Recently in Technology Tips Category

A lot of users are beginning to receive messages about their Outlook e-mail file approaching its quota of 500mb. If you are one of these people, you need to take action immediately or you may find yourself locked out of your e-mail. Go through a few commands in Outlook and you can determine where the bulk of your space is being eaten up so that you can take the appropriate action.

From the menu, click Tools, then Mailbox Cleanup. You will be presented with a Mailbox Cleanup dialog box. Click the View Mailbox Size button and a box like the one below will appear.

Click on the Server Data tab and look for the amount of kilobytes being used (inside the red box above). If you are not familiar with kilobytes, megabytes or gigabytes, just take the number of kilobytes displayed and divide it by 1,000. That gives you the approximate size of your file in megabytes. So, in the example above, the size of the file is approximately 10.8 megabytes.

As you scan down through the list, check out the Total Size numbers for each of your folders. You might see a very large number by one of the folders and you should begin to clear that folder out by deleting unneeded documents, saving attachments from those e-mails to your hard drive or by archiving older documents. Also, remember to empty your Deleted Items folder if it has documents in it. They are taking up space!

You are responsible for keeping your e-mail file under 500mb. You need to take appropriate actions based on your individual needs to accomplish this. Deleting documents, saving attached documents to your hard drive and setting up archiving are all ways to keep your mail file under control.

Please contact me at x2161 or otskeybi@shu.edu if you need assistance with any of these options.

Students and faculty have the option of hiding and displaying their view of the navigation menu in any Blackboard course in which they are enrolled. To hide the navigation menu, simply click the arrow beside the menu. To display the menu again once it has been hidden, click the arrow again .

On October the 8th, the TLT Center presented RSS & Google Alerts as a Virtual Research Assistant. Included below are links to the presentation and to a document regarding RSS generated by Educause

RSS Google Alerts Presentation

Educause Learning Initiative: 7 things you should know about... RSS (April 2007)

RSS (really simple syndication) allows individuals to 'subscribe' to a web page (typically news outlets, journals, and blog sites), and have any new content delivered to you! This session will focus on setting up an RSS Reader (used to collect 'RSS feeds'), locating sources of information, and subscribing to RSS feeds. We will also discuss how RSS feeds can be utilized for instructional purposes. This session will also cover Google Alert - what it is, how to create an alert, and how to manage alerts.

As we move into the month of October, most of the SHU community has now had MS Outlook for about 6 months or so. Some of you may have begun receiving the message that you are approaching the space quota for your file and that you need to take action. Please take that warning seriously, because if you ignore it and exceed your limit, you will not be able to send or receive any e-mail until the condition is cleared up.

Each Seton Hall user is allotted 500mb of space in their e-mail file. This space can get eaten up quickly if you generally receive a lot of mail and just leave it in the file. There are three things you can do right now to reduce the overall size of your e-mail file and keep you from approaching your limit.

First, delete any message you do not need to hold onto. Look through your Inbox, all of your folders and especially look at the Sent folder. I'm sure there are plenty of documents in there that you don't need anymore.

Second, when you delete an item, it goes to the Deleted Items folder and stays there until you empty it. Please, get in the habit of clearing out the Deleted Items folder once a week by clicking on Tools - Empty Deleted Items folder and click Yes to confirm.

Third, when a message arrives with a file or files attached, that message's size is probably quite large and eating up your e-mail file space. A good thing to do is open the message by double-clicking it, then double-click the attachment and save it to a drive of your choice. Then right-click the attachment and Remove it from the message. You may still save the message if you'd like, but its size has been substantially reduced by removing the attachment.

You should then think about setting up archiving as a way of keeping the file under control. To get to the settings in Outlook, select Tools - Options - click the Other tab - Auto Archive. The dialog box that appears enables you to set up archiving to your own requirements.

The first field asks how often to run the archive. If you are nearing the file space allotment, I would suggest running the archive every day. In the middle of the box you would designate how old an item has to be to be archived. You can select a certain number of months, weeks or days. You have to determine what setting you are comfortable with. The archived items are stored in a personal folder under your Documents folder and it will display in your Outlook navigation pane, so you can quickly access it if need be.

I hope these tips will help and I hope everyone realizes that we all have to work at keeping our e-mail files under control. If you need help or have questions concerning your e-mail/archiving, etc., please contact me at x2161 or at otskeybi@shu.edu.

Click here to download the presentation from the September 28, 2009 TLT Center Boot Camp session: Tablet PC's and DyKnow.

Click Here to download the presentation from the September 28, 2009 TLT Center Boot Camp session: Utilizing RSS as a Virtual Assistant

1. Downloading files from Blackboard using Internet Explorer:
To download files (i.e., Word or PowerPoint) from a Blackboard course using Internet Explorer, follow the instructions below:

1. Within Internet Explorer, click Tools on the main menu bar, and then click Internet Options.


2. Click the Security tab and then click Custom Level.


3. Scroll to the Downloads section of the list. Under Automatic Prompting for File Downloads, click Enable.

3. Displaying a list of users enrolled in a course or organization:
Within the Course or Organization Management area, click the heading "Users and Groups" and then click "Users". Type the percent symbol (%) in the Search box and click Go.

4. Sorting Discussion Board forums:
By default, Discussion Board forums are listed in alphabetical order, rather than in the order you specify. Sorting alphabetically is a new feature in the Discussion Board. If you prefer a different order, you can precede each forum title with a number (01, 02, 03, etc.), a letter (A, B, C), or the date (2009-09-02).

5. Course copies must be done twice:
Temporarily, you must do the steps for course copy twice in order for it to work. A fix for this is in progress, but the current process for performing a course copy is described below:

1. First, go to the old course that contains all of the materials you want to copy.


2. Click Packages and Utilities in the Control Panel area.


3. Click Course Copy.


4. Complete the fields, and then click Submit.


5. Blackboard will clear the form and take you back to the page to complete for the Course Copy.


6. Complete the fields again, and click Submit.

Additional Note: To access old documents that you had in the digital drop box, log into Blackboard and then click the following link: http://myweb.shu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/ddb.

In MS Outlook 2007, we all use the Global Address List to help us address our emails with the correct names. For some of us, however, the default address book is not set correctly within our individual system, so there is an extra step to perform.

Perform the following procedure to set the Global Address List as your default address book.
1. from the menu, select Tools - Address Book
2. on the dialog box menu, select Tools - Options
3. on the Addressing dialog box, in the first field select Global Address List
4. click Apply, then Ok

From now on, when you need an address for an email, the Global Address List will be the default.

Remember, when working with the Global Address List, it's best to have the More Columns button clicked to obtain an efficient search.

Last week Google introduced a new feature to their popular image search, the ability to filter searches by Creative Commons license or images that are in the public domain.

From http://images.google.com select the Advanced Image Search option to the right of the search field. The Usage Rights option will allow you to filter the results by the license type.

For additional information, please see the announcement on The Official Google Blog.

Now that the Microsoft Outlook email migration project is coming to an end for all of our personal email accounts, I wanted to remind everyone of what they should be doing now that their Lotus Notes account no longer receives email.

Over the years, we've all accumulated lots of email and I'm betting that a lot of it we just don't need to hold onto anymore. So, over the next several months you should go into Lotus Notes periodically and pare away any documents that you really don't need. Try to whittle this account down as much as you can so that when the time comes to transfer the data to your MS Outlook account, it does not take up a lot of time and space in your new email account.

I know there are items you need to hold onto, and I certainly wouldn't want you to delete those. Concentrate on deleting the items that are really not relevant anymore. Lotus Notes will be around for a while yet, but if you start deleting things now, you'll be surprised just how many items you actually can get rid of and that will make the final transfer of data a lot smoother.

Do you want to try Twitter but are not sure how to find people to follow? Take a look at the latest Common Craft video which explains the #hashtag concept and demonstrates how to search for people, topics, and organizations.

Twitter is a free service for individuals to communicate via short (140 character) messages answering the question "What are you doing" or "What are you thinking"

Twitter is unique in that it is designed to be used from a number of different devices including Laptop PC's, Smartphone's (either via stand-alone applications or the web browser), and traditional cell phones via text messaging.

What are some potential educational uses of this technology?
At UT Dallas, Dr. Rankin, professor of History, wanted to increase student involvement in class discussion in her U.S. History course with an enrollment of 90. Below is an overview of the project:

Dr. Rankin has also written a summary of the project, available at: http://www.utdallas.edu/~mar046000/usweb/twitterconclusions.htm

How to get started:

1. Visit http://twitter.com and sign up for a free account


2. Use the Find People search feature to look for colleagues or groups that you are interested in


3. Read how the people you are following are answering the question "What are you doing" or "What are you thinking"

If you are interested in learning more about Twitter and how it might be incorporated into your classes, please contact your Instructional Design Liaison.

Distributing files via Blackboard is convenient for both faculty and students, but what about the type of file that is being distributed? This blog post will take a look at how saving files in various formats can reduce download time for students, and provide for greater accessibility!

Microsoft PowerPoint has become a common method for creating course content. The chart below illustrates the differences in file sizes of a 35 slide presentation that was created in PowerPoint 2007.

While the PowerPoint 2007 file is smaller than the PowerPoint 97-03 file, not all students will be able to open PowerPoint 2007 files.

The PDF version of the presentation is the smallest, at under 1mb. The PDF format is also the most universal file format with Adobe Acrobat Reader available for multiple computing platforms including PC, Mac, Linux, and Mobile devices.

While the Flash version of the presentation is not the smallest, it is less than half the size of the PowerPoint 97-03 file! The Flash format, like the PDF format, is able to be accessed on a variety of computing platforms including PC, Mac, and Linux with a free Flash Player.

Converting a presentation from PowerPoint to PDF is easy with Office 2007. Simply select File --> Save as --> PDF. For faculty who do not have Office 2007, the PCSS Consultation Desk located in Corrigan Hall room 29 will be able to assist you in upgrading to Office 2007.

authorPOINT lite is a free application that will allow you to convert a PowerPoint file into a Flash file. Please see the attached PDF guide to download and install this application.
authorPoint Lite.pdf

With the Outlook 2007 migration project in full swing here on campus and at the Law School, I thought I'd go over some features that most users will find extremely useful.

The topics I'll cover in this article are:
1. Moving email documents to calendars, contacts, folders
2. Recalling sent messages
3. Processing junk mail

Moving Email
When you receive an email, you have the ability to move it to a number of places within your mail file. On the Outlook ribbon, click the Move to Folder button and a list of your folders, along with other options will appear.

Along with the list of your folders, notice that there are options for Calendar and Contacts. Click on the Calendar option and an Appointment pane will appear with the contents of the note already inside of it. You can then set the appropriate appointment date/time and save it.

Click the Contacts option and a New Contact pane will appear with the senders email address already filled in for you. You'll have to adjust the name field because Outlook places the senders email address in that field. The contents of the note will be copied into the Notes area of the Contact form. Enter any other information you want about the sender, save the document and you've got a new contact created.

Remember, when you use either option, you are "moving" the document, so it will leave your Inbox.

Recall a Message
We've all probably sent out a message at one time or another to the wrong person or forgetting to actually attach the document we said we were attaching. With Outlook 2007, you now have the ability to "recall" that message and even replace it with a new one.

There are quite a few scenarios for using this feature, but in general, you can only recall a message sent to another Outlook user and only if they have not opened the note yet.

From your Sent folder, open up the message you wish to recall. On the ribbon, click the Other Actions icon.

Then select Recall This Message. The note disappears from the receivers Inbox and you will receive a confirmation email in your Inbox stating when it was recalled. If the receiver has already opened the note, you will receive a recall failure notice.

You then have the option of just recalling the note or recalling it and replacing it with another one. As shown in the following screen shot:

Check the appropriate radio button. If you have not included an attachment in a note, use the second choice, attach the document and send it again. The original note is recalled and replace by the new note with the attachment.

If you've sent a note out to a distribution list and need to recall it, you have an option (the check box) to receive a notice of confirmation or failure for each person on the list. Remember, you will only be able to recall the note from users who have not opened it yet.

Processing Junk Mail
You will all still receive the IronNotify notices you got when you were in Lotus Notes. In addition, Outlook will trap any notes it thinks is junk mail and place them in the Junk Mail folder. You do need to check these documents to verify if they are indeed junk mail or not.

When you open a document from the Junk Mail folder, you can either delete it or, if it is legitimate, click the Not Junk icon. This will place the sender on a "safe" list and allow subsequent mail from him/her to flow directly to your Inbox.

If you receive a note in your Inbox that you consider to be junk, you can block that mail from hitting your Inbox again by clicking the Block Sender icon on the ribbon. Subsequently emails from that sender will flow directly to the Junk Mail folder.

As you see, Outlook is a powerful product with lots of features that can make handling email a lot simpler for you. Make use of these features and find out about many others by checking back to this EPirate blog for more tips and watch for Outlook classes offered by the Computer Training Center.

The inclusion of quality video in education has never been easier than it is today. With a variety of documentary films and tv programs being produced every year, locating the content of interest can become a challenge. A new website, SnagFilms, is making the search a little bit easier!

SnagFilms allows users to search over 550 full-length documentary films from well established organizations including National Geographic and PBS, to independents including Brave New Films and IndiePix.

"SnagFilms is committed to finding the world's most compelling documentaries, whether from established heavyweights or first-time filmmakers, and making them available to the wide audience these titles deserve."
http://www.snagfilms.com/films/about

The Nova program - Mars Dead or Alive, has been included below as an example of the content currently available. Additional information about the SnagFilms website can be found in the SnagFilms 2009 Media Kit.

On Wednesday February 25th the TLT Center held a Wiki workshop. The presentation is available online, click here.
Additional session handouts are available for download at the end of this post.

A video describing the functional overview of how a Wiki works has been produced by CommonCraft, and is available below:

As we all settle in with using the new Pirate Net portal, you might not have noticed a very useful technology resource available to the entire SHU community called Element K.

Element K is a free, computer based training solution that anyone at Seton Hall can access and use to improve their tech skills in a particular software package or maybe learn something entirely new. The great part about Element K courses is that you take them at you own pace and at your own convenience. Since the resource is internet based, it's available whenever you have time.

The login module is located on the Offices & Services tab of the Pirate Net portal. Just click the link and you have access to 120 different self-paced courses and there all not just on technology.

Of course, the Microsoft Office 2003 and 2007 courses are offered, but there are also some business "soft-skills" courses and some higher end technical courses as well. It's a great resource to have at your fingertips.

The Computer Training Center regularly offers classes on university-supported software, but sometimes you may not be able to fit a class into your busy schedule. If that's the case, Element K is an excellent substitute for instructor-led training. Try it out today and contact me, otskeybi@shu.edu, with any problems or for more information.

Academic Earth is a collection of recorded lectures from a number of universities in the United States, including Yale, MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton, and Stanford.

While the recorded lectures are available directly from each institutions website, Academic Earth allows for searching by university, subject, top rated professor, top rated lecture, and top rated courses. The ability search and rate content from multiple sources distinguishes this website from the experience of directly visiting the universities website directly.

Below is an embedded video from Stanford eCorner:

Social bookmarking is not new. People have been using web services such as Delicious, Furl and Digg to tag, organize and share bookmarks online. In fact, social bookmarking activity (though it has evolved over time) has been going on for many years (see history of social bookmarking here).

What IS new is a web service that was recently launched called Brainify which is targeted for higher education. On the About page, the folks at Brainify say:

"Brainify is academic social bookmarking and networking for college and university students. If you are looking for the best sites and a great community to help with your courses, this is the place for you. It's for Students and your Professors: Brainify is only for you: University and College students and your Professors to help you with one thing - do well in your courses..."

On this same About page, there is a seven minute video that will provide you with an overview of Brainify. The video is located on YouTube as well and I have embedded it below:

Brainify was also written about in today's Chronicle of Higher Education with both the positives and negatives to using this type of service presented in the article. You can take a look at the article here.

What do you think about Brainify? Do you think the concept will fly? Do you think the idea is too specialized and should be opened up to people without academic email addresses? I'm interested in your thoughts...please feel free to email me at mary.zedeck@shu.edu.

As the end of 2008 approaches and you start thinking of your 2009 New Year's resolutions, I suggest you take care of a few technology issues BEFORE the Christmas break. Getting these few things done by the end of this semester will help relieve you of some stress and make your holidays a lot more enjoyable.

For faculty, after the final student grades have been calculated, download the Grade Center from all your Blackboard courses to your computer. The Excel file that gets created can then be easily accessed by you if any questions arise at a future date. Also, if you are teaching the same course next semester, you can copy all or part of this semester's course into next semester's course shell very easily. You can then make any necessary changes to next semester's course and you are all set to go long before students arrive back on campus.

These next two tips are for everyone. First, take some time and go through the files on your computer. Get rid of the ones you don't need, organize the ones you want to hold onto placing them into folders and make certain that you back up the files you cannot afford to lose! Make use of an external hard drive, the Blackboard Content System, CD's, etc. to back those files up.

Second, administrators and faculty will be moving to a new e-mail system during the Spring 2009 semester, so doing a little preparation now will help make the transition nice and smooth. Again, take the time to go through your Lotus Notes e-mails and, one, delete any documents you don't need or, two, archive old documents that you wish to retain. I'm sure we all have tons of old e-mails that could either be deleted or archived so this is a good thing to accomplish now.

I hope these suggestions give you some "year-end" incentive and if you need help with any of these procedures, please contact me at otskeybi@shu.edu or at x2161. Have a great holiday break!

Educause hosts an annual computer security awareness video competition where students submit videos for other college students regarding a variety of computer security issues, such as computer viruses, spyware, sharing information online, etc. The 2009 competition is now underway, but winning videos from prior years are available for viewing from the Educause website at the following URL. The terms of use for the videos are available on the website: http://www.educause.edu/SecurityVideoContest/7103

These videos are an excellent way to make other students aware of computer security issues in a fun and engaging way!

Learning the new technologies has not always been an easy task to accomplish with the constant changes and the newest editions to the hardware/software collection. However, Sony has made it possible to adapt to what's out there at your own pace. The Backstage 101 service was developed by Sony in an attempt to help users understand and utilize the emmerging technologies such as MS Office 2007, digital photography and videography techniques, amongst other. The best thing about the service is that it is free and only requires a registration account to be setup. This will be the best opportunity to take advantage of such a comprehensive service because it will broaden abilities and inspire creativity. Please click on the link for more details -> Backstage 101

With the Wiki tool in Blackboard, creating a sign-up sheet that the entire class can edit and update is a snap!

Click on the link below to download a quick guide on creating, deploying, and editing a Wiki in Blackboard!

Blackboard Wiki_SignUp Sheet.pdf


For further assistance with utilizing Wiki's in your class, please contact your instructional designer.

You are probably familiar with the Broadcast messages that come out frequently inviting you to technology sessions and asking you to "Click Here" to register. Some users have reported receiving a dialog box stating that Jave Script Errors have occurred, do you want to debug them? This error message appears due to a setting within your Lotus Notes client. This setting causes you to be routed to the hyperlink through the Lotus Notes browser where the error occurs.

To avoid this error in the future, you need to change a preference setting so that you are routed to the Microsoft Internet Explorer browser when you click on a hyperlink in an e-mail, rather than the Notes browser.

Here's the procedure to change the setting:

Within the broadcast e-mail, try the hyperlink to Register again and you'll see that you are now routed to a tab directly within Internet Explorer. You should be able to to login and register for the class you are interested in without any errors being generated.

We at the TLTC hope you find our offerings helpful and please don't hesitate to suggest a workshop you would like to see by contacting me at otskeybi@shu.edu.

I worked in the K-12 environment for many years and two of my favorite pieces of software that I modeled for teachers to help students brainstorm or get organized and focused were the graphic organizing programs called Inspiration (grades 6-12) and Kidspiration (grades K-5).

Several faculty members here at SHU have asked me if we support Inspiration because they would like to use it with their students or for department meetings or special interest groups. Well, Inspiration is not generally supported campus wide BUT, recently, Inspiration Software, Inc. has released an online version of their software called myWebspiration!

This new online version (in some places referred to as Webspiration) is very similar to the stand alone Inspiration software (outline and diagram views, rapid fire, notes and templates) with the addition of (as with most new online tools) asynchronous and real-time collaboration and anytime, anywhere access to your graphic organizers. Plus, you can upload any Inspiration 8 file to Webspiration or download any Webspiration document for use in Inspiration 8. I know there are faculty members who will be happy about that! :-)

Below is an image of the Argument Development template in Webspiration - click on it to see the details.

You certainly use the internet each and every day, both here at work and at home. Over time, if you don't do some simply maintenance, temporary files can build up on your PC's hard drive reducing its capacity and possibly slowing your PC down. These files are not harmful by themselves, but they do add up. So, as Martha Stewart says, "it's a good thing" to get in the habit of performing the following steps every week or so to keep your machine in shape.

Run the attached PowerPoint presentation to see the instructions or just follow the steps written out below.

Temp Files.ppt

From the Internet Explorer browser, click on the Tools button in the upper right corner and then select Internet Options at the bottom of the sub-menu. In the middle of the next dialog box, click the Delete button. On the next dialog box, click the Delete Files button and then click Yes when the system asks if you want to delete temporary files.

You'll see a progress bar pop up as the temp files are deleted and, if you've never done this procedure before, it may be there a while so be patient.

Like I said, get in the habit of doing this once a week and you will keep your hard drive from becoming clogged up with useless files.

Microsoft OneNote 2007, part of the Office 2007 productivity suite, has a number of unique features such as recording audio. Here is a great video tutorial from TeacherTube on recording audio with Microsoft OneNote 2007.

While the example in the video covers recording audio during a class or meeting, there are some interesting possibilities for distributing audio material to students (language lessons).

For the Vista users out there I just found out something that may elevate your experience... So, fortunately, "Vista Concluded" wasn't my last look into Vista afterall... In passing, I hear a little blurb about how an attachment from webmail can't be opened/saved, and I'm thinking to myself (there's gotta be something on the computer... spyware, virus, whatever...) Then, I hear a few more times after and realize theres something more to it... So, in digging up for an answer... it hits me... it's only not working in Internet Explorer! I know some of you are thinking, "What's new?!?"... but... Internet Explorer, in this case, was only trying to help.
What's causing this hiccup for some people is "Protected Mode" - It was designed to setup a barrier against suspicious downloads. Now, when attempting to open/save a file, there is extra "credential information" that Internet Explorer has overlooked, hence the problem. By default, any Seton Hall laptop with Vista has had "Protected Mode" disabled to prevent this issue; however, due to microsoft updates/users turning it on/and users with non-Seton Hall laptops, there are people being affected. So it all boils down to just having to disable it in IE7 via Tools->Internet Options->Security Tab and everything will be as right as rain...

• Aspen Institute
• Association for Computing Machinery
• Brookings Institution
• BYU Kennedy Center
• C-SPAN
• Cato Institute
• Council on Foreign Relations
• Georgetown University
• Hoover Institute
• J. Reuben Clark Law Society

Recently, I've come across a number of users who have seemingly "lost" a document they just finished editing. The document originally came to them as an e-mail attachment and the way it was opened actually created the problem.

When you double-click the attachment icon in an e-mail, Lotus Notes presents you with choices to Open, Edit, View or Save the document. Users can get in trouble by selecting Open, editing the document and then clicking File, Save As. The problem occurs because the user doesn't notice that the document is being saved in a Notes temporary folder, not in My Documents as the user assumes. Of course, when they then go to look for it in My Documents, it isn't there and panic mode sets in.

The safe way to treat any attachment that you want to edit is to select Save after you double-click the attachment icon. Then make sure you are pointing to a proper file location so that the document is saving onto your desktop or into the My Documents folder.

Now you simply open the document from wherever you saved it, edit it and when you go to save it again, it's already pointed to a proper location.

Maintaining your files properly is something every user should strive to do. Saving properly and backing up your essential files to a different location can save you lots of anguish in the future.

The TLT Center is offering instruction in using Web 2.0 tech tools in teaching and learning. You may be asking "what is Web 2.0 anyway...what is all the fuss about?" This very popular video created by Michael Wesch does a wonderful job of explaining the topic:



As the above video explains, Web 2.0 has produced an explosion of innovative and exciting online technology tools that can be implemented by both faculty and students. Register for our next class which is on Wednesday, September 24th from 12:00pm-1:30pm in the CTC. We hope to see you there!

These are the course objectives and the course website will always be in beta...

This will be my final thread on the wonderful world of Vista. I have described to you the benefits of the new system as well as how to make it work for you. The rest is now up to you and the best advice I can give you is... play with the system. I haven't nearly covered a good deal of Vista's capabilities because it all depends what you'll be looking for. But I can tell you, however, some of the things you'd be able to do... You can setup voice recognition so as to get the computer to recognize your voice and apply every command... Permissions can be created for every file/Parents Controls can be applied to every game so that you can have a sense of security and finally, you can automate the system so that everything that can be done to enhance your computer experience will be out of your hands through the power of Windows One LiveCare....!

As I wrap up my commentary on Vista I would like to provide you with some links that will help you understand Vista better, as well as a link to one of Microsoft's hidden deals...

VISTA

Microsoft Equipt

Happy Computing!

What is RSS?
RSS (aka Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary) is a format for delivering regularly changing web commonly utilized by news and blog sites.

Below is a YouTube video created by CommonCraft that explains the ins and outs of utilizing RSS:

Favthumbs is a great new tool that allows you to visualize your del.icio.us bookmarks. All you have to do is enter your del.icio.us username and sign in (your password is optional).

Once signed in, there are a few options. The default view is to show all of your bookmarks in grid view. Use the slider on the top right to zoom in and out of your visual bookmarks (click on image below to see detail).

Another option is carousel view which allows you to flip through your bookmarks so that you can see them one by one. As in the original del.icio.us view, you can always focus in on a particular topic by clicking on one of your tags that are listed on the right hand side of the screen (see graphic above). The graphic below is in carousel view after selecting the tag digitalstorytelling.


Check it out!

Web Publishing is becoming a hot topic around Seton Hall University these days in the form of Microsoft's Expressions Web and the creation of blogs. Faculty, students and administrators were recently notified about their personal websites moving to a new Pirate server. This means that you will be editing these sites with Microsoft's Expressions Web, the replacement software for FrontPage. Expressions Web is a powerful software similar to FrontPage but with some significant differences, such as using frames instead of tables and publishing the site via File Transfer Protocol (FTP) rather than "publishing" it as you did in FrontPage.

Creating a blog is an easy way to gain a web presence for your department or organization and to keep the general public informed about new programs you may be instituting, event schedules, or just putting out general information. If you are reading this article, you are on TLTC's e-Pirate blog right now and you can see how it offers users another resource for information. Blogs offer a new and effective method of dispensing pertinent information to your user community viewable at their leisure.

The CTC is offering classes on both Expressions Web and creating public blogs this month, so click here to see the list of classes you can register for.

Two quick and easy online tools to explore: Text2MindMap and Forex Flower


Text2MindMap is an online application where you can create mind maps/graphic organizers by entering text in an outline that is then converted to a mind map. Maps can be customized and may also be saved to your computer as picture files (jpgs). Quick, fun, and easy...great for brainstorming a topic in class.

Forex Flower (sister site to Text2MindMap) is an online currency converter. Type in the number of US dollars you would like to convert and watch all the exchange rates pop up. The exchange rates are updated daily and are drawn from the US Federal Reserve Economic Data database.

Again... welcome to the blog with the answers to the Vista's questions. This month's focus is on the simple, yet life-saving feature within Vista... the "Personal Folder". The personal folder is a main allocation site where much of the transferable data a user has stored on his/her computer, can be accessed. It has links to the common folders usually found within "My Documents" in XP, such as, My Music, My Pictures, etc., but has forsaked the "My" and changed the "Documents" folder from being the parent directory to just a sub-directory of the "Personal Folder". And, along with the old there comes the new, with the additions of the (contacts, downloads, favorites, links, searches and videos) folders.
... Confused Yet? ....
Essentially, the "Personal Folder" is a folder with your name on it. It shows up on the start menu on the top right and gives you access to most, if not all, the folders you will need to backup or transfer when/if you get a new computer. The beauty of this system is that all of Microsoft's other systems utilize it wonderfully. When you download a file it will automatically point to the "Downloads" folder. If you Microsoft Outlook's address book, it will save to the "Contacts" folder. All your previous searches will be stored within the "Searches" folder. But, the greatest simple step to me has been the inclusion of all the favorites you've created in Internet Explorer within the "Favorites" folder (a bit helpful don't you think?) So may all of this be your next step to better computing...