people who can't seem to resist sneaking a peek at that oh-so-urgent text, here are some tips to keep you and the rest of the drivers a little safer on the road.

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Her Campus Honored With 30 Under 30 Selection

Her Campus founders (from l-r) Stephanie Kaplan, Windsor Hanger, and Annie Wang got their start as undergrads. Congratulations to our friends at Her Campus, who were recently named as one of Inc. Magazine’s 30 Under 30 entrepreneurs. The site, a lifestyle hub for the modern “collegiette,” uses a team of nearly 400 student contributors to produce articles on style, health, love, dorm life, the workplace, and world news.

The founders wanted to “speak to the...unique set of wants and needs” of college women too old for Seventeen and too young for Marie Claire “that were not being addressed elsewhere,” said co-founder Stephanie Kaplan. HackCollege readers might enjoy their recent articles on what to eat as an intern, how not to get confused for a high schooler, and how to turn a summer camp job into a career--all useful, and all unlikely to be covered in a traditional women's magazine.

The site’s success is due in part to its way of distributing both national and local content. The main site shows articles of general interest, while individual “campuses” show content for specific colleges and universities. This allows readers at schools with no women’s magazine of their own to get content of specific interest to them while still building off the resources of a national site. As a result of the format, Her Campus has gone from having a team just at Harvard (the site’s home school) to having a presence at more than 40 colleges and universities nationwide.

As the founders--Stephanie Kaplan, Windsor Hanger, and Annie Wang--go forward (Kaplan and Hanger graduated last year), they hope to add even more individual schools and become “a staple for every college girl’s life,” said Kaplan. Readers interested in starting up a Her Campus branch of their very own can apply here. 

[30 Under 30 via Inc.com.] 

Delete Your Middle School Self from the Internet

They're cute, but embarassing. Really, really embarassing. Image courtesy of Flickr user Mary-Lynn. Licensed under CC 2.0.There are few things in the world more embarrassing than having a date bring up your eighth grade Neopets page. And yet, it happens--even to the most tech-savvy. Cleaning up your internet presence, especially as a member of the first generation that’s been online since elementary school, can be difficult. However, as you enter college (or leave college for the workplace), purging as much of your pre-pubescent internet presence as possible is a must. Here are a few steps to get you started:

First, there’s the easy part--something you’ve probably already done as part of the college application process: google your full name, your current personal email address, and your phone number. See what pops up, and if it’s not something that you want associated with you going forward, delete it.

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Add Your Events and Friends' Birthdays with fdCal

Surviving in college is all about communication. Your high school counselor needs to send your final transcript to your college or university to ensure your admission isn't rescinded and to prove you graduated. Your class selections need to go from the registrar to the academic advisor to each individual section of each individual class. 

So why not make your #1 Internet stop Facebook (presuming you're one of its 500 million users) and your calendar communicate better? fdCal does just that.

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Lenovo A70z Winner!

Congratulations to Larry Ngo of Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada. Larry wrote the word HackCollege in essays and lab reports on a field near campus. Thanks to all those who sent in entries. Click on to see the runners up. 

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New Federal Rules Attempt to Limit Textbook Costs

 New federal provisions will help lower the costs of these bad boys. Image courtesy of Flickr user plutor and licensed under CC by SA 2.0Here's good news to look forward to as we start getting closer to the school year. According to an article that was published in Fort Worth's Star-Telegram this morning, a new set of federal provisions went into effect earlier this month that will help students with the extravagant costs of textbooks. Here is a list of changes that these rules discuss:

• Textbook publishers are required to provide professors with information about book prices, revision history, and alternative formats of the textbooks.

• You know those stupid CDs publishers include in your books that you never end up using? Well, publishers are now required to sell additional material, like CDs, DVDs, or workbooks, separately from textbooks so that you aren't charged for the material you never use.

• Colleges must give students required texts' price and International Standard Book Number (ISBN), an incredibly helpful identifying tool which students can use to search for the book elsewhere at a cheaper price.

These new federal rules are part of the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 and are aimed at helping lessen student debt. The article estimates that textbooks can cost college students $800 to $1200 a year. At HackCollege, we know how expensive textbooks can be and we've written up an awesome guide on how to help you get your textbooks for free. So with our textbook guide and this great news about these new federal rules, buying your textbooks this year will hopefully leave you a little more money in your bank account.