Today, Amazon.com CEO Jeff Benzos announced that Amazon Prime will also include free streaming of over 5,000 movies and TV shows for no additional cost. According to the announcement posted on Amazon.com, there will be no commercials and no limits to how much you can stream. This is great news for those that already use Amazon Prime.

Amazon Prime is Amazom.com’s service which allows you to purchase any eligible item and receive free two-day shipping.

Prime normally costs $79 per year but students can get it free for their first year. There is also Amazon Mom for parents or caretakers which gives free Prime benefits. For those that are neither parents nor students, try their free trial.

[Correction: You must have a paid Amazon Prime account to enjoy free movie streaming. This disqualifies Amazon Student accounts.]

If you already are an Amazon Prime member, start streaming for free today.

Below is the official announcement:

[Thanks Menglu!]

[Editor's note: College Being was sent a review sample of Newcastle DraughtKeg. This will not influence our opinions.]

Newcastle now joins Heineken with their own mini keg offering. The Newcastle DraughtKeg is a mini 5-litre keg. It comes with enough beer for 14 regular 12 oz servings and costs about $15 to $20 depending on where you live. The mini keg comes pre-pressurized so you do not need to pump and it can easily fit into a Beertender.

The DraughtKeg

The DraughtKeg is great. You get great-tasting fresh beer just as you would in a bar in Scotland. The keg stays fresh for up to a month, so even if you do not have a bunch of people over or if you are just an occasional beer drinker, it is perfect for you. We experienced no difference in taste and keg pressure from the opening date until we finished it.

There is no need to pay CRV costs for 12+ bottles when you buy a mini keg. That can add up to quite a bit if you’re in a state that charges CRV. Also the mini keg saves a lot of space in your fridge and weights a lot less than carrying 14 glass bottles.

Our biggest complaint with the system is that the DraughtKeg does not appear to be easily recyclable whereas glass bottles or aluminium cans can easily be recycled just about anywhere.

The Beer

Newcastle is a good brown ale with a full-body taste with hints of caramel and fruit. The foam is silky and the aftertaste is sweet. If you like Newcastle, be sure to try the DraughtKeg version. In our opinion it is fresher, tastier, and gives you more control of how much foam you want.

Further Reading

• The Bar at Dwightnagy.com: Newcastle Mini Keg vs. Bottle
• Wired.com: 10 Easy Pints: Newcastle DraughtKeg Makes Draft Beer Simple

Being a kid is great. You do not have to stress about classes or Physics homework due in one hour (damn you Professor Flinkly!). I read the Harry Potter books a few years ago long after having seen those first two horrid movies and although they did not remind me of my exact childhood (minus that one time I killed a dark wizard), they do help me feel like a child again and I enjoyed it. To those of you that share similar interests, a new trailer is out for Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Those of you who do not enjoy the Harry Potter series and have read this far into this story, good for you and you may want to watch the second vid (though it is completely random and you probably have seen it already).

Yesterday, Lifehacker wrote about how to save a bunch of money on dinning out. As college beings on a budget, we can always use a lot of fun for a little, so here it is:

Right now [restaurant.com] is selling $25 gift certificates for $10, which isn’t a bad start, but from now until Halloween, entering TREATS at the checkout applies a second 80% discount to the sales price. The result is a supremely cheap $25 gift card for just $2. Want to aim higher? The same discount applies to more expensive gift cards as well, so you can snag a $50 gift card for $4, $100 for $8, and so on.

Energy bars are great for munching on between classes, but they usually run upwards of $1 each. That can be a serious blow to any student’s budget so here are some recipes to make your own:

Classic Energy Bars

Materials:

• 3 cups wheat cereal
• 1/2 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or other)
• 1/2 cup chopped pitted dates or raisins
• 1/4 cup chopped dried cherries
• 1/3 cup creamy peanut butter
• 1/4 cup agave nectar (found at health food stores; can use honey instead, but not as good)
• 1/4 cup corn syrup
• a little extra margarine for pan

Procedure:
Spread margarine in a 9 inch by 9 inch glass pan using a piece of kitchen paper and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix cereal, walnuts, dates, cherries in a bowl.

Mix peanut butter, agave nectar, and corn syrup in a saucepan and bring to boil. Stir constantly afterwards for about 1 minute.

Put peanut butter mixture over cereal mixture in bowl, and stir. Put in baking pan. Bake 10 minutes.

Once done, let the mixture cool, cut into squares, and either eat or store in a zip-lock bag at room temperature for later enjoyment.

[Nutrition Facts: serving size: one bar | 180 Calories | 4 gr. Protein | 8 gr. fat | 22 gr. Carbohydrate]

Granola Bars

Materials:

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1/2 cup raw sunflower seeds
• 1 cup sliced almonds
• 1/2 cup wheat germ
• 1/2 cup agave nectar (found at health food stores; can use honey instead, but not as good)
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 ounce unsalted margarine (get the healthy kind, it is worth it)
• a little extra margarine for pan
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 6 1/2 ounces chopped dried fruit (apricots, cherries, blueberries, or a mixture)

Procedure:
Spread margarine in a 9 inch by 9 inch glass pan using a piece of kitchen paper and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Put oats, sunflower seeds, almonds, and wheat germ in a half-sheet pan. Put in oven for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Mix agave nectar, brown sugar, margarine, vanilla and salt in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook until the sugar has dissolved.

When the oats are done, reduce the oven to 300 degrees F and add the oats to your saucepan. Add fruit. Spread this mixture into the margarine-ized pan. Bake for 25 minutes.

Once done, let the mixture cool, cut into squares, and either eat or store in a zip-lock bag at room temperature for later enjoyment.

Protein Bars

Materials:

• 1 cup soy protein powder
• 1/2 cup oat bran
• 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1/4 cup wheat germ
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup raisins
• 1/2 cup dried cherries
• 1/2 cup dried blueberries
• 1/2 cup dried apricots
• 1 package soft tofu
• 1/2 cup unfiltered apple juice
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup applesauce (can also use 2 smashed bananas)
• 2/3 cup natural peanut butter
• a little oil for pan (Canola oil will work fine)
• parchment paper

Procedure:
Put parchment paper on the bottom of a 13 inch by 9 inch pan and coat with a small but of oil. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Combine protein powder, bran, flour, wheat germ, and salt in a mixing bowl.

Chop all the fruits (minus the bananas which if you are using them should be smashed) and set aside.

Whisk the tofu until it is smooth in another mixing bowl. Add the following one at a time while whisking: apple juice, brown sugar, applesauce (or smashed bananas), and peanut butter. Add this mixture to the protein mixture in the first bowl, mix. Add the fruits (you will need to fold them into the mixture). Bake for 35 minutes.

Once done, let the mixture cool, cut into squares, and either eat or store in a zip-lock bag at room temperature for later enjoyment.

Fig Bars

Materials:

• 2 dozen dried figs
• 1/3 cup agave nectar (found at health food stores; can use honey instead, but not as good)
• 4 tablespoon orange juice
• 2 tablespoon lemon juice
• 2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon oil (Canola oil will work fine)
• 1/4 cup dark corn syrup
• 1/2 cup applesauce (can also use 2 smashed bananas)
• 1 cup oat bran

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Mix figs, agave nectar, orange juice, and lemon juice in a food processor or blender.

In separate container, mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, oil, corn syrup, and applesauce.

Combine both mixtures, roll into about 20 balls, and coat with bran. Place in glass pan and bake for 10 to 15 minutes.

Once done, let the mixture cool, cut into squares, and either eat or store in a zip-lock bag in refrigerator for later enjoyment.

[Nutrition Facts: serving size: one bar | 150 Calories | 4 gr. Protein | 1 gr. fat | 36 gr. Carbohydrate]

[Recipes modified from Good Eats and About.com. Photography by vigilant20]

Due to all the requests to change our design we recently recieved, we have done as you guys requested. Christopher, 2Leaf‘s design staff, and I stayed up all night working on this goodness. Hopefully now, without the massive RSS button, you will be able to read our stories less distractedly (amazingly, that is a real word). We are still working on many more improvements to the site so stay tuned. Now enjoy and let us know your comments below.

Barak Obama and John McCain both made fun of themselves at the Alfred E Smith Dinner on October 16, 2008. They jokingly point fun at how the media sees them and at their own campaigns. It is nice to remember they are just normal human beings at times.

Obama

McCain

I hate budgets. As easy as it is to shop online nowadays, one of the toughest things to do is to stay on budget. It seems however that at times budgets are a necessary tool to help us from spending too much money. Here are some ways you can budget that I have had success with:

The Old Fashioned Way

That’s right, bust out that pencil, paper, and calculator. Write down everything you can remember that you spend money on and try to estimate how much you really need each month. A more effective way to do this is to calculate how much you estimate you are going to spend each year on each category and divide by 12. This is better because it takes into account holidays, birthdays, and other events that do not necessarily occur every month. Think about it for a bit and try to think of everything. Looking at recent credit card statements may help you tremendously so start there if you are having some problems. You can always come back and rebudget if you miss something.

Excel Your Budget

Excel (or if you’re poor: OpenOffice.org Spreadsheet) is one of my favorite tools. I use it for just about everything — from tallying how much running I do each day to organizing my recipes. It is also a great tool to use for budgeting. I just organize all my expenses and list things as categories, amount spent, location/store, etc. It is a great way to organize what you are spending money on especially if you have multiple credit cards or use a lot of cash (just remember to keep receipts or you will forget what you have been spending money on). Once you have organized you expenses take advantage of the nice graphing functions so you can visually see how much money you are spending on each category.

Free Online Tools

Just a few days ago Intuit released their online Quicken version for free. I have not had the chance to test it out yet, but there are many other options that I think are great. Both Mint and Wesabe are also great online money managers. They link to you bank accounts and take the information from all your accounts and display them all in one place. They both use high-level encryption and do not allow transferring money or similar actions so you are pretty much solid on the security front. Mint is what I personally use and I love it due to the great support from the staff and how much they actually listen to the users. I highly recommend them! (And they are not even paying me to say that…)

Saving Money

A great thing you can do is to have a special saving money category in your budget. I generally like to save at least 20% of my post-income and I split that into short term goals (e.g., “I really want a new pair of jeans!”) and long term (i.e., for retirement or emergencies). You can also include a miscellaneous category as a kind of buffer in case you go over somewhere else in your budget.

Stick to It

No matter how much of a hard time you are having with your budget you should stick to it. If you see you forgot about something important when creating you budget, go back and redo that part, but don’t discard you budget completely. That is like giving up.

Conclusion

I hope this helps some of you with your addictive spending habits. I always need to get better, but without blocking Amazon, Newegg, and other stores, I will need some of your suggestions to help me manage my money. Let me hear them in the comments below.

Photo credit: Low Budget by ADVerteaser | No Money by Jeff Keen

Everybody that entered our Freshman 15 contest in any way is entitled to a free 6-month subscription to Mead Map. A 6-month subscription normally costs $12, which is not bad, but the folks at Mead Map were nice enough to give us a bunch of free subscriptions. What is better than free?

Mead Map is revolutionary mind-mapping software used to organize your class notes, projects, etc. You will be able to easily link ideas together and share your notes with classmates or partners. It is worth giving a try and you do not need to use a credit card or download anything (the whole thing works from their website). Just use the promotional code “cbeing” when signing up.

[Go here for a video about how Mead Map works.]