Category Archives: TECH TIPS

HOW TO – Make Preview the Default PDF Reader on a Mac

CATEGORIES: Popular Posts, TECH TIPS

TAGS: , ,

ALSO POTENTIALLY RELEVANT: How to make images web-ready (cropping and resizing in Preview) and How to annotate PDFs (in Preview). Change the Default PDF Reader to Preview Preview is a …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Save a Document in PDF Format

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

TAGS:

MAC USERS If you can print it from your Mac, you can save it as a PDF. This works with nearly all applications, but it’s particularly useful for saving web …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – How to Download Videos from YouTube and Other Video Hosting Sites

CATEGORIES: NIFTY APPS & TOOLS, TECH TIPS

TAGS:

If you’re planning to compose a remix or video commentary, or you need a video clip for some other reason, you’ll probably want to download a copy of a video …

Continue reading →

TIPS – Troubleshooting Problems with Web Sites

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

The steps below will help you with a variety of web-related issues. Step #1: If at first you don’t succeed, try again in a few minutes. Sometimes links just don’t …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Change the Default App that Opens Files on a Mac

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

Are you tired of having media files open in iTunes on your Mac? I was, so I changed the default app that opens mp3, m4a, m4v, and mov files to …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Take a Screen Shot on a Mac

CATEGORIES: HOW TO: Find & Edit Images, TECH TIPS

TAGS: ,

A screen shot is an image of what appears on your computer screen. You can capture the whole screen or just a small portion of it. Below are instructions on …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Reduce the size of a PowerPoint file

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

TAGS:

If you make a PowerPoint presentation that contains a lot of images, the file might end up being quite large in size, particularly if the images you used were very …

Continue reading →

GUIDE – Hardware and Equipment for Working with New Media

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

TAGS: ,

Amy’s WRTG classes require students to compose projects using a variety of digital media, which means that students should have access to the following hardware equipment: If you’re a student …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Change your YouTube video settings to "Unlisted"

CATEGORIES: HOW TO: Capture & Edit Video, TECH TIPS

TAGS: ,

If you want to make a video you posted on YouTube visible only to people who have the URL (like our class), you can change the Privacy setting from Public …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Use Scribd to embed content

CATEGORIES: HOW TO: Use the Class Blog (Wordpress), TECH TIPS

TAGS: ,

An easy way to embed PDFs and presentations into blog posts and other web pages is to use a free hosting site like Scribd.com (1) Sign up for an account …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Annotate PDFs on a Mac

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

TAGS: ,

Being able to highlight passages and put notes on a PDF file is extremely useful, particularly for students who don’t want to have to print out lots of documents but …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Annotate PDFs on Windows

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

TAGS:

Being able to put highlight passages in and put notes on a PDF file is extremely useful, particularly for students who don’t want to have to print out lots of …

Continue reading →

GUIDE – Recommended Web Browsers & Add Ons

CATEGORIES: NIFTY APPS & TOOLS, TECH TIPS

TAGS:

Free Web Browsers It’s always a good idea to have more than one web browser on your computer, so that when something doesn’t work in one, you can try it …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Troubleshoot Problems Viewing Content on the Web

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

If you have any trouble with the media content on the class web site or class blog, or if either site doesn’t look on your screen the way it looks …

Continue reading →

LINKS – Tools for Converting Digital Media Formats

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

Multimedia applications on Mac and Windows computers don’t always make it easy to save or export files in a format that any computer can open, so if you find yourself …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Save a portion of an online video

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

TAGS:

If you’re working on a project that would benefit from having clips from videos, such as scenes from TV shows, and you’re only able to find the full episode online, …

Continue reading →

TIPS – Troubleshooting Problems with Images in Web Pages

CATEGORIES: HOW TO: Find & Edit Images, TECH TIPS

Having trouble posting an image on WordPress, the wiki, or another web site? Here are two possible causes: (1) The image you’re using isn’t in the right file format for …

Continue reading →

TIPS – Protect yourself from losing all your hard work

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

Every semester, I have at least two or three students who lose all their files, including final papers for my class, near the end of the semester due to computer …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Take a screen shot on Windows

CATEGORIES: HOW TO: Find & Edit Images, TECH TIPS

TAGS: ,

I very rarely use Windows, so my old handout on this page was outdated. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I’ll just give you a few helpful links: A Guide To …

Continue reading →

TIPS – Be Nice to Your Computer, Especially Around Finals

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

As everyone in higher ed knows, the end of the semester is a dangerous time for grandparents and computers, both of which are far more likely to die around this …

Continue reading →

TIPS – Making Digital Content Accessible to All

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

TAGS:

Here are a few resources to help you learn more about how to make digital media projects accessible to viewers who have impairments in vision or hearing. Web Captioning Overview …

Continue reading →

TIP for managing user photos on multiple sites

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

TAGS:

Tired of uploading user photos to your profiles on multiple sites? Many sites, including most blogs run by WordPress, will get a user photo from a single source: Gravatar. Log …

Continue reading →

WEB RESOURCES – Using Macs and Windows

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

Help Links: Windows Tutorials for Windows 7 (including for Windows Live Movie Maker) Windows 7 Basics Windows Keyboard Shortcuts Windows Movie Maker Help Windows Vista Basics Guide to Word for …

Continue reading →

HELPFUL APP – Diigo for social bookmarking

CATEGORIES: NIFTY APPS & TOOLS, TECH TIPS

Diigo is a social bookmarking tool with a variety of useful features. At its most basic level, Diigo provides you with a better way to save bookmarks to web sites …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Format papers in standard academic format (using Microsoft Word)

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

OVERVIEW This guide explains how to format your documents in Microsoft Word so that they follow the standard rules for formatting academic papers as described in most MLA and APA …

Continue reading →

GUIDE – Using Word: Comment Tools (Office for Windows 2007)

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

TAGS:

GUIDE – Strategies for Using Review Tools for Draft Workshops

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

TAGS:

USING REVIEW TOOLS FOR WRITING WORKSHOPS (handout created for the August 2010 PWR Mobile Lab Workshop) This handout describes several ways to use the review tools that come with most …

Continue reading →

HOW TO – Use blocked quotation format in Word

CATEGORIES: TECH TIPS

Rule: Long quotations should be blocked to make them easier to read. In this context, “blocked” means indented .5” from the left margin. But don’t do this manually. Use Word’s …

Continue reading →