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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 →

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The theme for the last week on this blog has been email management. This morning I ran across a LifeHacker blog post that was talking about the same thing. See “Top 10 Tricks for Dealing with Email Overload.” That post reminded me that I’ve been wanting to show you how to turn off Outlook 2010 email notifications – that little popup box that appears in the lower right corner of your screen when a new email comes in. If you’re like my colleague Deb M., you are able to completely tune it out and ignore it. If you’re like me, you see it, and ifRead More →

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UPDATED 5/17/2014 Videodropper is now Orchard, which is nothing like Videodropper.  If you’re looking for a video downloader, check out KeepVid.  This blog post explains how it works. UPDATED 6/24/2012 A visit to the videodropper.ep.io website shows that the service is no longer available.  It has been replaced with a mysterious message. “We’re working on something new. Want to be the first to hear?” with a place to enter an email address to get updates.   UPDATED 10/13/2011. My sincerest thanks to the developer for posting his comment below.  I tried the service again this morning, and it worked perfectly.  Dropbox even downloaded it to myRead More →

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Quick Tech Tip. Tired of guessing which way your USB cable needs to be inserted? Look for the logo. That way is up. For those of us who have to squint to see the logo, add a little white out or nail polish to the top side. Never guess again. (Thanks to Lifehacker for the suggestions from Royce Eddington and one of the LifeHacker readers.) *The frowny-face in the USB cable image wasn’t intentional.Read More →

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I’ve left Firefox. It was using up a massive amount of RAM (Firefox 6) and had slowed to a crawl. I started looking at my add-ons to see what might be slowing it down as I did with previous iterations of Firefox. And then I stopped. I thought, “Using a web browser shouldn’t be this hard.” I had tried Chrome before, but I had Firefox set up exactly as I wanted with the add-ons that I wanted. Then the scales tipped. I didn’t have many add-ons left that worked, and Chrome had many more add-ons available. I’ve been happily, and speedily, cruising the web withRead More →

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Feeling harried?  The latest edition of Faculty Focus encourages you to take back your time. We know that humans don’t multitask.  Instead, we switch from one task to another, and in the process we lose time during that switch as we try to refocus.  The author suggests scheduling “like with like”.  Do similar tasks together to minimize losing time to refocus. The author also suggests scheduling your tasks.  Block time off in your calendar to get stuff done.  During that time, focus on that task.  Sometimes we get so caught up in being available for our students we forget to take care of ourselves. It’sRead More →

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Today’s Faculty Focus article is on using mind maps to get students to engage with the course material. While the author recommends using a large sheet of a paper, I would ask faculty to consider pointing their students to SpiderScribe.net. Earlier this year I wrote about SpiderScribe. (See this blog post.) It has a very short learning curve, and with the ability to include text, images, URLs, and documents, the maps that students create could be very powerful study aids. Using the share feature, students could work in pairs or groups to create the maps. No need to print them off. Students can add theirRead More →

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