So you have tons of pictures from last weekend’s party on your digital camera that you want to share with your friends, but you noticed that some of them don’t look as great as you’ve hoped. If only you had some good photo editing software!

Pixlr, an online photo-editing tool, is one great solution! It may not be quite as fancy as Photoshop, but it has a lot more features than most basic editors you’ll come across. You can fix the lighting and contrast like you would with other photo editors, but Pixlr also has painting, text and filters features. It’s pretty awesome!

If you want something a little more hip and easier to use, there’s also Pixlr-o-matic. You can upload a picture from your computer or take one with your webcam and send it straight to Pixlr-o-matic for editing, where you can add cool effects, such as retro-inspired color filters and borders. Read More »

As college students, we spend hours on reading assignments every week (or at least we’re assigned hours of reading). With all that reading, it’s hard to find time for much else! It’s hard to have to choose between studying hard and having fun. I hate to admit it, but I choose the fun option more frequently than I should — and I know I’m not the only one.

If only you could get your reading done faster and still have time to have fun! Well, with Readfa.st, you can.

Readfa.st teaches you to read faster, but unlike some types of speed reading, which teach you to how to skim, Readfa.st teaches you to actually read faster and still comprehend what you read — meaning you can get all your reading done and still remember what you read when it comes time for the test. Read More »

Tired of the plain white walls in your dorm room or apartment? Sure, you can always head down to the university bookstore and pick up a couple of posters, but you’re unique… so shouldn’t your artwork be as well?

Give TurningArt a try. Choose from TurningArt‘s gallery of over 700 paintings and photographs from some of the best rising artists and photographers in the country. You can browse by style or medium, or also by artist if there’s a particular artist you like or by location if you’re interested in supporting the local art community. Once you find a piece of artwork you like, add it to your queue. Before you know it, a framed high-quality print of your chosen artwork will be on its way to you. Keep the art hanging on your wall as long as you’d like, or send it back in the pre-paid mailer for the next piece of artwork on your queue. Read More »

The school year is back in full swing, and before you know it, it’ll be time for your first test. While I’m sure a lot of you are probably great at studying, if you’re anything like me, it’s not your best skill. But with the help of StudyBlue, studying just got a lot easier and more efficent.

StudyBlue helps you study by giving you a place to store all your lecture notes online and make free online flashcards. What’s brilliant about this is that since everything is stored online with StudyBlue, you don’t have to worry about carrying around all your books and notes with you wherever you decide to study — you can pull it up on any computer!

The flashcards on StudyBlue are easy to make and use — and their digital format allows you to put more than just words and phrases on them! StudyBlue also allows you to add photos or audio – perfect for art, architecture, language or music classes! Also, when you study with flashcards, StudyBlue keeps track of what you know and don’t know, making your study more efficient by focusing your time on what you actually need to learn. Read More »

I’m a big reader, but I know that not everyone feels the same — some people I know would much rather watch a movie than read a book. I get it — movies have awesome special affects, scores and sound effects that make the whole experience more exciting. But now there’s a new App that aims to make reading more like watching a movie!

Booktrack takes your e-reading experience to another level by adding a soundtrack. Booktracks  are e-books that play music and sound effects to go along with the story you’re reading. So, as the website explains, if you’re reading about the character in the book is at a nightclub, you’ll hear club music, or if you’re reading about war, you’ll hear the sound of soldier’s footsteps marching. What’s more, Booktrack tracks your reading speed and changes the music and effects to fit what you’re reading at the time. Read More »

One of the biggest expenses every student has to deal with at the start of each new semester is textbooks. Luckily for poor college students’ wallets, there has been a growing trend in college classes to utilize PDFs of book chapters, articles and notes instead of textbooks. However, most of the standard PDF readers (like Adobe Acrobat or Preview on Macs) don’t allow you to make any sort of edits, so if you want to be able to add notes or highlight important sections like you would with a regular textbook, you’ll have to spend your money to print them out.

That’s why you should try out Nitro PDF Reader. It’s the only free PDF reader and creator on the market that also allows for editing. With Nitro PDF, you can highlight, underline, and cross out selections of text, add notes and more. You can even pull out important quotes and pictures to use later when creating study guides or writing papers!

Nitro PDF works great for collaborating on group projects, too. You can add in your own comments or edits, and then save and share them with others in your group. You can also reply to others’ comments directly into their comment box, which keeps the discussion thread focused onto one topic. Read More »

When we first got the internet at my house growing up (back in grade school), one of my favorite things to do was send ecards to all my friends and family. I’d send them for every occasion and even for no occasion whatsoever! Luckily, my obsession with ecards died out by the time middle school rolled around, when I started thinking ecards were lame.

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As women, we face unrealistic images of female beauty in the media every single day. The images of women we see in magazines are airbrushed to perfection — which is why it’s no wonder so many women have skewed perceptions of their own bodies. According to a recent study, 95% of non-eating disordered women overestimated the size of their hips by 16% and their waists by 25% — but those very same women could correctly estimate the width of a box. It’s this skewed perception of our bodies that leads negative body images and even eating disorders. Read More »

I have to start out by saying that I probably shouldn’t be showing you this site, but I just find it so hilarious that I have to.

Harldlywork.in is a new site that allows you to access your Facebook while at work, your internship or in class… without your boss or professor knowing! How, you may ask? By transforming Facebook’s layout into something that looks like work! Simply log onto the site with your Facebook log-in information, and Hardlywork.in will transfer the normal Facebook layout into an inconspicuous Excel spreadsheet.

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I’m taking this week’s post as an opportunity to tell you all about a site that’s getting super popular and that I’m obsessing over: Pinterest. You may have already started happily pinning away on Pinterest, but if you haven’t yet, you need to start. I’ve been using it for a little over a month and I am totally addicted.

Pinterest is, according to the site, a “virtual pin board” that allows you to share things you love from the web. You can choose to follow other Pinterest users (and have them follow you back). Every time you visit Pinterest, you’ll see the recent pins of the other users you follow.

In order to join Pinterest, you have to request an invite, either from the site itself or from a friend who is a member (if you ask around, I’m willing to bet you know someone who is using the site already). Once you have an account, the first thing you’ll do is set up your profile and create a few pin boards — choose whatever categories you’d like, such as fashion inspiration, recipes, or design projects you want to try.

Once you’ve set up your profile, the next step is to start pinning! If you’re hung up on what sorts of things to pin, just trust your instincts and pin whatever you like or find interesting (hence the “interest” part of Pinterest). The easiest way to do this is by repinning something you find on another user’s pin board via the “repin” button on the page. You can also pin anything on the web, either through the add a pin page or via the “Pin It” bookmarklet you can add to your browser. It’s that easy!

Happy pinning! One word of caution: as I mentioned before, Pinterest can be pretty addictive!