So you're a student who has taken advantage of the crazy upgrade deal from win741.com but instead of looking at a nice, shiny ready-to-install ISO of Windows 7, Digital River sent you a handful of random files and no ISO! Fortunately, it's very easy to turn them into an installable ISO! Follow this very quick guide to get Windows 7 installing right away.

To start with, make sure your downloaded Windows 7 files (the 'expandedSetup' directory) is unzipped into C:\ -- it'll make things easier later.

1. Download this tool -- alternatively you can obtain the official pack from Microsoft, but that's a whole darn gigabyte.

2. Unzip and move oscdimg.exe to your System32 directory (likely to be C:\Windows\System32)

3. Open an elevated command prompt. In Vista you do this by typing 'cmd' into your 'Start Menu' and hitting ctrl+shift+enter. In XP, just type 'cmd' into the Run dialogue (Windows Key+R or from your Start Menu).

4. Type (or copy and paste) the following into your command prompt (this will vary a little, depending on where you've put your expandedSetup folder):

oscdimg.exe -u2 -b"C:\expandedSetup\boot\etfsboot.com" -h "C:\expandedSetup" C:\WIN7.ISO

5. Ta'da! You've got a burnable ISO!

All you need to finish the job is a good burning application like ImgBurn, CDBurnerXP, or InfraRecorder. For this particular task I'd recommend ImgBurn - then just right click the ISO file and start the burn from your context menu. Or launch ImgBurn and choose "write image file to disc" -- your choice!

No DVD burner? If you have a 4GB USB flash drive handy, check out this app!

Big thanks to Brian Wasylkoski, who was kind enough to let me harass him while he went through this process at the University of Manitoba. --Lee.

Google must have been reading our back to school series, because the Google Docs interns have added a bunch of new features designed specifically for students. There's something for everyone, whether you're writing papers or doing problem sets. Although Google is highlighting thiese improvements as useful to students, some of them could definiteltly come in handy in a nonacademic situation.

For those of you taking math classes, there's an equation editor, so you can actually take math notes on your laptop without a special app. Chemistry students will be happy to note the addition of superscripts and subscripts, making it easier to put the 2 in H2O.

Google Translate is now available from within Docs, which is of general interest, but should appeal specifically to language students. For students conducting surveys, there's now an option to proceed to a different question depending on a participant's answer. If you're just writing a paper, you can take advantage of additional bullet styles and the ability to export footnotes as endnotes if necessary.

A reader dropped us an email recently, requesting information on where to find educational software for elementary and middle-schoolers. That's a great question -- there are plenty of Web-based sites to choose from but, as our reader pointed out, it can be tough to find things to put on your computer to use later without an Internet connection.

If you dig around a little, though, you can find a few gems.

Kaboose has a long list of downloads in lots of different categories, including math, science, social studies, and music. Each list is also broken down by age group and operating system (Mac and PC). Several links point to Web sites that only contain printable PDFs and worksheets, but be sure to hunt around for downloadable software too.

The HomeSchool Mom, a popular Web site among home educators has a mile-long list of free educational materials in every conceiveable subject from typing tutors to Forensic Medical studies. Some of the links are for Web-based activities but many take you to sites where you can download free software or send away to receive goodies in the mail.

Adam Smith Academy offers free educational podcasts you can download and listen to on an MP3 player or your computer's media player. Younger children will enjoy stories from Kipling or Aesop, while older kids will love hearing stories by James Joyce or Nathaniel Hawthorne. The site even has a number of history lessons and college lectures available for download as well.

If you're looking for help with specific topics, be sure to check the Web sites of museums and science centers in major metropolitan cities. You could get lost for days roaming the Web site of the Exploratorium, San Francisco's famous science museum. Though much of the information is Web-based and interactive, there are plenty of links to other sites for additional printables and downloads. Budding astronauts of all ages can find virtually anything related to space, astronomy, and space travel at the educational portion of NASA's Web site.

One of the best places to find free and fabulous educational software is within the open source community. Although a few programs require the Linux operating system to run, most will also run on Windows or Mac. Have a look at this comprehensive list to see what's available and what's recommended for students of all ages and skill levels.

By now we realize that some of us really cannot live without social networks. Great places like Facebook keep us in touch with friends and contacts, even though those little applications might distract us from work for an hour or two, its all good.

Stanford University has jumped into the Facebook game and opened up a course for students to learn how to build Facebook Applications. Given that there are a number of people that are developing tools for the social network it seems like a great idea. The course will not focus on building the applications themselves, it will focus on designing persuasive and engaging user experiences within Facebook.

The Stanford course is still in an experimental phase, and will not be rolled out over videocast or podcast sessions like some Stanford courses do until it gets sorted out and fine-tuned. It is being taught by Dave McClure, the well known software developer, angel investor, internet marketer and of 500 hats fame, and BJ Fogg who operates a Stanford lab and runs YackPack an online group connector.

[via scobleizer]

In keeping the school theme we have been running with, a newer educational tool to enter the market is Edu 2.0. This web based education website that holds features for teachers, student and parents that aid in learning wherever the user is connected.

There are four main sections to the site. A teaching section where teachers can host a class using a specially designed learning management system. The learning section where students can participate in classes at their own pace. A resource section where contributed resources complete with quizzes, experiments, projects and self paced course can be followed and taken. Then there is the community section. This allows for collaboration between members, sharing and collaborating on educational interests.

Edu 2.0 is free to sign up to, and provides a wide range of topics including art, computers, english, foreign languages, health, math, science, and physical education.

[via ehub]

Social networks are huge, and Yahoo knows this, that's why they have been working hard to develop the next level of social networks, KickStart.

Yahoo! KickStart is aimed at matching college students with relevant employers. This new service will give users a profile page where they can post a resume similar in style to LinkedIn. The companies listed in the service can then start up groups which users can join, start a discussion and hopefully get hired.

The service is still in a concept only phase, and might never make it to launch. Sounds like it could defiantly be a good way for students to enter the job market, we hope something comes out of this study.

We know, it's the middle of the summer, but it's never too early to start looking at what you might need for the upcoming semester. And if you are looking for another way to get, and stay organized while off at school, Notely might be your lecture note savior.

This online tool allows users to organize data from meetings, appointments, class notes, lectures, accessing it anywhere. There are a number of free features that the Notely application supplies, including:

• Calendar
• To-Do
• Homework Organizer
• Course Manager
• Notes
• Link, Contact and File Organizer
• Notebook/Lab book

Notely is a pretty powerful online application that can aid in keeping all class information together, in an easily managed interface. One main thing we wish it had, search. It would be nice to search for a phrase or keyword and have all related notes, calendar items, and course information show up. All of the content that users store in Notely can be exported as PDF, DOC, TXT, Excel and synced with iCal.

A similar online offering is stu.dicio.us.

Developers are jumping on the new Facebook API, creating sometimes 'useless' add-ons for the social network. Zoho has stepped in and added the ability to GTD while peddling through Facebook.

Zoho tries its best to stay on top of wherever their users might be, they were the first online office productivity toolset to announce they had an iPhone compatible application ready to go for Apple's newest users, and now users of Facebook are able to see the light. Facebook can get a little distracting at times, whether it's at school or work, so why not build in the ability to create and work on documents directly through the application that you spend the most time on throughout the day. 30% of Zoho's users are students so it's a perfect fit, chat with friends and get work done at the same time.

Zoho's new integration to create documents, spreadsheets and presentations directly from Facebook accounts is a simple add on available here. Creating a new document or viewing one opens up another browser tab, or window, allowing you to do your Facebook thing while working in another tab.

Many people are now heading back to school, for the fall semester. A new service aims to make the learning experience a socially-sharable one. NoteMesh is a collaborative wiki-like way for students to share their class notes, helping other students who missed a day, are out "sick" or help for exams and term-papers. Finally the collective knowledge of the masses is put to good use in the classroom. I could see online-only students benefiting from the service as well, since the service caters to students who are online anyway. One thing I don't like about the service is that you can't use it if you don't have and use your school's provided email account. I understandd the need for authentication, but they can't possibly verify that each person is a part of a certain class anyway, so what's the point?

Social video sharing powerhouse YouTube has taken a tentative step into Facebook's neighborhood with the introduction of Colleges on YouTube. The new Colleges feature provides closed communities for students, staff, and alumni of a number of U.S. colleges and universities to share videos only with their fellow students, staff, and alumni. Like Facebook, to gain access to a college's YouTube site, you must have an email address from that school. It also promises Facebook-like groups for people in the same student organizations or who share interests. Right now the services is limited to 30 major colleges and universities. As with Facebook, the social implications of this are interesting. It's only a matter of time before students begin posting videos that are potentially embarrassing, if not incriminating, including videos of other students who might not have given their (sober) consented to being taped. In all likelihood we're on the verge of a flurry of editorials describing employers who have turned down promising young graduates, students getting disciplinary action, and parents getting all in a huff over things seen on YouTube. But it'll be fun to watch.

Check out the full list of schools currently on YouTube after the jump.