TheJoey.Net

Last week I wrote about 10 Things Every College Student Needs. Now I want to tell you about something a little cheaper and possibly more useful than some of the stuff I listed. Here is a list of 10 essential websites for every college student.

Facebook

This website is the de facto site in social networking for college students. If you don’t already have one, get one. You’ll want to keep track of all those people you meet, get to know them and view their pictures from the weekend, on top of all of the other things you can do on Facebook.

Webshots / Flickr

You do have photo albums on Facebook, but you will want a public place to add photos for people without Facebook to see. Webshots seems to be the most popular one among college students, though I prefer Flickr.

Half.com

Half.com is the site I use to buy and sell most of my textbooks. A subsidiary of Ebay, it’s easy to use, you will find books cheaper than your school’s book store, and if you sell on Half.com, you will get more money than selling back to the book store.

JourneyEd

This website is great for student discounted software. A student is usually able to get deep discounts on software for educational purposes- For example, you can get MS Office Pro ($599 value) for $84. You can also grab Adobe Photoshop ($999) for $189. If you are even in need of software as a student, this is the place to go.

EasyBib

A great Bibliography generator for MLA style. If you need APA, you can try BibMe.

Rate My Professor

This is a good site to get a feel for the kind of professors your school has to offer. It comes especially handy when it’s time to make a schedule. While it’s not always accurate, it does give good advice on the teachers you are looking to take.

Student Central

This site lists any part time jobs, full time jobs or internships right through your school.

Wikipedia

Know it. Love it. Many professors don’t allow citing Wikipedia directly, but you can usually get a good start by going there and looking at the other sources for the articles.

Online Note taking Sites

To be honest I’ve tried a few, but nothing really worked for me. However, there are some great one-stop resources out there for students. I personally recommend MyNoteIt. Of the ones I’ve used, it’s the best. There is notes, a calendar, to-do list, and a social networking aspect to it, so your friends can get in on it too. Another successful one I’ve seen is Stu.dicio.us.

Your School’s Website

In most cases, this is the best resource at your disposal. From the University of Scranton’s website, I can get a listing of classes they are offering as well as my current schedule, a student and faculty directory and information about just about anything else on campus. Familiarize yourself with the school’s website and I think you’ll find it will come in handy

I know there are a vast amount of resources out there and I most likely missed a couple of sites. What has helped or is helping you as a student?

posted on July 23rd, 2007 in Productivity| | show comment » « hide comment

As a freelancer that’s still in school, I move back home for the summer into a house with my parents and three younger brothers; and we are all close in age. That translates into a lot of distraction when I am trying to get work done. Between my parents asking me, since I am home, to do chores or run errands and my brothers bothering me to hang out, play cards, watch a movie or just plain bothering me, it can be pretty tough to get work done around here. So here are some tips on getting some work done if you face distractions like these.

Close and Lock your door

This might be the best method since when people see my door closed they usually know not to distract. Without people coming in and out of my room, it’s much easier for me to sit down and focus on what I need to do.

Headphones

My friends at school like to make fun of me for them, but I have a pair of big headphones that really do a great job of drowning out any and all ambient (and not so ambient) noise. With my music and nothing else in my ears, I find even in crowded rooms I can focus.

Work when your friends work

The nice thing about freelancing is you make your own schedule. So if you find yourself tempted by going out or working, just find out when your friends work and get your work done then. That way you get to work free of distraction (from them anyway) and get to hang out later when they get off work.

Saying No

My parents and friends don’t like this one so much, but when it is crunch time and my friends want to hang out or my parents need me to go to the store, sometimes I have to say no. It’s tough to draw a line between work and play (or whatever not work is) when you don’t have set hours, but when it comes down to it they will understand you need to get your work done.

For me, the first three methods work better than the last one. As many of my friends know, I have a hard time saying no to people. That’s actually why I have so much work, which is what lead me to write this post…

posted on July 1st, 2007 in Business, Productivity| No Comments »

Hands down the best tool for documents is Google Docs & Spreadsheets. With Microsoft Office support and the ability to access the documents anywhere as long as you have an internet connection, why use anything else?

With Google Docs, I am able to upload Word and Excel documents, edit them, and export them into Word and Excel documents. They stay in your documents until you delete them, and there are multitudes of ways to organize them. Much like GMail, Google Docs has labels and the ability to star documents. You also only view your “Active Documents” (edited within last 30 days) until you choose other wise.

One other really nice thing about Google Docs is the ability to share any document with anyone with an email address. Excellent for collaboration. With Google Docs, I can get a lot done, and have access to all of my important documents from anywhere at anytime. And best part is, it’s free!

posted on May 12th, 2007 in Business, Productivity, Software| No Comments »

A few days ago I wrote about how to get calendar functionality in Thunderbird with Lightning. Today I want to talk about making Lightning 100 times better by giving it the ability to sync with Google Calendar. Since Google is my primary source for Email, Calendar, online document storage, notes and whatever else they offer, I always look for ways to seamlessly sync these things with my desktop or PDA. Since I’ve started using GooSync to synchronize my Treo with GCal, I’ve been more productive, being able to check my calendar anywhere online. Now with Provider, I can synchronize my desktop calendar with Google Calendar, “completing the circle,” so to speak.

Sure I could use Outlook or Palm Desktop, but why if I don’t have to. I have Google. Now I can have bidirectional synchronization between my desktop and GCal or my Treo and GCal. Plus, installation is easy and updates are automatic (and instant as long as you have an internet connection). Simply download Provider, open up Thunderbird, go to Tools>Add-ons and choose install. From there all you have to do is add Google Calendar to your list of calendars in Lightning. Click on the calendar tab (bottom right) and click New. Then Choose “On the Network.” From there choose Google Calendar and copy your Google Calendar feed in to the box. There is a nice step-by-step with screen shots here.

I find this solution especially nice because it’s quick and easy. Now If I can’t get WiFi in a classroom, I don’t have to sweat not accessing my calendar and pulling out my PDA to add an important date. Since I take notes on my laptop, I just have Thunderbird open and add appointments and due dates that way.

posted on April 26th, 2007 in Productivity, Software| No Comments »

Gmail is my numero-uno choice for email. However, in my constant quest to backup all data I have anywhere, I felt Thunderbird would be a good desktop email client. After using Thunderbird a couple of days, I wanted to make it more “Outlook-esq.” I wanted calendar functionality. Knowing Mozilla made Sunbird, I figured there was something out there to integrate into Thunderbird. That something was Lightning. It’s a nice little plug-in that gives great functionality, supports multiple calendars and even iCal, for those of you who use it. It gives you the basic Day, Week and Month view, and lays it out pretty nicely. If you are a big Thunderbird user, I strongly recommend it.

In the next couple of days, I will also do a write up on a really easy way to sync Lightning with Google Calendar, making the program even better.

posted on April 19th, 2007 in Productivity, Reviews, Software| | show comment » « hide comment