Academic Tech Tips

With FileHippo.com, you can find the latest versions of free downloadable software, without worrying about spyware and pop-ups.  FileHippo’s pages are optimized for fast browsing; you can easily search for software by category or scan listings of the latest updates and most popular downloads.   Additionally, be sure to check out FileHippo’s Update Checker, which will scan your PC for installed software and display the newest releases available for download from FileHippo.  A great feature of FileHippo is that older software versions are available, just in case you update and don’t like the new version.

When you open up your Web browser, you most likely begin surfing the Web by weeding through your bookmarks to find your favorite websites.  With iGoogle, you can easily customize an internet start page that will give you quick access to your Google resources such as Gmail, Google Search and Google Calendar as well as RSS feeds, news headlines, weather forecasts, and much more.  With a personalized iGoogle homepage, you can quickly access all of your favorites and a variety of web tools in one place. 

Getting Started

If you already have a Google account then all you need to do is sign in here.  If you don’t have one, creating an account will give you access to iGoogle and other Google tools such as Gmail, Google Documents and Google Reader.  When you set up your iGoogle start page, you can choose “gadgets,” which are interactive mini-applications that can display your new email, weather, personalized news and more.  You can arrange your gadgets by dragging and dropping them in any order you like on your page and you can customize the look of your page by choosing a Theme.  Your iGoogle page is a convenient tool to keep all of your favorite internet applications in hand.

There is an incredibly helpful collaboration feature built into Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007 that many people aren’t even aware of.  In both versions you can share an Excel workbook so that multiple users can make modifications at the same time.  If you store Excel files on Loyola’s shared network you can share your file with a colleague so you can both add data simultaneously.  You can also prevent portions of the spreadsheet from being modified by protecting the document and locking specific cells.  

To share a workbook in Excel 2007:

1. Open your Excel workbook.
2. On the Review tab, in the Changes group, click Share Workbook.
3. On the Editing tab, place a check beside the option: Allow changes by more than one user at the same time.
4. Click OK.

Protecting your workbook:

1. If you would like allow users to edit particular cells, highlight the cells that you would like give users write access to, then select Allow Users to Edit Ranges in the Changes group. 
2. Click New to display the range you selected, then click OK.
3. Next you will need to protect the rest of the worksheet.
4. Click on the Review tab and select Protect Sheet.
5. In the Protect Sheet dialog box, verify that the Protect Worksheet and Contents of Locked Cells check box is selected.
6. Then enter a password to use in order to unprotect the sheet. Keep in mind that this password is worksheet specific.
7. Check the appropriate boxes to assign permissions to other users then click OK.