CampusByte » Technology

Fences Keeps Your Desktop Organised

Theo — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 09:08:35 +0000

Do you want to clean up your desktop, but you don’t want those shortcuts out of sight, or you still want to keep your current projects around for easy access? Stardock Fences is there for you! With Fences, you no longer have to worry about overflowing desktop.

Fences, literally, fences your desktop into different compartments and label them. You are then free to drag shortcuts and in and out. Fences are also movable and resizable. Basically heavy customisation is allowed according to your own preferences.

Right Click to Create

To create a new fence, select an area holding the mouse right button down.

After that, everything is intuitive. Right-click on desktop will get you to the configuration window.

Double Click to Clear

Another useful trick is that you can double click the empty space on your desktop to hide all fences. They will reappear if you double click again. It just feels good to have the desktop clean magically, right?

Store Your Distraction-free Application Shortcuts

Remember we talked about fighting off distractions with Google Chrome Application Shortcut? You can fix these shortcuts into a different fence to distinguish them from your ordinary shortcuts:)

Sounds cool? You can download the free software here.

Get an Education Without Depleting Your Life’s Savings

Melanie — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 20:40:47 +0000

Getting into college is the easy part, it’s making it out of college without losing your life savings that is difficult. We all know that scholarships exist, but very few of us actively pursue them. When you hear about scholarships, you imagine kids with brilliant 4.0 GPA’s who dig wells in Africa being handed $50,000 to go to Harvard. But that is the exception, not the rule. You too can win money by doing something as simple as writing a 500 word essay, making a video or taking a photograph. All you have to do is know where to find those opportunities and which ones you qualify for. That’s the beauty of Zinch and Fastweb, they exist solely to help you get the money you need for the school of your dreams.

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Zinch – I am more than just a test score.

The college application process can be impersonal. Often, colleges view applicants as nothing more than grades and test scores. Zinch is committed to connecting students with the people behind the schools and scholarships free of charge. They have more than 5,000 active school profiles and offer over $2 billion dollars in scholarships. To date, Zinch has awarded 781,654 scholarships worth $1,623,044,202. The next person to receive a scholarship could be you. Upon signing up for Zinch, you are asked to add the usual information such as SAT scores and GPA. Zinch, however, goes one step farther. They ask for a profile picture, favorite music, favorite TV shows, hobbies and etc. They are dedicated to showing you off as a complete package instead of just a set of grades and scores. The first page of your profile features a blurb about who you are and more importantly, who you want to be.

Scholarships are found using a search engine. You can manipulate the scholarships you’re shown by adding more information about yourself such as background, gender, GPA and etc. The more information you add, the more accurate and applicable the scholarships shown are to you. When you “like” a scholarship, it gets added to your My Likes section where you can work on it at a later time.

You can also change what type of scholarships come up. You can view those with certain deadlines or only show awards that you can currently apply to. If you don’t fit certain types of criteria, you can uncheck selection criteria to make sure that scholarships with those requirements aren’t shown. Be sure to stop by Zinch and start saving money on college.

Fastweb – Paying for school just got easier.

Fastweb is another free scholarship finder. So far, they have awarded $3.4 billion in scholarships and over 50 million users have benefited from their services. The thing that sets fastweb apart from its competition is its intuitive set up. Based on your profile, fastweb will alert you when there are scholarships that you fit the criteria for. Fastweb also provides students with financial aid tips and internship opportunities in their area.

You can browse the new matches and either save them for later or delete them. You can click on the scholarship to see it’s requirements and get more information. The easy to read format shows you the scholarship deadline and amount of scholarship right on the original screen so you can decide which are right for you in as little time as possible. Every time a new scholarship is available to you, an email is sent to the email address of your choice to keep you from missing out on any opportunities.

To keep you from forgetting about anything you save for later, fastweb lets you know when the deadlines are coming up and keeps reminding you on the homepage. You can also click the deadlines tab to get a detailed calendar view. This feature is especially important because the hardest thing about applying for scholarship is remembering to apply for them on time. The scholarship deadlines makes sure that you don’t miss out on any scholarships that you qualify for. Be sure to check out the many other services that fastweb has to offer to help you save money quickly and easily.

How To Write Like a Superhero

Melanie — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 19:00:40 +0000

As a college student, you need to be able to write several well polished papers a semester that will not only convey your thoughts and ideas but wow your professors with your eloquent writing. It’s a non-negotiable skill that you need to have not only to succeed in college but in the post-graduation real word as well. Writing doesn’t have to be a tedious chore, our teachers have been lying to us for years. Writing, when done right, can be more than just an assignment but an enjoyable experience. It’s okay if you weren’t naturally born with the ability to write fluidly and eloquently with impeccable spelling and grammar, most of us aren’t. With the help of the internet, you can learn to smash through writer’s block like Superman and attack difficult papers with the strength of the Hulk. Here are just five of those available tools designed to get you writing like a champ and loving it.

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Word Processors – Dark Room and WriteRoom

Sometimes, learning to write is as easy as eliminating the distractions in your life. For times when you need to sit down and knock out a ten page paper in three hours, there is Dark Room (for Windows) and WriteRoom (for Mac 0S and iPhone OS). Dark Room and WriteRoom are free downloadable full screen writing programs. The programs turn your computer screen into one large writing surface without the distraction of other programs and desktop icons. All you need to do is sit down, cue up the program and write like it’s what you were born to do. Keep in mind that neither program currently has many formatting option, so they’ll need additional formatting in Word or Pages.

Writing prompt – OneWord

OneWord is a one-word online writing prompt designed to get your creative juices flowing. You are provided with one word and sixty seconds to write about it. In order to become an accomplished writer, you must flex your writing muscles daily. Writing is a skill that needs to be cultivated and strengthened. Using OneWord once a day will help you not only learn how to start thinking outside of the box with your writing but it has the added bonus of teaching you how to work under pressure.

Beating Writer’s Block – 911 Writer’s Block

Sometimes in college, you’re required to write more than just a research paper or a simply essay. Occasionally you will be encouraged to be creative and write with a little more flair. In English courses, you will often need to write a short story or an original composition. Getting the initial idea can be easy but developing it into a full story line can be an immovable hurdle for some people. That’s why 911 Writer’s Block was created. Karate chop your writer’s block in the face with this free tool. By pushing a button on the phone keypad interface, you’re only moments away from a fresh ideas about settings, dialogue, dramatic entrances and more. In moments you can spice up boring character dialogue and inject life into a dead storyline. 911 Writer’s Block can even come in handy on research papers by providing interesting and fresh new verbs. You also have the option of submitting your own 911 tips and saving your favorite tips for later.

Free Resources – Reporter’s Desktop

Reporter’s desktop is the ultimate free resource and is an invaluable tool to use when writing research papers or articles. From the start page, you have access to all the top search engines, reference information, a dictionary, a thesaurus and more. Instead of having to browse multiple websites to find the information you’re looking for, just navigate to Reporter’s Desktop for one stop shopping to fulfill all your writing needs. It is not only guaranteed to save you valuable time but is sure to give you the accurate information that you need.

Evaluation – PaperRater

I’ve already covered PaperRater in-depth in THIS post. However, it’s such an amazing tool that it bears repeating. Use PaperRater when you have the first draft of your paper/essay finished to polish it and to correct any rudimentary mistakes. It checks for grammar, spelling, vocabulary, originality and even has a snazzy vocab builder tool to broaden your vocabulary horizons. The only thing that PaperRater can’t do is evaluate the ideas and tone of your writing. PaperRater should be the last stop for all of your papers, essays and stories before they reach your professor’s desk and hit the chopping block. With just a few swift clicks, you can improve your paper in extraordinarily easy ways.

Taking Your Paper to the Next Level with PaperRater

Melanie — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 02:28:05 +0000

Congratulations! After two back-to-back all nighters, you’ve finally managed to write your twenty-five page single spaced paper. You probably think that you’re in the clear now and can afford to sleep in a little bit. What you’re not thinking about is all of the spelling errors and grammar mistakes those twenty-five pages hold. You’re also probably not thinking about all of those overused clichés and your bland word choices either. Fortunately, there is someone who has your best interests at heart: Paper Rater.

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PaperRater is a free website that is helping to improve the writing of students worldwide by offering an easy and free proofreading alternative. The way this website works is by analyzing documents in real time with immediate results. All you do is upload a paper or essay to the website, specify which type of document it is (research paper, personal narrative, short story, etc.) and click “Get Report”. That’s how easy it is to take your paper from decent to remarkable.

Features

The first item on the agenda for PaperRater is plagiarism detection. In my opinion, this is one of the most important features. Most professors now use plagiarism detection software when grading papers so it’s especially important to make sure everything in your paper is 100% original.

The next order of business is a thorough spelling and grammar check. Spelling and grammar mistakes are shown underlined right on the paper itself. To view the suggested changes, all you need to do is hover your cursor over the offending word or words to see the other possible options. If you don’t understand why you need to make those particular changes, you can even receive a quick grammar and spelling tutorial by right-clicking the underlined word or phrase. You will even receive word choice suggestions that will help you improve the vernacular of your paper with better vocabulary.

Next, word usage is analyzed in order to identify excessive usage of different parts of speech. My favorite tool is the vocabulary builder. In this step, the paper is analyzed for quality vocabulary words. If your paper is found lacking, PaperRater gives you a link to another service they offer called the Vocab Builder. The Vocab Builder offers a new vocabulary word every time you click the “random” button. It gives you the definition as well as twenty sentences of the word in action. Regardless of whether you are currently writing a paper or not, the Vocab Builder is a tool you should go out of your way to use at least once each day.

The final tool is the Auto Grader. After evaluating the complete paper, the Auto Grader assigns a grade. However, this grade is more of a suggestion than a reflection of the actual grade you may receive from your professor. As awesome as PaperRater is, it can only take into account spelling, grammar, word choice, style and vocabulary. It cannot examine the structure of the paper or the ideas represented within it.

To experience the magic for yourself, venture to PaperRater and behold the free goodness.

Manage Your Spending With MoneyStrands

Theo — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 03:07:42 +0000

I have been using Money Manage EX for quite some time now. It is free, and it is easy to use. Apart from the BANK account, I also had an MMEX account for HOME to record all my cash transactions, and an OCTOPUS account for the smart card. Yes, it is tedious to manually transfer all the records from my pocket schedule to the desktop software. But for a neat freak like me, I don’t mind spending some time at the weekends to clear up the accounts for the week.

Still, I’ve always been looking out for alternatives with the following features:

Desktop/Web client + Mobile app (then I can save the tedious weekend clearing!)
Offline management
Smart categorisation/tagging
Manual cash transactions input
Account import/export
Friendly UI
International support

So recently, I have found a great, though not perfect alternative, MoneyStrands, which satisfies most of my requirements, and offers more. Like the frequently-mentioned Mint.com, MoneyStrands is an online personal finance tool.

International Support

What is great about MoneyStrands is that it supports international users. I know for Mint, you need an US/Canadian account to start with even if you only want to record cash transactions manually.* But in MoneyStrands, you can create a manual account WITHOUT giving out your bank details, and use it to manually log all your transactions.

Also, MoneyStrands support 44 different currencies. They even have a Spanish UI and are planning to have more in the future. Although the web client won’t show Chinese characters for some unknown reason, the mobile client has full support to it! Foreign character support is very important to me as I only know the Chinese names of most of the local merchants.

*There is another trick to use Mint outside US though, if you really want to. You can just create a pseudo-account with PayPal. But since cash transaction is not the main course they are offering, there is little support, and you can’t add transactions from the mobile app, nor can you delete transactions.

Manual Cash Transactions Input

There is cash tracking function in MoneyStrands I find particularly useful. In the mobile app, there is an option to “add from scratch” that that allows you to quickly record cash transactions on the go. Frequently used categories and merchants are also just one-click away via shortcuts. Everything from the plus/minus sign to the amount you input is intuitive.

However, entering new items into manual accounts is another story. You cannot “add from scratch” with these accounts. Although you can add tags to the new transaction right away, you have to click twice to make the amount negative. That won’t be a problem to most of you though, if you’re only dealing with cash transactions. But as I’ve said, I just want also to record transactions from my Octopus smart card.

Transfer between Accounts

This is probably the most inconvenient bit of MoneyStrands—there is just no simple way to create transfer, as in Money Manager EX. You have to withdraw from one account and then deposit into another, except with an ATM withdrawal, when you will find an automatic deposit into your cash account.

More to Offer

Other than those mentioned, MoneyStrands also offer some remarkable functions:

- Easy budgeting—with a simple spend-o-meter showing your actual spending and how much you could have spent according to your monthly/annual budget

- Community comparison—compare your spending habits with people of similar background

- Account analysis—includes charts of income & expenses and your monthly account balance

- Import and Export—CSV, QFX and OFX import (in fact also QIF, though not stated on their web) and CSV export are supported

In the future, I hope MoneyStrands will…

- Develop an offline client

- Support foreign characters on web client

- Fine-tune the “add from scratch” function

- Allow transfers between accounts

What do you think of MoneyStrands? What personal finance tool are you using? Leave a comment below, I’d love to hear it

Pageonce: Avoiding the “Where’d All That Money Go?” Blues

Melanie — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 20:24:36 +0000

Here’s the typical college dilemma: halfway through the month, you run out of top ramen or some other barely edible food. Once again, you find yourself in need of groceries and you couldn’t be any less prepared. You shake out your empty wallet before spying your credit card under a week old pizza box. In your rush to get to the store, you fail to realize that you have a problem – your credit card is maxed out. When you reach the front of the line, the cashier declines your card and humiliates you in front of your peers. Shocked, you wonder, “Where’d all that money go?” That’s where pageonce comes to the rescue.

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It’s easy to lose track of your finances, especially when you’re a full-time student juggling multiple bank accounts on top of a plethora of bills. If this is your first time away from home, keeping track of what bills are due and when can be a major hassle. Perhaps you’re savvy enough to have online banking, but you often need to check two or three websites before you can obtain an accurate picture of your finances. That’s where pageonce can make your life exceedingly simple: all of your information gathered in one place with optional alerts. Life has never felt so simple.

Pageonce is a personal finance application with free downloadable software for the iPhone, iPod Touch, Blackberry, iPad, Windows Mobile, Android phones and for your desktop. It can also be accessed via web. Pageonce allows you to monitor your credit card transactions, bank accounts, and receive alerts for your account activity on the move. You can also use pageonce to check your cellphone usage, track travel itineraries and keep an eye on your investment portfolio. If you have any of the supported phones, you can receive alerts via the application on your phone. If you don’t have a smart phone, you have the option of getting email alerts or accessing your account from the web.

This is a screencap of the web application. You can access the detailed account data right on the welcome screen. It shows all of your current bills, bank accounts, email, credit cards and social networking information.

In the top left hand portion of the welcome screen, the alert widget will let you know which accounts are running low and which bills are due and when.

Not only does pageonce organize your finances; it also allows you to link every facet of your internet persona. You can add different kinds of accounts to your pageonce, including: social networking sites (Myspace, Facebook), utilities (AT&T, Comcast), email accounts (Gmail, Yahoo) and even shopping (eBay, Netflix). From one place you can monitor your finances, track your spending and keep track of your bills. Pageonce automatically collects the data and prepares it for you in an easy to read format. Pageonce can even save you money by keeping you from accruing low balance and overdraw fees.

Do you often overdraw on your account? Set up pageonce to alert you when your balance reaches a certain number. Do you often forget to pay your bills? Pageonce can notify you when the due date is near.

If you want to learn more about Pageonce, visit the site at pageonce.com to set up a free secure account. Be sure to check out the different features and see how Pageonce can help you take control of your life in a whole new way.

If you have any comments or questions, please leave a comment, or email me at melanie AT campusbyte.com

Instapaper: Read the Right Thing at the Right Time

Theo — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:02:29 +0000

I love reading, anything from real books to blogs. And I do read a lot. I used to reserve an hour every night for bed-time reading. But the point is, I “used to”. With overwhelming school work and social activities, I can hardly afford that now. Every time I want to read, there are always some lab manuals or assigned readings which seems much more urgent than those random blog articles.

But then on the other hand, when I am waiting for classes to start, when I am waiting at the school bus stop (yeh, we have school buses to take us around the campus), or when I am on the MTR (the railway in Hong Kong), it’s hard not to find myself wasting time, instead of just waiting. You would say, hey why don’t you read your class materials while you’re waiting? Well, within a short period of 5 to 10 minutes, it’s difficult to digest heavy readings, so I’d leave those for the library. And true, sometimes I still read on the MTR; but during the rush hours, when there are no people but sardines, I can’t possibly fish out my book from my large backpack, let alone read it.

Now with Instapaper, it’s a different story.

In short, Instapaper is an application that saves webpages for offline reading in a neat format.

One-Click Pending

With just one click on the Instapaper Read Later bookmarklet, you can save any webpage into you Instapaper account.

The “text-only version” gets you to the content-only archive of the page.

This way, you can add any articles into a pending list for a desktop-view read-later option.

iOS Synchronization

Yet the most useful feature of Instapaper is that you can have your paper synced to your iPhone/iPod/iPad app. It is content-only. It is iOS-friendly.

Once your articles are downloaded, you can take them with you wherever you go, and read offline. Like many apps out there these days, Instapaper is also on a freemium plan. With a Free acount, you can only take 10 articles with you each time, compared to 250 at maximum for a Pro account. But 10 articles really are pretty enough for me to occupy all the waiting/commuting time added together in a day. Of course there are a bunch of extra fancy features for Pro users only – here is a clear table of comparison for your information.

Instapaper – An Evernote Companion

Sometimes I just get a little bit frustrated when clipping webpages into Evernote, as it would include all the formatting and style plus loads of ads. But now with Instapaper, either you install another Instapaper Text bookmarklet, or you just use the regular Read Later, you can work your “Ctrl+A” Select-All magic on the content-only version and keep your Evernote neat and tidy. This not only increases the readability of your notes, but also saves you space, especially useful for those under the 40MB monthly upload limit.

Some Quick Last Points

To wrap up:

Save articles into Instapaper with the bookmarklet when you have more important things to do.
Read the articles you saved offline on your iOS device when you have nothing else to do.
Clip the content-only version of the articles into Evernote.

Now I just hope that in the future Instapaper will join force with Evernote. Maybe we will one day find Instapaper in the Evernote Trunk, who knows?

Update (29 Jan 2011): For those who use Android, check out InstaFetch!

Interactive Whiteboards: Their Uses and Advantages

CampusByte — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 22:18:34 +0000

Technology is growing these days, and you can find anything in any setting that 50 years ago would have seemed unbelievable. Interactive whiteboards are a piece of technology that you will often find in places such as business offices, schools, and laboratories.

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What Are They?

If you have ever entered a room and seen a large display on a wall, this was probably an interactive whiteboard. An interactive whiteboard system utilizes a projector, which displays a computer’s monitor screen on a normal whiteboard. There are several different types – a resistive whiteboard operates by pressure, whether from a token pen or from a simple touch. Capacitive whiteboards use special digital pens that are detected through electromagnetism. Another, more portable type is a virtual whiteboard where a special type of projector can turn any surface into a board by both projecting the image and detecting the position of a special infrared pen. This solution is not as versatile as others, however, due to line of sight issues between the projector and IR source.

How Popular Are Interactive Whiteboards?

A few years ago, these were rather expensive, uncommon tools to have. Now, however, these are commonly found in schools, as they are a great teaching tool. Teachers can use the Internet, Microsoft PowerPoint, or any other presentation method they desire to teach their students. Interactive whiteboards are also popular in meetings, given the fact they make it easier for businesspersons to give their presentations. There are also popular in broadcasting studios, as they make for great interactive displays that the broadcaster can demonstrate with to viewers.

What Are Advantages To Using Interactive Whiteboards?

As compared to traditional whiteboards, blackboards, and projector screens, interactive whiteboards are more popular and more useful in learning environments. The lure of technology usually intrigues people of all ages, and helps to keep their attention. Unlike regular projectors, you can work directly from the screen with other people if you wish. You are immersed in the presentation and seen as a part of it. With that said, you could also track everything written on the board if you wish, as it needs to be hooked up to a computer to function. You can save anything written on the board by simply saving the document. Later on, you can open and review these documents on a smaller monitor.

The uses and advantages of interactive whiteboards are as limitless as your imagination. Every day, people are thinking of new uses for these inventive pieces of equipment.

Louise Baker is a freelance writer and blogger who writes for Zen College Life Blog

College According to Google

CampusByte — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:00:30 +0000

If you use Google Search routinely then you are familiar with their clever feature that predicts your question as you type. This feature was created to save time while searching by pulling the most frequent and relevant questions and displaying them for you. What you may not have noticed is that often the suggested questions Google comes up with can be truly hilarious and who knows where they come from or how they ever got searched for in the first place.

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Below are some interesting and funny Google predictive search results about college:

Apparently, a lot of people think college is a waste of time and money. I have a feeling the people who search this are the ones who are bitter about not attending college.

This is actually a good question. Remember, always use protection.

This is very true. If I had a dollar for every time I saw someone sleeping in class, I’d be a rich man.

So college boys are rappers?

And college girls streak and sell their virginity? Good to know.

YES. Ever heard the term – “broke college student”.

No, actually it’s called being in college. However, after college, yes it’s called alcoholism. Enjoy it while you can.

I’d like to end on a positive note. This is how I feel about college, and I can’t wait to enter the real world.

Display iCal Data on Your Desktop [Video]

CampusByte — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 14:46:09 +0000

To keep my life organized, I write down everything in iCal. Sometimes I forget to check my calendar, but after installing these two programs, I now have both my calendar data and my To Do List, right on my desktop.

Check out my quick video to set it up on your computer.

Check out my first video on YouTube. Let me know what you think in the comments!

Be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to see more videos.

Links:
GeekTool: http://bit.ly/279SJZ
iCalBuddy: http://bit.ly/papX

CODE (Scroll down to step 5 and 6): http://bit.ly/ibpv5

You can also just copy and paste the code from here:

iCal Data:
/usr/local/bin/icalBuddy -nc eventsToday | sed -e "s/*/--/" | sed -e "s/!/!!/"

To Do List Data:
usr/local/bin/icalBuddy -nc uncompletedTasks | sed -e "s/*/--/" | sed -e "s/!/!!/"