Tony Zhou/Staff

College is probably the biggest financial investment you’ve made yet, so when you can find opportunities to cut corners and save a few dollars, the Clog is behind you. With the costs of tuition, housing and even basic necessities like food and toilet paper, it gets expensive pretty quickly.

Luckily for Cal students, we have a Software Central — with plenty of free computer programs that you can download with no additional tug on your wallet. Many of them are essential to college success and preparation for the real world.

Microsoft Office Suite. Who doesn’t need this? Maybe you’ve never downloaded Word or Excel (How have you been getting anything done?), or maybe you really just need the 2013 upgrade so you can type fancier and impress your professors. Either way, you can get this software for free as a Cal student. And if the word “free” isn’t good enough for you, you get to keep the software after graduation.

Stretch Break. Stressed out with kinks in your neck and back? Not yet? Well, midterms and too much time spent hunched over a desk will soon change that. You could rely on the Clog’s advice on how to stretch out your stress, but if that’s not helpful, the Tang Center has an app for that! The program will lead you through different stretches.

Photoshop. Have you always wanted to design a cool flyer for your club? Doctor photos of your roommate? Students can get Adobe Creative Suite 6 for free! If you don’t know anything about design, you can try to teach yourself. Or, if you’re extremely lost, there is a game called LevelUp that helps you learn how to use Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash Professional and all of the other programs included.

What’s your favorite free program from Cal’s Software Central? Let us know in the comments below!

Image sources: Microsoft Office, Tony Alter and UC Berkeley IST under Creative Commons.

Contact Jessica Rogness at jrogness@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @jessarogness.

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Uday Mehta/Staff

Name: App Lock

Platform: Android

Price: Free

Mission: Protect Your Privacy

It’s common practice nowadays that upon obtaining access to your friend’s phone, tablet or laptop, one of the first tasks to accomplish is to post a message on Facebook about how your friend had unsurprisingly changed his or her sexuality. This is commonly followed by an assortment of installing or uninstalling applications, changing the background to one which prominently features your nose and other mischievous things of that nature. But what if you could now trust your friends to not screw with your stuff when you were out of earshot?

App Lock is a really simple app. The main functionality is that it “locks” the screen when you enter certain apps that you specifically designate. It’s not limited to opening apps; it can password-protect operations like answering a call, installing or uninstalling an app and entering the play store. If you’re not a fan of the conventional four-digit code, you can also set it to a pattern. As a fail-safe, there’s a security question and answer, along with a password hint. There are some intuitive settings, such as being able to toggle the locker in the notification bar and set a re-entry time for your locked applications so that you don’t have to keep entering your password for apps you frequently use.

A lot of the unnecessary but slightly cool features are locked up in the premium version, but they’re definitely worth perusing if you’re really sensitive about how protected your phone should be from your “friends.” One of the more hackneyed ones is the ability to change the background of the lock screen. This is probably useful for some of our more creative readers. Something slightly more impressive is the random keyboard, which will switch the digits of your keypad so that people can’t memorize your finger motion by looking over your shoulder. You can also set up different profiles, making it easier to switch between school and work mode, if you’re the type that’s actually going to bother creating different settings for those respective situations. There are also time and location locks that allow you to enable and disable app locking or switch profiles depending upon the time of day or your phone’s location (the latter of which may be a battery-drainer). One of the cooler things is that you can opt to hide the app from the home screen and instead enter a URL in your browser or dial a specific number to indirectly open the app.

Naturally, it (by default) locks itself and will exit the app every time the screen turns off. Even if you don’t need it, it’s probably a good idea to download it and set it up so that some dumb prankster doesn’t download it for you and lock all your apps. In all, it’s simple and powerful without too many dumb features to lead you astray. We’ll generously give it a four-clog stamp of approval.

Contact Uday Mehta at umehta@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter at @mehtakid

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CalCentral/Courtesy

One of the most surprising things about attending one of the world’s most acclaimed universities is how antiquated some of the online technology is. It only takes a fleeting glance at the disgusting 1990s-looking Tele-BEARS or BearFacts to realize that the general Berkeley area seems immune to the rest of the world’s progression into the age of digital advancement. Now, with the fall beta release of CalCentral, UC Berkeley seems to be breaking out of its seemingly perpetual resistance to online change.

What is it?

Think of it as a viable homepage that connects all of your UC Berkeley resources. Instead of having to pick between bSpace, bMail or any of your other frequently used portals, this site can suffice as a functional alternative with easy access to anywhere relevant to your school life. The top panel has quick links to all the Google-inspired apps — which are cleverly prefaced with a “b” to make it seem like they are officially affiliated with Berkeley — such as bMail, bCal and bDrive. Additionally, there’s a somewhat useful student summary and a maddeningly unhelpful settings page that lets you link your bConnected profile.

The secondary panel has a link to your academic summary, which lists your college, major and class standing, along with your status with the university requirements and your current semester enrollment. The “My Campus” tab is a link hub that branches out to the rest of the websites that are stuck in the past. And the dashboard, the default page is reminiscent of WordPress in that it has widgets of events, classes, groups, tasks and recent activities.

Why do we like it?

The feel of it. It certainly has a sleeker, more modern-looking touch that definitely outstrips anything we’ve mentioned above. It’s better than bSpace’s slightly revamped interface, and it definitely allows more interconnectedness. The addition of a task list, while nice, is somewhat redundant with the calendar integration. It’s also nice that you don’t have to visit ScheduleBuilder to find CCNs any longer, and the links to bSpace are expected but not necessarily helpful. Perhaps the best thing is that you can add your own personal Google account to CalCentral, so if you forward your mail and use a different calendar, it’ll be an easy transition. It’s also quite friendly to your mobile device, whereas bSpace was notoriously not.

What don’t we like?

Unfortunately, this list far exceeds that presented in the previous paragraph, which can be chalked up to high expectations. The system still lacks some basic functionality, such as being able to move panes around and creating email notifications for any changes that would be reflected in each widget. Having essentially no settings is indicative of a system in its early stages, and perhaps more will be rolled out upon the full release next spring.

We believed that CalCentral had the potential to be the center of an ecosystem that it created with full bSpace, ScheduleBuilder, BearFacts and course catalog integration. To use an analogy along the lines of Android, its ceiling was the Halo multitasking (if you don’t know what or how awesome that is, Google’s a thing) — we imagined it opening up other Berkeley sites within the same screen without having to go elsewhere. CalCentral has cool stuff, but most of its reliability is shot because it links you to external platforms, which have the rather low bar of Tele-BEARS support to live up to — similar to an Android homescreen that needs to launch different apps, each which may or may not be quite as good.

What started off as a rather promising concept hasn’t lived up to the months it’s taken to develop, and we’d advise you not to hold your breath if you don’t yet have it. Word is out that the full release will have CARS and MyFinAid added in, but we’re not quite sure whether that means simply adding a link to those respective portals or actually integrating it within the interface. We know you’ve suffered for a long time — what’s a few more months?

Contact Uday at umehta@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter at @mehtakid

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Over the course of one’s education, it’s a fair expectation that your sleep schedule is going to take a hit. Whether the cause is your intermittent desire to experience the night life, your apparent need to work two jobs while taking 21 units so you can attempt to pay for college or the age-old myth of “studying” while playing League of Legends, it’s widely understood that rest is sacrificed for the greater good. But when your brutally honest friend tells you that you’ve put on weight recently, you may not be quite so quick to correlate the two phenomena. However Cal researchers, led by neuroscience professor Matthew Walker, certainly are.

One doesn’t have to be a psychologist to understand that the brain works better when it has energy, which is primarily fueled by sleep. It may be one of the few redeeming features of the dining halls, but the all-you-can-eat facet certainly comes in handy when you walk in for breakfast with a rather large headache and an even larger appetite. However, it does sound better when a psychology professor explains that the brain’s regions react differently when “five more minutes” is your default response to your alarm ring. The complex areas that are primarily reserved for decision-making and passing judgment tend to suffer in performance. Since you can’t rationally decide or motivate yourself to eat healthier food or a smaller amount of unhealthy food, the primal instincts kick in. While these don’t constitute growling in tiger-like fashion or diving into your meal face first, they certainly do include heightened levels of desire for reward. Which probably explains why you’re sinking your teeth into that stack of pancakes drenched in maple syrup at this very moment.

Unless you’ve adopted Wiz Khalifa’s anthem “No Sleep” as your personal life ambition, there is a solution. Barring the use of a butler or a shock collar that would avail the carrot and stick methods respectively, the simplest road involves you getting more sleep. Easier said than done … well, not really. Even though those late-night excursions to parties only really kick in as the hour progresses, you can tell yourself that putting on those extra pounds is probably not worth getting rejected by that really attractive person who you’ve been glancing at for the last hour. And if you call reading the same sentence over and over while floating in and out of consciousness “studying,” then it’s probably a good indication that you need to catch some Z’s regardless.

Even if you do happen to stay up or out late, make sure the RSF is part of your plans. Alternatively, grab some cereal in the morning as opposed to a doughnut – and preferably not a cereal where you can see the sugar pouring off the flake. We can easily recognize that making these choices – including the one where the marijuana-aficionado suddenly became our role model – isn’t necessarily for the best, yet we simply can’t stop ourselves from committing them.

In all, it’s a test of your discipline, one of the many challenges that comes with being a student, and one that gives credence to the unfortunate epidemic of Freshman 15. And if nothing else, it somewhat validates those rather ludicrous, “Would you eat 6 cheeseburgers at once?” ads at Crossroads.

Image source: Ian Murchison under Creative Commons

Contact Uday at umehta@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter at @mehtakid

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Uday Mehta/Staff

Name: AirDroid

Platform: Android

Price: Free

Mission: Your Android, on the Web

Though these high-tech expensive bricks available are increasingly becoming the norm, smartphones can’t escape the fact that they are, by birth, phones. And though their only crime is their existence, the fact that they are (regrettably) phones presents a series of limitations. Even those who are dependent upon their phones would tend to agree that size is a phone’s advantage, which couples as a laptop’s disadvantage. And because of this singular inherent advantage, we used to have splits in media, such as text messaging versus instant messaging and camera versus video chatting. Now, phones are gaining some of the functionalities that were previously lost, and laptops remain unable to do so. Because you’re reading this, you’ve probably come to a conclusion that there is indeed an app for that.

AirDroid is a lightweight app that will undoubtedly make life less wiry for the Android faithful. Upon installing it and creating an account, your phone’s role is done. It’s all about the big screen now.

There’s no software equivalent for laptop or desktop computers, but merely logging onto web.airdroid.com will suffice. The website interface is reminiscent of iCloud — for those who flaunt iPhones — with a whole host of icons hovering about and a control toolbar at the top corresponding to a taskbar at the bottom in addition to the action panel on the right. As you may have gathered by the host of buttons and their respective descriptions, you have complete access to your phone’s inner workings. You can also move around the buttons by long clicking them, and you have a total of four desktops to work with, each of which is accessible via the icon to the right of the search bar. Clicking any of the icons opens up a “window” within the page, and each window can be resized and dragged around for maximum flexibility.

The most practical feature is the text messaging — many of us would type out longer messages on average with correct grammar if we had patience with the exceptionally small keyboards, and chances are that the vast majority of the younger generation is quite adept with a full-fledged computer keyboard. You have the option to send, search, delete and manage your messages right from your laptop. The same holds true with contacts, call logs, photos, music, videos and other files. You can play and view them on your laptop and transfer them as well. You can also download content from your phone or upload content to it — the free version has a limit of 100 MB of file transfer per month, whereas the premium version lets you transfer to your heart’s content. As long as you aren’t moving large video files (which can be remedied through Google+ or Dropbox’s camera upload feature), the free version should be plenty.

Some of the coolest features include tracking your device through GPS, making your device ring and even wiping all the data on it remotely. Also, if you’re tired of searching up APK files and downloading them while your device freezes about 17 times through the process, you can download them on your computer and feed them to your device through AirDroid, which will begin the installation for you. An underrated ability is that you can copy text directly to your device’s clipboard and even open URLs or links automatically by pasting them in the toolbox.

Additional features reserved for premium users are the ability to call people from your computer, take screenshots and remotely use the camera to take pictures of a potential thief.

If you feel the need to go on the actual mobile app, it sports a half-decent file and app manager along with a few security settings. The real prize is the desktop site, which reverses the trend of technology going small. Glossing over the 100 MB transfer limit, which is mitigated by never having to carry around a USB cable again, we’ll certify AirDroid with five clogs. If you have an Android phone or tablet, get it. Now.

Contact Uday at umehta@dailycal.org or follow him on Twitter at @mehtakid

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US Department of Agriculture/Courtesy

Have you ever gotten tired of the planet and just wanted to up and leave? Well, your chance is here! The stuff of science fiction legend is set to come true: Humans have the opportunity to inhabit Mars. The Mars One project was established to create the first human settlement on another planet. Founders of the Mars One project are currently looking for volunteers to leave for the red planet sometime in 2022 (they are to land on their new home seven months later, in 2023). Although this sounds like the vacation of a freaking lifetime, there’s quite a suspicious catch: Space travelers are to NEVER return.

Although this all seems like a plot of an upcoming space movie, Mars One CEO Bas Lansdorp stated in a CNN interview, “It’s up to the people on Mars to decide what to do with their dead.” So it’s true: People are really to never return. But there are actually tons of people who don’t give a shit! More than 100,000 people have already registered and expressed that they would love to leave Earth and never return. I’m sure all of us have had the same sentiments — maybe not so much to this extreme. However, the company expressed that it would like to put a reality TV show to all of this. We’re not sure if watching every move of a permanent human colony on Mars until the members died would be interesting, but it definitely has our attention. Perhaps it could be another endeavor of the “Survivor” franchise. We can see it now: “Survivor: the Red Planet.”

So if you don’t think you’d miss Disneyland, the beach or Top Dog or if you’re running out of post-graduation plans, it’s very possible for you to leave to Mars. Applying and registration for any U.S. citizen older than 18 costs $36.

We’re not sure how we feel about this. This all seems awesome, scary, suspicious and then some, but the Mars One project is definitely an interesting idea. Although it may never follow through or may all be a grand hoax, it goes to show that many people are definitely over this planet.

Would you ever consider living on Mars and never returning to Earth? Share your feelings in the comments!

Image source: United States Department of Agriculture under Creative Commons 

Contact Karen Kwaning at kkwaning@dailycal.org.

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Cal is a school infamous for its stressors. We all are pretty competitive, and often we’re even competing against ourselves; we came to Cal to make ourselves better, didn’t we? In the quest for bettering ourselves, though, the basic necessities are neglected during the semester. Eating and workout habits go awry, sleeping patterns tend toward the nocturnal and relationships are strained.

But did you ever stop to consider that the weather could push us even further and make us take our stress out on other people in even worse ways? A recent study published in Science — for which two of the researchers are from UC Berkeley — found that hotter temperatures in weather really do make people more hot-headed. The study suggests that, historically, wars and other kinds of violence tended to occur during periods of extreme weather.

We think there has to be some truth to this research. We’ve done our own observations when it gets warm in Berkeley. Everyone feels a little groggier and crankier when we get an uncharacteristic “heat wave” of 80-something degrees. There’s no air conditioning in most Berkeley housing, so we don’t feel like doing anything in our puddles of sweat. When we don’t get anything done, we’re annoyed (mostly at ourselves). And then we take that annoyance out on the people surrounding us.

So though you may love the sun and complain of Berkeley’s “bipolar weather,” be grateful that you have one less stressor on you. Clouds and colder weather can make us sad, but a little chill may help you keep your own cool.

It’s not like we need any more reasons to sweat during that first exam of the semester.

Image source: Giulia Forsythe, under Creative Commons

Contact Jessica Rogness at jrogness@dailycal.org.

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Uday Mehta/Staff

Situated in an area of the world that spawns many great ideas and businesses (and far more horrendous ones), UC Berkeley students can often have difficulty making their work stand out in a field of an equally bright colleagues. “Standing out” has been the mantra instilled in the vast majority of us for a long time — starting with (presumably) college applications and culminating … well, never. It’s understandably convoluted to do so when one doesn’t even have the slightest scintilla of sapience as to the work of the competition and their allies. Enter Cal student Adam Remba.

While working away at a summer internship in the far reaches of Tel Aviv, Israel, Remba met Ben Lang, a man who managed to consolidate more than 1,000 startups and their information in his website, which he appropriately titled “Mapped in Israel.” It grew from being merely a location tool to one that granted exposure to companies through agglomeration. As any startup would appreciate, exposure is the cardinal goal. Upon recognizing the practicality of such an endeavor in California, Remba began his personal creation, correspondingly titled “Mapped in Silicon Valley.”

Simple in its execution yet powerful in its purpose, the site offers a map of all the startup-type companies in the Silicon Valley — the vast majority of which are concentrated around Berkeley — and allows one to see basic information, such as tagline, address and website, with a single click. Also available is the option to add your own community. It is very much a community-driven website where registering your startup proves to be a symbiotic relationship. The current function that makes this tool so useful is its organization: It’s guaranteed to let you find others who may be in a similar space to you and open the opportunities for collaboration and the occasional friendly rivalry and to let others find you by virtue of the same process.

Following the mold of pretty much all Berkeley student innovators, Remba is not yet content with the product he has created. Alongside the co-founder and fellow golden bear Eric Katz, he hopes to make his website an outlet that can be used to drive traffic — similar to how his inspiration worked. “Although there are ones for specific communities like Berkeley, San Francisco and Palo Alto,” Remba remarks, “I couldn’t believe there wasn’t one for Silicon Valley.”

The duo hopes to reach a total of 500 startups added to the website by December of this year to match their tagline of helping unite Silicon Valley.

Contact Uday Mehta at umehta@dailycal.org.

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Snapshot of the most depressing thing we’ve laid our eyes on in a while: two nicely dressed young adults, presumably on a date, sitting across from each other in total silence, ignoring one another for the entertainment of their respective smartphones. Unfortunately, this is not that outlandish of a sight. With our generation’s addiction to mobile technology and social media, it seems as if dinners are more often set to the auto-lighting of an iPhone than to candlelight.

We at the Clog recognize the benefits that these forms of technology can offer us. Direct messaging and sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn help us promote our professional careers, stay updated on club matters and keep in touch with distant friends. But when we have to install Chrome Nanny to keep us off of Reddit before a midterm or get in potentially life-threatening car crashes because we couldn’t wait to respond to a text from our friends, it’s an understatement to say that our priorities are getting a little out of whack. Don’t misunderstand; there’s nothing we hate more than holier-than-thou types. We are just as addicted to these things as the next person is. But hopefully considering the detrimental effects technology has on our daily lives as students will be enough to convince us all that the way we use it often isn’t worth it. Without further ado, here are some areas where technology might slowly sucking the life force out of us.

Relationships

Why is it that thousands of young, spritely, educated, intelligent students can’t help but reach for their smartphones when they get together? Look around campus. At cafes, parties, discussion sections or pretty much anywhere that tradition and human decency would tell us to look one another in the face and make conversation, a lot of people are more comfortable looking down at their screens. It’s almost a reflex — and an extremely inconsiderate one at that. There is nothing more rude and offensive by making it alarmingly clear that you prefer the allure of a social media notification than the conversation of a real human being sitting in front of you. Social media is the greatest paradox. It gives us an illusion that we are becoming more connected to people when, in reality, it is crippling our social skills. The act of “liking,” “favoriting” and commenting on posts by “friends” on these sites might seem like a legitimate way to establish or maintain valuable relationships, but no amount of thumbs-up buttons will replace genuine, in-person human interaction. You know — with body language, voice inflections, real words and stuff. By allowing ourselves to spend so much time with these often empty forms of communication, we are preventing ourselves from seeking true intimacy with other people, leaving us feeling socially unsatisfied.

Academics

Translation apps for language class, educational websites like Khan Academy — we may have failed without these tech developments. But what’s more likely a reason we were struggling in class in the first place is that we were too preoccupied with distractions on our phones and computers. It’s almost comical to sit in a crowded lecture hall in Wheeler and see hundreds of Facebook homepages glaring on the screens in front of you.These sites are designed like the classic Skinner box; we click a certain button to receive immediate gratification. Our smartphones have essentially destroyed our ability to concentrate, encouraging us to leap from one application to another for any bit of entertainment. Regardless of technology’s addictive qualities, the ability to focus and a very expensive education aren’t things we should be OK sacrificing just because we  heard our phone buzz.

Mood and personality

Addiction to social media sites and the like, similar to an addiction to a drug, can be detrimental to your mood and, ultimately, your personality.  Ever log off of a social media site feeling lousy about yourself? It’s alarmingly common. In fact, Time reports that scientists who studied 600 people active on Facebook found that one in three felt worse than before visiting the site. It’s no wonder that networking sites can easily becoming breeding grounds for self-esteem issues. People anguish over social approval in the form of a “like” on a post or an invitation to an event. Negative body image is also a residual effect of frequent visits to these sites when people compare their pictures to those of their peers.

A lot of us spend a considerable amount of time and effort trying to present the best-looking, most interesting, coolest, most popular version of ourselves to  acquaintances through tech mediums. What we want people to realize is the cost is just too high. If you aren’t happy being on the social media site you probably found this article on right now, then log off.  Less time focusing on these things will translate into more time doing the things that actually make us feel fulfilled and happy, like completing assignments, finishing a book or sharing a laugh with friends. “LOL,” “haha” and “grinning emoji face” simply just doesn’t cut it.

Image Source: William Hook under Creative Commons 

Contact Liz Zarka at lzarka@dailycal.org and follow her on Twitter @Zarkotics

The post How technology hurts us appeared first on The Daily Californian.

It’s the exact antithesis to anything supportive you’ve ever heard, and we liked it. Larry Smith delivers an incredibly punchy and brilliant talk about why you, yes you, will fail to have a great career — or even a good one. In fact, the way Smith sees it, we’re all pretty much destined for a high-stress, low-reward, “soul-destroying” job unless … actually, he doesn’t even give us the “unless” part. Instead, the professor of economics chooses to disarm every single excuse for a mediocre career, leaving us with little more than a shattered ego and a pile of broken excuses. But did we mention we liked it? The talk is incredibly funny — if not a little too close to home. You can watch the video here or read below for our main points.

There are interests, and there are passions. As Smith points out, you would never “go to your sweetie” and say, “Marry me! You’re interesting.” No, that just wouldn’t do for a spouse, and it shouldn’t do for a career either. Passion should be your highest calling, your biggest love and the greatest expression of your talent. Only once you’ve found your passion, will you be able to have a great career — but even then you might fail. That’s because …

No matter how many times people tell you to pursue your passion, you won’t. Maybe you’ve memorized Steven J.’s Stanford commencement speech, but Smith still doesn’t think that you’ll pursue your passion anyways. Instead, he thinks that you’re afraid to — afraid to look dumb, afraid to be obsessive, afraid of greatness. This part of the talk was a little like a backhanded challenge; he’s calling all of us pre-careerists out, but the sting of his insults is motivating.

We are extremely good at avoiding greatness. When he’s not teaching economics, Smith mentors startup businesses (the most famous of which is Research in Motion of BlackBerry fame), so he has seen plenty of excuses for mediocre careers. He says that we can think of anything to make an excuse for ordinary careers, whether it be our personalities (“I’m too nice to be a Steve Jobs”), our intelligence (“people with great careers are geniuses”) and even our friends and families.

Admittedly, it was a little hard to garner anything self-assuring from the cagey Larry Smith. However, his talk did end on a vaguely positive note. He said that we will all fail to have a great career, “unless”… But that’s for us to find out.

Image source: bark under Creative Commons

Contact Griffin Mori-Tornheim at gmoritornheim@dailycal.org

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