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I tried out a new assignment in my Psych 100 course this quarter. After students have done the assigned reading, but before we cover it in class, students are asked to reflect on what they found particularly interesting in the reading and why the average person on the street should know that information. They’ve been emailing me their responses, which has greatly increased the volume of email in my mailbox. I thought there must be a better way. And then I remembered that you can create forms in Google Docs. I’m not a heavy user of Google Docs, I prefer Dropbox as my cloud storageRead More →

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On the “Tech Handout” page I now have two documents. One is my general tech handout; the other focuses on collaboration tools. At some point I’ll probably merge them into one big document, but until then I have two. Both have a QR code at the top. I noticed that they were different codes. I wondered where they went. At this point I had a number of options. Leave them as is and continue to wonder. Go find my phone and scan them. Or search the internet for a QR code decoder. I opted for the latter and used Esponce as my decoder. I savedRead More →

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My personal laptop was no longer as useful as it had once been, so I took the plunge this weekend and bought a new one. Of course it’s never that easy. Oh, the purchasing was easy enough, it was the deciding what to buy part was hard. After much investigation, I found the one I wanted. With that out of the way, I steeled myself for the onerous process of setting it up according to my preferences. Turned out not to be onerous at all. I’ve been using this password manager for several months now, and it has made my life so much easier. OneRead More →

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Quick Tech Tip: In a previous post (November, 2010) I suggested using Zamzar to download TED videos. Since then TED has added this functionality themselves. Below the video, click the “DOWNLOAD” button. That will call up this window. Right-click on the version you want, and select “Save link as…” Choose where you want to save the file, and the video will be saved on your computer. No need to have an internet connection to watch it. Save it in your Dropbox folder to have it available on all of your devices.Read More →

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A colleague (thanks Craig C.!) recently sent me a link to a Forbes article (10/18/2011) about Drew Houston, founder of Dropbox. (Disclaimer: Craig swears he doesn’t usually read Forbes; he was in the waiting room of his dentist’s office.) At a recent presentation before 100-or-so psychologists (educators, researchers, and practitioners), I asked how many used Dropbox. About 90% of the hands went up. I confess I was surprised at the number. But in case anyone had any doubts about the widespread use of Dropbox, read this excerpt from the Forbes article: The opportunity in front of Drew Houston revealed itself again a few months agoRead More →

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Quick Tech Tip. In my last two posts I’ve addressed ways to get to the folder where your open Word document is located. Folder navigation in general can be a hassle – unless you’re the kind of person who just puts everything in the same folder, in which case you have other issues. For Windows 7 users, you have a quick way to access your most-used folders. Open any folder. Here I’ve opened my Dropbox folder. On the left, see the favorites area? You can add any folder here. No matter what folder I navigate to, my “favorites” will always be listed here. To addRead More →

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I have an open Word document. When I hit CTRL+ALT+O on my keyboard, the folder that contains that document opens. This is very handy if I want to attach the open file to an email message by dragging and dropping the filename onto the message. It’s also very handy if there are other files in that folder that I want to open. Tip: Always save your file before attaching it to an email message. If you attach without saving, only whatever portion that was already saved will be sent. In my last post, I discussed four options for opening the containing folder of an openRead More →

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I ran into a colleague today who posed an interesting question. (Shout out to Tina O. and Eric B.!) Paraphrasing, “I’m replying to an email message in Outlook, and I open a file in Word, and edit that file. Now I want to attach that file to my Outlook email message. Is there a way to do it?” There’s the save-and-send option in Word, but that will attach the file to a new email message, not attach it to a reply, so that’s not going to work here. Option 1 (least desirable). In the Outlook message, click the Insert tab, then click “Attach File,” andRead More →

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[Update 12/15/2012 : Given the issues with Google Calendar Sync, I wasn’t surprised to hear that it was being sunsetted.  Use gSyncIt instead.] To users of Google Calendar Sync (synching Google Calendar with Outlook) [Everyone else can safely ignore.] Warning: Appointments added to Google Calendar may show up in Outlook one hour off for the next week. Possible solutions: Free option: Double check your calendars to make sure the times are correct. $19.99 option: Switch from the free Google Calendar Sync to the $19.99 gysncit for synchronizing Google Calendar and Outlook.  (http://www.fieldstonsoftware.com/software/gsyncit3/)   Why the federal government is to blame: It all started when theyRead More →

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As you all know, I’m a Dropbox fan. But what happens when your Dropbox capacity is 2GB and you’re sharing a folder with someone who has 16GB, and that person puts a 3GB file in your shared folder? (Shout out to the attendees of the Society for the Teaching of Psychology’s Best Practices conference – especially to the person who raised this question!) Well, Dropbox chokes. Here’s an alternative. JustBeamIt.com (via LifeHacker) lets you transfer large files others. How it works? You go to JustBeamIt.com, drag your file onto the webpage. Copy the URL (CTRL-C), and send it to your collaborator. You have to stayRead More →