Final Fortnight Stress

Me looking a bit stressed

As week 9 of this term closes, I enter the final fortnight of the lecturing term - and the chaos associated with it begins.

The final two weeks are paper-jam packed with assignment deadlines, report hand-ins and general "get-this-done-by-this-day-and-attach-a-pink-plagiarism-cover-sheet" malarkey. This reoccurring festival is observed by Computing Scientists in various forms: from overnight vigils in the Boyd Orr computing lab, to fasting over lunch (in order to get those final lines of code written), and the custom of decking anyone who is wasting printer time with LOLcats when you are trying to re-print the class diagrams you spent all night wrestling from the clutches of Umbrello.

As you can probably tell, this is the least enjoyable fortnight of the term. So if you see me about, please do take the time to give me a cuddle - I'll really appreciate it.

Organise Your Student Life with a Mac

Being a student is hard enough. If you've already invested in a Mac for your studies (or plan) there are many powerful applications in Mac OS X Leopard that make it easier for you to organise your notes and keep your work structured and on schedule throughout your academic career. Here are some tips to use these applications to their full potential.

Organise your timetable

Most students, myself included, are used to carrying around a timetable in a beer-sodden scrap of paper which proceeds to simultaneously ferment and biodegrade in their bag. Ditch the damp paper and switch to iCal.

iCal tip: For each class you can set the alarm function to "Open file..." and then choose your notes for that class. This means that iCal will automatically open your notes for you each time the class is due to begin!

Organise your contacts







Use Address Book to manage your contacts, this will allow you easily access your contacts details from many different areas of your Mac.

Address Book tip: Third party applications can allow you to synchronize information to your address book from other sources. FacebookSync grabs details from your friends' facebook and AdiumSync allows you to capture information from your instant messenger contacts (MSN contacts, AIM, and more).

Manage your note taking







If you store your class notes on your Mac you can use the powerful search facilities of Spotlight to help you master revision. Just type the phrase you are looking to revise and you'll be brought straight to the notes you need.

Note Taking tip: Some people find the best way to learn notes is to listen to them. You can convert any text from your notes into an iTunes Audiobook by using a simple program - now you can have an audiobook version of all your notes!

Social Networking on a Mac







Half the fun (if not more) of being a student is socialising. Use your Mac to allow you to rise to the top of the social networking leagues. iChat and Messenger For Mac will limit some of your instant messaging circles, so get Adium and connect to multiple networks at the same time.

Social Networking tip: The Facebook Exporter for iPhoto plug-in allows you to easily upload photos to your Facebook straight from iPhoto. You can write captions and tag them before uploading.

What other tips do you have for using a Mac at University, College or school? Tell us in the comments.