The Secret Technology Club: If you think that technology power-users have a whole bunch of “secret” tricks and shortcut, you might be right. We’ve been immersed in computer-use for decades now, but very few of us have had much formal training. We learn through trial and error, but it’s difficult to learn what you don’t know exists! If you suspect you’ve fallen behind and would like to fill some of those silly technology gaps, this is for you. This will be a random assortment of tips and tricks for a variety of programs and web applications. You can become a member of the “Secret Technology Club” by learning the secret technology handshakes.

You might be surprised by what you don’t know. I learn something new every time I prepare for this presentation.

Here are the slides for The Secret Technology Club.

I’d encourage you to “play along” and try out all the tips as you go through the slides.

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To make a longer blog post short, I just discovered that the extension ecosystem around Google Chrome is now far more robust than it used to be.  Some of these Chrome add-ons (called extensions) are essentially beta (use at your own risk), but Chrome is now a viable option for me.

• Google Bookmarks can be synced with Chrome using this GBX Google Bookmarks Extension, but Chrome bookmarks (if you have them) cannot be backwards synced.  Yes, there is one for Delicious too.
• Add a Readability button using this extension.  In one click of the Readability button, you can turn an article with text, ads, and pictures to nothing but easy-to-read text in the default size, color, and background that you choose.
• If you regularly tweet, like, or email webpages to friends, you might like the ease of Shareaholic, and it too has an  extension for Chrome.  I tried the bit.ly extension, but it seems to be a bit buggy and I wasn’t impressed.
• Not so long ago, someone told me about AdBlock, which is when I realized that not everyone was being forced to look at the poorly-designed graphic images and animations in Facebook.  There is some ethical quandry about whether it is morally right to block the ads, which are, in fact, keeping the websites funded.  Take it or leave it, I like AdBlock and here’s the extension for Chrome.
• It used to be that you could only get the cool 3-D wall view of images from Cool Iris in Firefox, but (yay!) this extension is also available in Chrome now.
• For a totally, indulgence-only extension, try Turn Off the Lights, which you can click to darken the rest of the screen when you’re going to show a video, just like you’re in the movie theater (find this here).
• Many a time I have been working on a blog post or a conference proposal submission when something causes the browser to crash.  When that happens, you can lose all the carefully worded thoughts you’ve typed in the text boxes.  Well, not if you’re using Lazarus: Form Recovery (not recommended for Mac/Linux yet), which autosaves all those important thoughts.  Here’s the Lazarus extension.
• Finally, I suppose I wouldn’t be a math teacher if I didn’t find a Chrome extension that incorporated math, so here’s Chromey Calculator, which uses Google + Wolfram Alpha to answer math questions (not just a calculator).

Honestly, I don’t see anything else that is must-have, but maybe you know of some Chrome extension that we should check out?

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It turns out to be pretty easy to do, once you understand that a typical TOC with leader dots is set up with two TABS.

The first tab sets the END of the leader dots.  We use a right-justified setting for the tab to do this, and click on the “Leader dots” option.

The second tab sets the BEGINNING of the page numbers, so it is left-justified and placed just to the right of the first tab.  For example, if you set the first tab for 5.375″, you might set the second tab for 5.5″.

Of course, it’s easier to just generate a TOC automatically from the Document Map, but that isn’t always an option (i.e. APA or MLA documents are tricky).   Here’s my quick 2-minute tutorial for setting the tabs for leader dots in Word 2007.

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There were several issues of concern that I had with the new Office 2007:

• Incompatibility with Adobe Acrobat 8 – I build a lot of PDFs from multiple files, especially for online classes, and this feature did not work with Office 2007.
• Lack of customizability. In Office 2003, you can build custom toolbars, rearrange the toolbars, add and remove buttons, and even pop the toolbars out to other areas of the screen. Guess what? That’s all GONE in Office 2007. Oh sure, you get a “Quickbar” where you can put commonly-used buttons, but I have three rows of “commonly-used buttons” and you can’t organize those into a single quickbar.
• I wanted to get rid of several tabs on the ribbon that I will never use (like the Mail tab). You can’t. That’s annoying – what a waste of good screen space.
• The programs in Office 2007 took FOREVER to load. It didn’t seem to matter whether it was Word, PowerPoint, or Excel – every program wasted precious class time in a sloooooooow loading process.

What finally tipped the scales to the roll-back? I discovered that for the Mac Office 2008 version, all the customizable features of Office 2003 still exist. If Microsoft is going to remove features in “updates,” but leave them in for Mac users, I am going to assume they are TRYING to drive me away to another operating system.

Lately, I’ve been using some of the Google Apps for text and spreadsheet documents. I’ve got one gradebook on Google Spreadsheets, and several documents on Google Docs. Why? It makes them very easy to access from both work and home computers.

Now, I know what you’re thinking – Is that safe? What if it gets hacked? What about FERPA? The files are, of course, password-protected. But to make doubly sure there would be no possible problems, I did not put ANY identifying information on the spreadsheet. Student names are only first name + last initial. There are no student numbers, no phone numbers, no email addresses, just the names, a random number to post grades with, and grades.

I can access the grade-spreadsheet from my home computer, from the computer in one of the labs, from a friend’s computer, from a student’s computer, etc. That is awfully convenient.

Hmm… maybe I won’t need Microsoft’s Office for too much longer… how glad am I now that I haven’t purchased a new computer with Vista?

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So here’s an ever-popular Maria-handout on

• Some Basic HTML Tips (page 1) for general use
• Some Basic HTML Tips for Math (page 2)

I created the second page specifically because I wanted to learn the HTML tags for often used mathematical symbols and special fonts, like super scripts and subscripts. Also, I wanted to be able to insert live links on message boards (which is on the 1st page).

I tried to stick to only the characters and commands that I was reasonably sure would work on any webpage and on any browser.

Go forth and populate math message boards with your newfound HTML prowess!

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Click To Play

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To the tune of “We didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel:

TechSmith Camtasia, Wolfram Mathematica
Design Science MathType, Wacom JustWrite.

Virtual Magnifier, SnagIt, PowerSlides,
Google Earth, Desktop, and Gmail Notifier.

Adobe Flash CS3, Illustrator, Elements,
Acrobat Standard, and all my files.

I got the laptop loaded
Software installation, and
configuration.
I got the laptop loaded
The list is never ending
Installs go on and on and on…

If I was really good, I’d make a video and sing the lyrics. But I am, after all, only one person… and tonight, that seems a bit like overkill. If you feel you must now see a video of the original song, go here.

Also, my new laptop has a webcam … which might be fun!

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Old way:
1) Move right side of table.
2) Distribute columns evenly.
3) Move bottom of table.
4) Distribute rows evenly.

New way: Watch the video
(it can be done in ONE easy step)

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After a very scary crash of a drive containing every photo I took in Europe (a long and scary story, but with a happy ending), I began to have nightmares about losing every book file I had ever written.

And so I began using Mozy to back up my really important files. Mozy will provide you with 2GB of backup storage on the Internet for FREE. Every night, while I am asleep, the computer backs up those “vital” files (the ones I tell it to back up) on the Internet.

Now I know that 2GB does not back up everything, but, for me, it does back up the folders that contain the rapidly changing information (book files, course files, this year’s photo folder, etc.). I’ve got backups of other files in multiple locations, so as long as they don’t change every day, they should be fine.

If it’s for your home computer, you can get piece-of-mind unlimited backup for $4.95 a month (which actually isn’t too bad when you think about it).

The first backup will take a while to do, but after that, the process is quick, as Mozy just looks for changes in the files and new files to back up after that.

There are certainly MANY other services that provide this online (just search “online backup”), I’m just telling you about the one I ended up with after MY search for an online backup provider. Honest to God, I sleep better at night knowing these files are safe and secure somewhere out there in a server farm.

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Ctrl+z: UNDO … in most PC programs this will undo your last step(s)

Ctrl+x: CUT
Ctrl+c: COPY
Ctrl+v: PASTE
Ctrl+b: BOLD
Ctrl+s: SAVE
Ctrl+i: ITALICS
Ctrl+u: UNDERLINE

Anyone want to add the standard Mac shortcuts? Are they just Command+ instead of Ctrl+…?

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