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College students can now get microsoft office for free
Just go here and sign up with your college email. You can install it on up to 5 PCs or Macs and on other mobile devices, including Windows tablets and iPads.
25 Apps Every College Student Should Have
Submitted by Campus Ambassador, Shanna Farley /// University of Northern Colorado
A new year has begun! Along with it new challenges and rewards are sure to come - this is especially true when you are trying to navigate through your college years. Luckily the college students of today live in a world where apps exist. Apps can do so much more than flip a bunch of angry birds across the screen or crush all the candies. They can help you reach your personal life goals and at times can be complete lifesavers. From a real student in the trenches, this is a list of apps that every college student should have programmed into their phones. The best part is, they are absolutely free!
Educational Aids
StudyBlue: This is an app that allows you to create virtual flashcards on any subject and allows you to borrow flash cards from other students. This app is great because you can just open it up at any time and flip through the virtual deck you have created for yourself.
Evernote: Create notes, to-do lists, set reminders, take photos, and record audio. This app is there to keep you on the track to success and makes sure you never forget.
Easy Bib: Doing your work cited is often tedious and at times confusing, with Easy Bib all that is now a thing of the past. Type in any book, website, film and Easy Bib will give you the right citation. You can even scan the barcode of your book to generate the correct citation.
Algeo Graphing Calculator: Never have to worry about being without your graphing calculator. This app can do just about anything you would ever need from a graphing calculator and from what I’ve seen it’s one of the best on the market.
Google Drive: Use this app to store all those important documents you’ll be accumulating.
(You’ll be sure to be the top of the class with the Algeo Graphing Calculator)
Daily Life Aids
Venmo: Send payments to your friends, roommate or whoever. You can now pay someone back at any time and any place without any of the hassle. Co-Ed Supply sent Venmo promo cards a few months ago!
Viber: Contact those you miss from across the globe without all those pesky fees.
Everest: Use this app to keep track of any personal life goals you have. It can be anything from traveling across Europe to losing those few extra pounds. This app helps you break down the steps to reach that goal and lets you seek out advice when you need it.
Cam Scanner: Allows you to use your camera phone as a scanner. This is very helpful for copying notes from a missed class.
Lyft: Need a ride to the party or the concert of the year, but have no transportation of your own? With this app you can contact one of Lyft’s drivers to pick you up and get you there safely. The fees are very competitive and sadly the app is mainly designed for popular U.S. cities.
Assistant: Just because you’re not in the big leagues quite yet, doesn’t mean you can’t have your own personal assistant. The rest of your apps will be envious of this one because there is so much it can do. It can post memos, keep track of your schedule, post on your social networks, give you suggestions based on your likes, and it can even follow specific commands directly related to your phone. It’s an app completely personalized to you and it even comes in different languages.
Your School’s Personal App: This is a big one many students forget. Keep in the loop with important dates or special events with you school’s app or apps.
(Your personal assistant knows what is needed to get you through your day)
Money Saving Aids
Ibotta: A great app for when you are going shopping. Get paid for buying the items right on your grocery list. This app allows you to earn back a portion of an item you have already paid and they are always expending, so now you can even earn money back for going to new movies.
Retailmenot: Finds any online discounts for any store at a click of a button. It can even generate coupons for in store purchases as well.
Wrapp: Send free gift cards or offers to your friends and receive them as well. You can also send purchased gift cards as well. Some great offers include $6 for H&M, $5 for David’s Cookies and many more. Always great gifts to give when you are a little low cash.
Plink: Get rewarded for places you already make purchases to like Regal Cinemas, Burger King, Panda Express, Dunkin Donut, and more. All you have to do is connect your account to a card and rack up points for purchases. You can redeem your points to get gift cards from Amazon, Walmart and more.
Gas Buddy: A penny saved is a penny earned and that is certainly the case with this app. You can track down which gas stations in your area have the cheapest prices for gas.
Fancy Hands, Task Rabbit, Agent Anything and Ask Sunday: Earn some extra cash by running errands or being someone’s personal assistant. These apps are filled with individuals posting certain tasks to do for a price. These tasks can range from setting up a restaurant reservation to picking up a much wanted item. All these apps seem to be localized, so you’ll have to check which ones are for your area.
(Get paid for grocery shopping with Ibotta)
Leisure Aids
Mixology: Impress everyone at any get together with your bar tending skills and you’ll sure to be the life of any party. This app is like a bar tending school in your pocket. (Must be 17 or older to download)
Spotify: In the war of free streaming music apps, I’m on the side of Spotify. I love that it allows you to shuffle playlists you’ve made yourself or playlists others have made and you can even listen to the radio. They also rarely play those pesky advertisements.
Project Gutenberg: Gain access to a large range of literature for free. This app can be useful for educational pursuits or leisure reading.
Flixter: Watch movies from your own collection or free films provided by Flixter. You can build a descent virtual library to no or very little cost.
Evenster: This app allows you to track events in your area, so you can be sure there is always something to do.
Duolingo: A game that is getting popular by the minute. Learn a new language or challenge your language skills with this great app. Languages included: Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, and English.
(Brush up on your language skills with the Duolingo app)
BONUS!
Zombies, Run!: Okay, this one isn’t a freebie, but with all the money you have saved from other apps it will be well worth your while. It’s an interactive running that allows you to play a game and listen to music at the same time. The concept is that you have to run to survive the zombie apocalypse and g complete little missions along the way. This app will be sure to keep you motivated on your resolution for a new you.
(All apps can be found on Google Play or the Apple app Store)
Here’s some weapons for your essay writing arsenal!
Hemingway Editor Calmly Writer The Most Dangerous Writing App Purdue O.W.L. One Look Thesaurus JSTOR Google Scholar
Reply with your favourite or other great websites I didn’t include!
Saturday, July 22nd, 2017
Here are some of the very best apps for students; either in highschool or in college. I have used many of the following apps, but not all of them. Some, I have just asked friends about and they suggested those ones.
Please enjoy the apps below, tell me how you like them, and feel free to add onto this list :)
Focus: SelfControl, Forest, MindNode, FocusBooster, FocusWriter, Think, StayFocused, Freedom, Cold Turkey, Anti-Social, Time Out, SmartBreak, Balanced
Productivity: Evernote, Any.do, MyScript Nebo, Outlook, Trello, Droptask, Basecamp, Pocket, Gyst, Doodle, Pen and Paper, Wunderlist, Toggl, Asana, Wolfram Alpha
Sounds: Tide, WhiteNoise, Chroma Doze, Coffitivity, Noisli, Brain.fm, NatureSpace, Noizio, Rainy Mood, SimplyNoise, Spotify, Slacker Radio
Language Learning: Duolingo, Memrise, Busuu, Babbel, Livemocha, Living Language, Tandem, MindSnacks
Games: Lumosity, Sudoku, TanZen, GeoMaster Plus HD, Speed Anatomy, Star Walk, LeafSnap, Splice: Tree of Life, Vismory, Pigments, Viridi, Sunshine, Nota
Revision: Gojimo, Revision App, iMindMap, Exam Countdown, Penultimate, Clippet
Test Prep: Khan Academy, Magoosh ACT Flashcards, The Grading Game, Math Brain Booster, ACCUPLACER Study App, CK-12, NRICH, StudySync, Quizlet, StudyAce, That Quiz, Brilliant, Synap
Planner: Timeful, Remember the Milk, Listastic, Finish, 2Do, iStudiez Pro, MyHomework Student Planner, My Study Life, ClassManager, MyLifeOrganized, Daily Agenda, Schedule Planner, Todoist
Writing: EasyBib, ProWritingAid, Bubbl.us, WiseMapping, yWriter5, Storybook, Q10, Write 2 Lite, Writer, Diaro, Note Everything, OmmWriter, Draft
Health: MyFitnessPal, Lose It, Endomondo, FitNet, Sworkit, Daily Yoga, Yonder, Fooducate, SideChef, Rise, LifeSum, Meditation Studio, Happify, 7 Cups, Clue, Start, Power Nap App, Fit Radio, Calm
Courses: Corsera, PhotoMath, Udemy, HowCast, SimpleMind+, Open Culture, Canvas, Schoology, Alison, CourseBuffet, Degreed, Instructables, InstaNerd, Big Think, Yousician, Pianu
Books & Reading: CampusBooks, Scribd, Pocket, Wattpad, GoodReads, Readmill, Audible, Prizmo, Blio, Kindle, Overdrive, BlueFire Reader, Nook, Kobo, Aldiko, Cool Reader
Note Taking: SuperNotes, StudyBlue, Bento, QuickOffice, Google Keep, Zoho Notebook, Simplenote, Bear, OneNote, Box Notes, Dynalist.io, Squid, Notability
Inspiration: TED, Lift, Believe It: You Will Achieve, BrainCourage, Get Inspired, iFundamentals, Reinventing Yourself, iWish, Pozify, Positive Thinking - The Key to Happiness, The Gratitude Journal
Other: WiFi Finder, Mint, Zwoor, Brain Pump, Curiosity, Ready4 SAT, GradeProof, edX, Mendeley, Due, CamScanner, IFTTT, Square Cash
firstly, thank you so much for 100 followers! you are all sweethearts <3
so, 2018 is pretty much over. this was my first year as a university student and i learned a lot of things, not only academically but about how to deal with being a full-time college student. so, these are my tips you, precious souls that are about to start college too (or any college student, actually). these are drawn from my experience, but i really think they could help!
find a coffee shop that you like. find out if they have students discounts. if they have it, hold them close to your heart and never let go. my favorite coffee shop is in the mall next to my campus and they have 10% off for students of the universities nearby. i think at this point all the baristas know my name, because i go there almost every day. trust me, you will need the ally.
actually, students discounts in general are your best friend. in my country, every student has 50% off in cultural activities such as cinemas, concerts, museums, theaters, basically everything that requires a ticket. there are places where you can get discounts from all sorts of stores. in my university, we have access to language classes for a really cheap price. look them up, research, and that will save you a lot of money in the long term.
on the same note, find out what you have access to. dedicate some time to walk around your campus and the other campi your university may have in the city. talk to other students about programs, events, everything from big things, like internships and scholarships, to small ones. my university, for example, provides free transportation from one campi to another, since it has multiple campi all around the city, and that has saved me a lot of bus tickets. those hacks are usually things you can only learn from experience, so get yourself out there asap.
get to know the surroundings of your campus, especially if you’re new to the city. knowing what is nearby, what kind of stores and restaurantes you have within walking distance, which public transportation stops or stations are close, if there are any cute coffee shops, museums and such. you’re going to spend a lot of time in that area, so get to know it.
use! google drive! for! everything! google products like google drive, google photos, google docs/sheets/slides are a MUST-HAVE. they’re completely free and they will for sure make your life 100x easier, seriously. i used google docs for LITERALLY every single group project i had this year.
LEARN HOW TO USE MENDELEY!!!!!!!!!!!! it is a sources and references manager that will make dealing with research papers and papers in general actually your whole life SO. MUCH. EASIER. i used it to write a huge semester-long scientific article last semester and it saved my life. here is a video on how to use it, and i might do a post later on how i use it, but download it and get acquainted to it because it’s MAGICAL and people don’t talk enough about it.
go to every possible class in the beginning of the semester so you can skip classes in the end of it without having to worry about attendance. in the end of the semester, you will be so burnt out and stressed that you will BEG yourself a day off, but if you have skipped classes back in the beginning of the semester you won’t be able to skip them now because of attendance, and you’ll want to punch yourself in the face. so please. resist the temptations and don’t skip classes in the beginning of the semester unless you really have to.
that’s a cliché one but try and be one of those people that join things. clubs, projects, events, meetings, there’s something out there for everyone. find something that you like and join. not only you’ll probably get credits for it, it’ll be an opportunity to get to know other people and to understand the dynamics of the academic world. and, in the end, it usually ends up being a lot of fun! and, if fun for itself is not enough motivation, remember i got two (2) paid internships in my first year because of the extra activities i had on my resume. just remember to make to be doing something that you like and that makes you feel comfortable and enjoy the ride!
and lastly, but most importantly:
don’t! feel! pressured! to! do! anything!
you don’t need to prove yourself. no one is keeping scores, even though it sometimes feels a lot like it. take your time. if something is making you uncomfortable, leave. you don’t have to do something just because everyone else is doing it. you can always try again in the next semester. repeat with me here:
college is NOT a race.
college is NOT a race.
college is NOT a race.
HEY SO APPARENTLY REDDIT HAS A MEGATHREAD OF SAFE PIRACY WEBSITES?
Megathread link
Movies, sports, games, books, etc. Whenever something is discovered to be a malware risk, it gets taken off the list.
Reddit is good sometimes. At least r/Piracy is.
Now that college students no longer have access to their libraries in the same way we used to and have to do most of our learning at home it would be just terrible if we all knew about https://1lib.eu/ a website which has books on basically every topic ever available for free including college textbooks. Imagine if people were researching their thesis without paying for it.
DO NOT USE THIS SITE AND DEFINITELY DO NOT NOT TELL YOUR FRIENDS ABOUT THIS SITE, THEY MIGHT START DOING THESIS RESEARCH FOR FREE OR JUST START READING BOOKS THEY FOUND ON THERE FOR FUN BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE INTERESTING. This would be terrible :( :(
Reblog to spread the word so that everyone knows to avoid this site!
17 free and helpful things, that everyone can take advantage of
Dolly Parton's Imagination Library They send an age appropriate book once a month if you have a child younger than 5.
Project Gutenberg Lots of free classic books.
Library Genesis A great place to look for and download college/university textbooks for free, as well as other books.
Scihub Endless Free college books. (and peer-reviewed scientific publications that are otherwise hidden behind a paywall)
Khan Academy Free knowledge that you can use to clep out of university courses, or to simply invest your time in a worthwhile topic.
Openlearn UK’s Open University - free courses for all levels of study, samples of university materials, study skills and tie-ins to BBC documentaries. Everything under Creative Commons licence so you can use it as you see fit.
Duolingo The Green Owl of Languages. There are a few hundred that it teaches and the mobile app makes it easy to do anywhere while waiting (!warning! only good for Spanish, German, French, Dutch, Esperanto, and English. with anything else it gets very low-quality and short.).
Codecademy An awesome site to learn how to use some programming languages. Doesn't get into the really advanced stuff, but it's good for a start.
Photopea Completely free Photoshop clone that has all the basic features of Photoshop, using basically the same interface.
Gimp Another free version of Photoshop.
Unsplash Stock of free photos of just about anything, provided by the photographers themselves, to do with what you like.
Futureme You can write letters to yourself (or other people) in the future! You can also make notifications and reminders of a +doctors appointments or anything else important.
Heavens Above You can look up all the satellites flying over your house tonight, including the ISS, Hubble Space Telescope, those pesky Starlink satellites, and whatever else your heart desires, complete with star maps and precise timing. And there is an Android app, but unfortunately no iOS one last I checked. (For iOS you can use “Sputnik!” which is free and tells, when ISS and Hubble passes overhead.)
Night Sky Other astronomy app for iOS. If you hold your phone to the sky the app tells you what you're looking at (or point it at the ground for a view from the other side of the planet). Zoom in with two fingers and tons of deep space stuff is revealed.
Freecycle its literally people giving away stuff they don't need/want any more that they can't/don't care enough to sell.
Nexus Mods Has thousands of video game mods (for 1,509 PC games), made by independent content creators, available to download at no cost.
Archive The Archive aka Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and so much more... For example a lot of DOS games (classics like Prince of Persia, Oregon Trail, DOOM, Monkey island, Rayman, Turtles), directly playable through the browser.
Even if scihub is blocked by your internet provider they have a telegram bot that gives you the articles provided you give them a doi or issn
Screaming crying because I hate every piracy guide I come across on here.
what addons do you use for firefox? i've just downloaded it to switch from chrome (derogatory)
firefox (affectionate)
UBlock Origin obviously. out-the-box works just fine but has a bunch of extra privacy/tracking/spam filters you can enable
Decentraleyes protects you against tracking through "free" curated content delivery and works alongside UBlock (or any of the other common adblocking addons)
I Don't Care About Cookies good for EU users where GDPR made it so every site ever in the universe asks you to accept cookies and privacy terms seventeen times a day. will just auto-accept for you. never see an annoying popup again! but only use in conjunction with...
Cookie Auto Delete does what it says on the tin. will automatically flush cookies, cache, and data when you close a tab. those cookies you just auto accepted? they're gone now. whitelist any sites you wanna stay logged in on and let the rest fucking perish
Don't Track Me Google removes that annoying link conversion when you copy google results. you know when it changes from "site.com" to "encrypted.google.com/randomnonsensefor200charactersblahblahblah"? yeah. this stops that happening. fuck off, google.
Don't Accept image/webp blocks sites from using the most useless file extension known to mankind so you can save as .jpg or .gif as god intended. fuck webp. seriously. what even is that.
Bypass Paywalls Clean exactly what you think it is
HTTPS Everywhere automatically adds ecrypted security to any site that supports https (you can do this manually by adding the s yourself to any url but... who can be fuckin bothere amirite? this does it for you)
New XKit ...duh
Google Search Filter allows you to remove domains from your searches forever. pinterest? gone. weheartit? nuked. also works on duckduckgo. never type "-pinterest" into a search again.
Simple Tab Groups allows you to group tabs together and shove them out of sight, which is nice if you're researching something and don't want 50 bajillion jstor tabs clogging up your normal browsing session
Just a bunch of useful websites
12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.
My Fridge Food – No idea what to make? Tell this site what ingredients you have on hand and it will give you recipes to cook.
Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.
Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.
Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.
Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.
LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.
Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.
Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.
CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.
Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.
Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.
Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.
Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.
My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.
Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.
Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.
Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.
Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.
Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.
Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.
Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.
This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.
Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.
BitWarden – Free open source password manager.
Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.
ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.
Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.
Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.
Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.
myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.
DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.
Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.
Is there any value in using a VPN for security even without Tor or TAILS?
First of all, never use the Tor network with a VPN. At best it’ll do nothing, at worst it’ll add vulnerabilities that might reveal your identity
Secondly, yes, VPNs can help obscure your identity and hide your activity from your internet provider (which is very important for something like media piracy, which they’ve been known to send cease and desists for)
The youtube sponsorships where they claim to “encrypt your data” and protect you from “hackers” are mostly bullshit though - your data’s already encrypted if you’re on an https site, which 99% of your browsing time will be, and no one’s going to specifically and intentionally hack into your computer. The “hacking” would take place in the form of either malware, or the state requesting your personal information from the tracking companies that already have it, neither of which can be effectively prevented by a VPN alone
Short answer, if you can’t use Tor then you should be using a VPN whenever possible, especially if you’re pirating things. I recommend the free and activist-run RiseupVPN
actually re joking about being ‘the piracy friend’. do yourself a favour and stop relying on tumblr masterlists that are full of broken links and dodgy websites and just bookmark r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH’s piracy wiki (backup).
it’s the most comprehensive resource i’ve ever encountered my life and it’s also got so much extra stuff like decent free vpns/antivirus/adblock, a massive list of free software for almost every purpose you can think of, AND a list of custom search engines that mean you can search every site at once or you’re looking for something more obscure (this is how i seem to always have a link to literally anything)
there’s also this rentry, which i can vouch for less because i don’t use it so much but does have info on installing cracked versions of the more popular antivirus programs if you don’t want to pay but also don’t want to trust the free options lol
be gay do crimes
refseek.com
www.worldcat.org/
link.springer.com
http://bioline.org.br/
repec.org
science.gov
pdfdrive.com
so metropolitan museum of art has a register of books they’ve published that are out of print and that you can download for free! they’re mostly books on art, archeology, architecture, fashion and history and i just think that’s super useful and interesting so i wanted to share! you can find all of the books available here!
Things that will make your computer meaningfully faster:
Replacing a HDD with an SSD
Adding RAM
Graphics cards if you're nasty
Uninstalling resource hogs like Norton or McAfee (if you're using Windows then the built-in Windows Security is perfectly fine; if you're using a mac consider bitdefender as a free antivirus or eset as a less resource intensive paid option)
Customizing what runs on startup for your computer
Things that are likely to make internet browsing specifically meaningfully faster:
Installing firefox and setting it up with ublock origin
adding the Auto Tab Discard extension to firefox to sleep unused tabs so that they aren't constantly reloading
Closing some fucking tabs bud I'm sorry I know it hurts I'm guilty of this too
Things that will make your computer faster if you are actually having a problem:
Running malwarebytes and shutting down any malicious programs it finds.
Correcting disk utilization errors
Things that will make your computer superficially faster and may slightly improve your user experience temporarily:
Clearing cache and cookies on your browser
Restarting the computer
Changing your screen resolution
Uninstalling unused browser extensions
Things that do not actually make your computer faster:
Deleting files
Registry cleaners
Defragging your drive
Passively wishing that your computer was faster instead of actually just adding more fucking RAM.
This post is brought to you by the lady with the 7-year-old laptop that she refuses to leave overnight for us to run scans on or take apart so that we can put RAM in it and who insists on coming by for 30-minute visits hoping we can make her computer faster.
just wanted to remind everyone again not only of the 3,000+ resources offered through our Liberation Library but also of the study guides for beginners offered under each of our social justice topics!
resources can be organized by type (article, novel, podcast, video, etc.) as well as filtered and searched through. we’ve tried to make our system much more accessible than our former platform on google docs so this is such an exciting development to share with everyone.
please share to promote equitable access education!