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You’ve typed something into a box in your web browser—something very well written, perhaps the first page of what will become the Great American Novel. You close the webpage before clicking the “submit” button. When you go back to the page, everything you had typed in that browser box is gone. You gouge your eyes out. Or perhaps you’ve spent an hour crafting the perfect Canvas announcement when your computer suddenly reboots. Your announcement is gone. Forever. You gouge out someone else’s eyes. Been there? In this week’s Porta Potty Picayune, we are going to make sure you never have those experiences again. Recovering contentRead More →

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What is the web cache, what are cookies, and why does clearing them solve so many browser issues? How do web browsers work? Websites are collections of code—that code is called HyperText Markup Language (HTML). The code is stored on servers (servers are just big fancy computer storage units—think of the hard drive on your computer multiplied by millions and millions). The Internet is what we call the network that links those servers together. When we enter the URL for a website in our browser’s address bar (or click on a link in a webpage), we end up connected to that webpage’s server, wherever itRead More →

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The “Type here to search” box in the lower left corner of Windows 10 is handy for searching all kinds of things. Except the Internet. Windows forces you to use their Bing search engine inside of their Edge browser. But I’d rather use Firefox as my browser and use Shortmarks (see this blog post) as my search engine. Thanks to the $1.99 Search Deflector available from the Microsoft Store, now I can. [Shout out to Ashwin at ghacks.net!] (There is an identical free version available via GitHub, but for such a useful tool, I’m happy to pony up a couple bucks.) After installing and runningRead More →

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This is a mishmash of stuff that I’ve been collecting. Enjoy! Be kind to your eyes: 20-20-20. We are all spending way more time in front of our computers than we did, say, in February 2020. I’ve heard from colleagues who have been struggling with eye strain, so I know I’m not alone. Be kind to your eyes and follow the ophthalmologist-recommended 20-20-20 rule. Every 20 minutes look at something 20+ feet away for 20+ seconds. The trick is in remembering to look away every 20 minutes. I use the “Tomato Clock” browser extension (Chrome/Firefox). Barring that, you know how to set an alarm onRead More →

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Faculty who have been around learning management systems (LMSs) for any amount of time know that sometimes gunk builds up in the browser cogs resulting in some page in the LMS not working as expected. If it’s something that worked before but is suddenly not working now, the first thing tech support will tell you to do is clear your browser’s cache. But why clear the cache for every website you’ve ever visited when it’s just this one particular LMS page that’s giving you fits? You can clear the cache of one Chrome or Firefox webpage with a keyboard shortcut. Windows and Linux users: CTRL+F5.Read More →

Logs for Word Counter Plus and Word Count

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For the discussions in my online courses, I have added an expected minimum word count to help students better gauge what is expected of them. Each initial post has three sections, and each has a different word count minimum. Same with the discussion responses. I am certainly not going to count the words myself. And it seems silly to copy and paste each discussion post into Word to get a word count. Instead, I added a word count tool to my browser. In Chrome, I use Word Counter Plus. In Firefox, I use Word Count. While both look a little different, they work exactly theRead More →

Chrome logo

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For those of us who like to—or least tend to—have a lot of browser tabs open at once, Chrome’s new “tab groups” along with the previous ability to pin tabs can help bring order to the chaos. Below, you can see what I currently have open in Chrome. The six tabs on the left are “pinned.” These are tabs that I frequently use, so I’ve pinned them. I have easy access to them without them taking up so much real estate. To pin a tab, right-click on it, and select “Pin”. [Extra credit: how many of my pinned tabs can you identify based on theirRead More →

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Select the entire web address Mouse fans: single click on the web address Keyboard shortcut fans: CTRL-L Click and drag into your Windows folder Double-click on the bookmark in your folder to launch the page in your web browser “Can I rename the link?” Yes. The default name for the link is whatever that website’s webmaster called the page. Just as you can rename a file in your folder, you can rename your bookmarks. In your folder, right-click on the link, select “Rename,” and, well, rename it. “I use Dropbox/Google Drive/OneDrive. Will my bookmark links synchronize across my devices?” Yes. “That means that when IRead More →

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Do you know the most common way I learn about new technology? Something starts bugging me, and I go looking for a solution. Today’s problem? If I want to keep my existing Chrome tabs open, to open a bookmark in a new tab, I have to open a new tab and then click on the bookmark. I know. In the greater scheme of things, this isn’t a big deal. But I’ve done it a lot today. I mean, a lot. So, it’s time to learn something new. A pretty quick search gave me the answer. The solution(s) Hold down CTRL and left-click on the bookmarkRead More →

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It didn’t take long. I found a replacement for Beanote, the Chrome extension I wrote about in my last blog post. Hypothes.is has more power and more flexibility. Add to any webpage a personal note just for yourself, a note for your group, or a public note that can be seen by anyone running Hypothes.is Several of us at my college are working on editing pages that explain to faculty how to get a video captioned. Using Hypothes.is we can leave notes on each webpage that everyone else in our group can see. This is much easier than taking screenshots and emailing them to eachRead More →