Tip of the Week - Downloads

It has been a while (a LONG while) since I've used this blog. But I want a spot to archive tips and techniques and ideas...so I'm resurrecting this spot. I hope it gives you a nice place to find some of the help you might need!

And to kick things off, the first Tip of the Week for this school year...

When you download something from onlineŠ...an installer for software, a PDF, a Google calendar, a new font, or anything elseŠ.it all gets put in one spot. The Downloads folder. Sometimes people can find their Downloads folder. Sometimes not. And even if they do, it can get very fullŠand then it gets harder and harder to locate the file you want. So..is there a better, easier way to manage your downloads?

Well, first of all, I like my downloads to go where I can find them and use them right away. For me, that¹s the Desktop.

But the question is..how do you make them go to the Desktop? There is not a one-step solution for this. You have to implement this solution once for every browser you use ­ Safari, Firefox, Chrome or Internet Explore (does anyone really still use that one??). In each browser, go to the Preferences for that browser. So let¹s use Firefox as our exampleŠopen Firefox, pull down the Firefox menu, and choose Preferences. There you will find the options for downloadsŠ

Save files toŠ which allows you to pick any place you want (for me the Desktop)

OrŠ

Always ask me where to save filesŠ so that you can choose every time you download a file. Honestly, this gives you the most control, but really, how many times are you gonna pick a different location??

Chose the option you want and you are all set. At least for Firefox. Now repeat that for every other browser.

And remember, no matter where you download files toŠ use them and them deal with them correctly ­ use them and delete them or file them in the right spot. Don¹t allow them to clutter up your desktop. Always remember, every item on your desktop slows down your computer measurably. A full desktop is a much slower computer.

Tip of the Week - Mouse Buttons

People often come to me and ask ... why don’t Macs have a right-click button on the mouse.

Truth is...Macs have always had a right click. So why don’t you see the button? Well, Apple loves to design things to look and feel sleek, smooth, elegant. So putting cracks in the mouse so that there were two distinct buttons just never appealed to Apple. But the buttons are still there! The mouse on your iMac or eMac can tell where you click with your finger. If you click on the left side, one thing happens. Click on the right, a different thing.

However, you can control what that thing is! If you go into your System Preferences and look for the Mouse preferences, you’ll see a window that includes this...

As you can tell, this mouse actually has FOUR buttons. And each button can be controlled here with a pop-up menu. You can select what each button does.

So don’t hesitate to customize your mouse and take full advantage of your mouse button options.

By the way...on some mice, there really are not multiple buttons. On all the ones made by Apple in the last few years...yes. But sometimes we buy less expensive replacements that really are single button mice. And on some older Apple mice, there was only one button on the mouse. But does that mean those folks did not have a right click??

Fear not! You still have access to both a left click and a right click. When you click the mouse button, that is your left click. If you hold down the CONTROL key while clicking the mouse button, you get a right click. 

Tip of the Week

Okay, the first 6 tips were pretty straightforward. But today I’m giving you one that will let you dig just a bit.

Why?

Well, as we’ve moved to the new version of Office, we have more e-mail attachments showing up on our desktops that are compressed files. Those are called Archives. And they look like this....

Little icons with a zipper. This means something has been compressed in some way for delivery to you. It can be an e-mail attachment. It can also be a file or application that we’ve downloaded. Either way, when you double-click on it, the files or applications are decompressed.

BUT...

While the file is now there for you to work on, the Archive is still sitting on your desktop. And unless you do a lot of housekeeping, you soon end up with a bunch of those little things all over the place.

Seems like some smart person would have figured out an easy to way to avoid that, huh?

Well they did.

And here is what you can do to solve this problem.

Double-click on your Hard Drive. Now look for your System folder. It will be a folder with a little X on it, like this...

Now let’s dig deeper. Inside the System folder is a Library folder. And inside that Library folder is a folder called CoreServices. Once you get that far, look for Archive Utility. Here is the path you’ve followed...

Double-click on Archive Utility to open it up. Looks like nothing happened, right? But it did. The only thing that changes are your menu options, so look to the top of your screen...

Pull down the Archive Utility menu and select Preferences. When the  Preferences open, look for the pop-up menu for After Expanding. This is where you can tell your computer what to do with all those Archives.

The default setting is Leave Archive Alone. You want to change that to Move Archive To Trash. (That red arrow isn’t on your computer...I added that just to point the way)

Now when you open up one of those compressed files, you’ll still have your file to work with, but you’ll be automatically cleaning up the debris that is left behind!

Note...if you are working on an older version of OS, you might not find this option. But this is a good solution for most of us using any of the recent versions of OS X.

Tips of the Week

This year, I'm trying to send out a weekly tip via e-mail to all our staff. Just short, quick things that might help them with their technology. It isn't all limited to work stuff...but I just try to make it all fairly current stuff.


And I decided I might as well share them here, as well. Today will be Tip #5 in our building...so below, you can get caught up with all of the first five.


Tip #1 - E-mail Attachments

When you receive an e-mail with an attachment, many folks highlight the attachment and hit Open. Oour experience with this has been mixed. For that reason, I've always encouraged folks to hit "Save" and save the attached document to their Desktop. Then go and open the document. That has always been more reliable.

Tip #2 - AccountKiller

We all create lots of accounts around the web...facebook, flickr, skype, ebay, amazon, iTunes, Windows Live, etc, etc, etc. Many of them we use – but some we create and then realize we don’t want or need. And we would like to get rid of the account rather than just go away and leave it hanging.

But how?

Sites don’t always make it easy to figure out how to delete an account. They like to add up users...not eliminate them.

If you have an account you would like to delete as effectively as possible, visit AccountKiller ( http://www.accountkiller.com/en/ ). This site gives you direct links to instructions for deleting accounts on many of the most popular sites.

And if you are considering creating an account, it is sometimes fun to check out AccountKiller first. They list sites by color code...with the “black” sites being those that are nearly impossible to actually delete without calling upon super powers and counting on a lot of luck.

Tip #3 - facebook help

There have been lots of new changes going on with facebook.

If you are trying to figure out the basics of the new changes that are in place, here are a few resources to help you sort out Lists, the Ticker, the Top Stories and Recent Stories breakdown, and some of the things you can do to manage what shows up on your wall and what you share with others. http://www.avitricks.info/2011/09/how-to-use-facebook-new-features-to-protect-your-privacy.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-privacy-2011-9#1-know-that-anything-you-post-or-comment-on-a-friends-wall-is-public-your-posts-will-show-up-in-others-news-tickers-1

http://www.bloggerclick.com/2011/09/new-facebook-news-feed-guide.html
(scroll down and watch the video at the end of the post) http://kikolani.com/new-facebook-timeline-profile-privacy-settings-news-feed.html

http://blog.identified.com/2011/09/how-facebooks-new-privacy-settings-can-be-beneficial-.html 

Tip #4 - VLC

We all watch videos online. We all get videos sent to us via e-mail. And we’ve all had videos that we could not play. But there is a simple solution that Mac-lovers have relied on for many years now...VLC.

VLC will play almost any video or audio. If VLC doesn’t play it, you can usually just give up.

Here is a quick review of VLC... http://www.cultofmac.com/116284/vlc-plays-just-about-any-video-file-you-can-find-50-mac-essentials-45/

And here is the site to download it. It is a free and safe download. http://www.videolan.org/

Tip #5 - Screenshots

There are lots of times you may want to share what you see on your screen. Grabbing a quick screenshot is amazingly quick and simple. It can be a quick way to grab a section of a web page and share with another person as an e-mail attachment. It can be a great way to save an error message to share with the tech folks when you ask for help.

Here are the instructions for the Mac folks...

To get a photo of your entire desktop, press Command-Shift-3 (all at the same time). If your volume is turned up, you'll hear a snapshot sound. And a document named "screen shot" with the date and time as part of the name will appear on your desktop. 

To get a photo of a specific area of your screen, press Command-Shift-4. Your cursor will turn into a crosshair. Click and drag to highlight the area of the screen you want to capture. When you release the mouse button, you'll hear the snapshot sound and the image file will be saved to your desktop.

Lastly, if you do a lot of screen captures...or if you want to take that shot of your desktop and then label items, draw arrows to highlight certain features, etc...download Skitch. It is a great free tool for capturing and working with screenshots.

Steve Jobs

I was having dinner last night when my daughter sent me a text telling me that Steve Jobs had passed away. As the technology coordinator for a school that is dedicated to Apple products and personally, a true fan of Apple technology, it was a sad moment. We all knew he had been fighting cancer for a long time. But I'm not sure we thought it would end so soon.

The vision of this man changed our world. Through Apple and Pixar, he changed how we interact with each other, how we engage in creative pursuits, how we enjoy movies and music, and much more. In fact, I wonder just how many people found out about his death on a device that he created and brought to the world - an iMac, a MacBook, an iPad, an iPhone, or an iPod Touch? No doubt, the products he gave us were the source for this sad news for millions.

And in our school, his vision and his products have made life better for our students. At this moment, our classrooms are using their new iPads in ways that give our students opportunities for skill development, communication, and leisure in ways we've never been able to provide in the past.

While I'm sure Apple will continue to flourish as a company, we've all lost something with the passing of Steve Jobs.

May he rest in peace.

Word versus Google Docs

At work, we have stuck almost exclusively to Microsoft Office as the tools of choice. Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage are the backbone of our program. But let's not kid ourselves, not everyone is happy about that. And it is a very costly program to maintain.

So what are the options?

I've written in the past about the beauties of Google Docs and Open Office - both of which offer free versions of comparable programs. And in my own personal work, I've slowly started to migrate more and more toward Google Docs. I love the fact that I don't have to worry about updating software. Google does that for me. I love that it is free. And I love that I can access my documents from work, from home, and from my phone.

But Jeff Utecht says it far better than I could. So check out his recent blog post on 10 Reasons To Trash Word For Google Docs.

I don't think our program will make the change anytime soon. But for personal work, Microsoft Office makes less and less sense.

A Brand New Year

The title makes it sound like Day One. Actually we are already into Week #2. But getting time to blog has taken a back seat to helping other folks get up and running with new versions of Microsoft Office, working to help update our database, trying to be supportive to staff who want to implement new things, etc.

And trust me, I get very excited by staff who want to implement new things! I've got a couple of teachers working on a new journaling activity using the iPad. Another teacher wanted to incorporate music into the classroom via iPad and iPod. And one teacher setting up a new classroom blog. I have a lot of fun helping those folks!

And I've organized my staff learning opportunities for the year. In the course of this year I'll be doing workshops on blogging for families, using video in the classroom, using powerpoint in the classroom, ways to incorporate the iPad into the curriculum, using social media with the students, and much more.

I think it will be a very exciting year!