ITS Technology Tips

Writing out notes and keeping track of all of those bits of paper can be a hard task to manage. Evernote has developed a free digital management system for all of your notes. Evernote incorporates the use of your computer, your mobile devices and the Internet to make your information accessible all of the time. If you are at a meeting or a class and you want to quickly remember the information, you can take a picture of the whiteboard and add it to your notes.  Evernote also has a useful feature that can read text in photographs or handwritten notes to make them easily searchable.  Some other ways to add information are through to-do lists, notes, web selections and voice memos.  Once you have many notes, it is easy to organize them into categories and add tags.

Overall, Evernote is a helpful tool that acts like your own digital file cabinet. If you want to learn more or try it out, visit the Evernote homepage.

If you’ve ever lost your work when typing in an online form, posting content to Blackboard or writing webmail, then you know how frustrating it can be!  Next time you can prevent this inconvenience by installing a very helpful Firefox add-on, Lazarus: Form Recovery. Lazarus automatically saves the text you have entered in a form, blog response or even an email and allows you to easily recover your work.  

After installing Lazarus, all you have to do to recover text in a Web document is return to the Web page and right-click on the field where you lost the data. You will have the option to recover text or to recover a form depending on what you need. After you select an option, the text is automatically re-entered.  You can also keep your data secure by setting Lazarus to require a password to restore your forms.

When printing from the Web, components of a webpage such as headers, side menus or ads can take up a large portion of the printed page.  In some cases, the text font-size on a webpage may be too small for printing.  With Aardvark, a Firefox add-on, you can easily clean up a webpage for easier viewing and printing.

Once you install the add-on to Firefox, to get started, just right-click on a page and select Start Aardvark. With your mouse, you can select areas and use simple keystrokes such as R – to remove, I - to isolate or W – to widen the area.
For pages with small text,  follow these steps to isolate a portion of a webpage and increase the text-size for printing:

1. Right-click and select Start Aardvark.
2. Use the red rectangle to select an area.

3. Use the keystroke “I” to isolate the selection.
4. Once you have customized the webpage, make sure to move your cursor off of  the page (so you do not print any red rectangles) then select File > Print Preview.  In Print Preview, adjust the scale to a higher percentage to increase the text size.
5.  Select Print.
Note: Your computer might save the print preview scale setting for future printing. Also, Aardvark is not being supported anymore. If you’re running an old version of Firefox (10 or earlier) it will still work. It is not available for later versions.

With the increasing amount of information available on the Internet, means for consuming online resources are constantly evolving and becoming more image driven.  Many sites use images to represent news from around the world. Seeing an interesting picture  may expose you to a topic that you wouldn’t have otherwise noticed.  

BBC News posts a daily slideshow in the Day in Pictures section. 

Google News offers the option to put the top news stories into an image view.

Visit the  News in Pictures website to see a comprehensive  listing of websites that feature pictorial news.

Google Wave is a new online tool that provides a platform for real-time collaboration and communication. Google has combined features of instant messaging, wikis, email and word processing so that users can work together to create and edit documents called “waves.”  These waves allow any participant to edit any part of the document and there is an option to add pictures, maps or graphics to the document. This tool could be useful for collaborating on group projects, brainstorming, class notes or even planning an event.

Initially Google Wave only released in a limited preview to a select number of participants, but now you can follow this  link to request an invite from Google. It still may take a few days to get a confirmation email though. For more information about Google Wave visit their website or watch a short video from some of the Google developers.

As of August 2010, Google Wave has been shut down.

As the fall semester comes to end and the holidays are fast-approaching, keeping track of holiday shopping and long to-do lists seems inevitable. If you still are relying on sticky notes and writing your reminders on bits of paper, you may want to try out the helpful Web task management tool, Rememberthemilk.com. Remember the Milk is a free Web-based application that can help you simplify and organize all of your tasks in one place.  This software allows you to create categorized task lists and send out reminders via text message, email, Twitter or even instant messages. 

A few highlights of the Remember the Milk include:

• - Add a Google Calendar or Gmail sidebar gadget. This allows you review your tasks alongside your calendar and email.

• - Locate your task. Easily assign locations to a task to help plan the best way to get things done.
• - Add tasks from a mobile device. Just send an email with one task per line to your Remember the Milk import email address and it will add the items to your task list.
• - Print out your weekly check lists.

As online tools such as blogs, Twitter and RSS feeds are becoming more widely used to share information, it’s helpful to know about resources that explain how these tools work, while still remaining interesting.  Common Craft’s In Plain English series provides fun and simple tutorials on several areas, including technology, money, society and the environment.  Each video features paper cut-outs and narration; some technology topics include podcasting, RSS and Wikis.  Even though these videos are lighthearted, they are very well-made and informative and definitely worth sharing with colleagues or in the classroom.    

 Video Source:  http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs

Creative Kit in Google+ (formerly known as Picnik and has since joined Google) is a free online photo-editing program that offers an array of professional and fun tools. This application provides numerous creative filters and effects such as cinemascope, focal B&W, vignette and many others. A few highlights of the program include:

• - Allows you to upload pictures straight from social networking sites such as Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket and more
• - Access to creative and fun tools such as adding text, stickers and creating collages
• - Provides options to print straight from your computer, order prints online or order other photo projects like books, posters and wrapping paper

Loyola faculty and staff are able to store files on Loyola’s network; users have access to a private (U:) drive and some departments may have a shared directory.  You can get to the network from any campus computer; however what if you are off-campus and need to access your files?  With DocXchanger, Loyola users can simply and securely access their files located on Loyola’s network, from any Internet location.  DocXchanger may be accessed via a Web interface or by downloading a Windows client. With this service, users also have the capability to share their files with external (non-Loyola) affiliates.

Note: You will need to have your Loyola user ID set‐up to work with this application; please refer to the DocXchanger Access Instructions or contact the IT HelpDesk for more information.

Keep in mind that DocXchanger only provides access to files stored on Loyola’s network.  If you need remote access to any files or applications on your Loyola desktop computer, you will need to request access to Loyola’s Virtual Private Network (VPN).

Not only can Google Calendar help you manage your own schedule, you can also create a calendar to share with your students, co-workers or an organization.  This is a useful tool because there are several options for sharing your calendar.  Some of the sharing features in Google Calendar include:

*  Share only available/busy times on your schedule (no details). This is helpful if you need to schedule a lot of meetings but do not want to share the details with everyone.

*  Show all event details but you are the only person able to edit. This way you can continually keep your course schedule and assignments up to date.

*  Show all details and also allow users to add or change the events. If you want to share the calendar with a T.A. or even let students add events, this is a helpful option.

Getting Started

If you don’t have one already, you’ll need to create a Google account. From your Google account, you will see a calendar tab at the top of the screen.  This brings you to the main calendar page where you can add events, create multiple calendars and adjust your settings. Follow these steps to create and share your new calendar:

Create

1. On the left-hand side of the screen, under My Calendars, click Create.

2.  Add relevant information such as a title, description
and location.
3.  Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Share your Calendar

1. Back on the main calendar page, click on the drop-down arrow next to the calendar you would like to share.
2. Click on Share this Calendar.

3.  Enter the email address of each person you would
like to share your calendar with.
4.  Adjust permission settings for each calendar user.
5.  Once you save your settings, an email will be sent
inviting each person to view the calendar.