Technology Tidbits » How To

Have you discovered Themes?

Katrina Gormley — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 03:14:32 +0000

When we first switched over to this new email powered by Google, one of the first questions I asked was “why don’t we have a link to go in and change our theme?” You see, I’ve had a GMail account for a while and I knew this was an option I had there and I wanted to use it in our new email. What are themes you ask? Themes are simply different choices for how your email looks. Some are simply different color choices – similar to the option we had in desknow where you could choose between the blue, a green color or an orange-ish color, and other themes incorporate pictures. A simple way to jazz up the way your email screen looks — and since it is becoming more and more a part of our lives I personally like it to look nice while I have to use it!

Here’s how to change the theme in your email. After you have logged in, click on the “settings” link in the upper right corner of your email screen. Once at the settings screen, click on the “themes” link (almost straight down from the settings link). Choose your theme, then watch as your email screen takes on a new look. Some themes require you to enter a city, and based on the location you enter, the theme will change from day to day.

Go ahead … spruce up that email screen
~Happy Computing,
Katrina

Opening MS Word 2007 documents with older versions of Word

Katrina Gormley — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:16:18 +0000

If you have recently purchased a new computer with MS Office, or have been sent a document by someone who has, you may have seen some files that look to be Microsoft Office documents, but their file extensions were different from what you are used to. The new Microsoft Office 2007 saves documents with different file extensions — the Word files are most commonly save with the .docx file extension. Older versions of Word (like what we have here at school) won’t open the newer documents unless you load a converter on your computer. The converter can be downloaded for free from Microsoft by visiting this webpage http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=941B3470-3AE9-4AEE-8F43-C6BB74CD1466&displaylang=en

Also remember, you can always save a file as an older version or even in a version compatible with another program such as WordPerfect or MS Works, by changing the “Save As Type” at the bottom of the Save As dialog box.

~Happy Computing,
Katrina

Got (too much) Mail?

Katrina Gormley — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:00:49 +0000

Does your email inbox take up more than one screen? Do you have messages that you just don’t want to delete, but that really don’t need to be cluttering up your inbox? Try making folders to organize things a bit. Check out the attached document with step-by-step directions on how to create folders in the email system to keep your email organized!
Organizing Email Using Folders

Creating Email Lists in DeskNow

Katrina Gormley — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 01:35:19 +0000

Would you like to have your own personal listserv? Want to always send the same cute pictures of your kids to the same group of people without having to type in all the individual names everytime? Create your own listserv in the DeskNow program to save yourself time! Here is a step-by-step instruction sheet on how to do this.

Learn360

Katrina Gormley — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:37:43 +0000

I hope you all have had a chance to check out our new video streaming resource — Learn360. I had an excellent question the other day about Learn360 and the playlist feature. The question was “can I share my playlist with other teachers?” Well, I played around a little, but didn’t see that such a feature existed so I emailed our representative at the Learn360 company and he got back to me with some good news … right now the ability to share your playlists doesn’t exist, BUT it will with the new version that is coming out in January, so we just have to wait a little bit and we will be able to share our lists! He also told me that we will be able to make groups and share things that way as well … keep watch for these new features coming soon. As always, if you have any questions, feel free to ask me and I’ll do my best to find out the answers!

Katrina

Saving your favorites/bookmarks

Katrina Gormley — Thu, 22 May 2008 13:38:40 +0000

Sorry it’s been so long since I’ve posted — I’ve gotten busy preparing for the big move. I probably won’t post too much more for the rest of the year unless something like today’s topic comes up. I’ll be back with lots of tips and great resources after we’ve gotten everything settled — hope you’ll join us then!

I believe every effort will be made to allow you to keep your current teacher station next year, but you may want to take a couple of precautions just in case that doesn’t happen.

1) Save any documents that are currently on your computer to your H (server) drive as a backup! (This is as simple as opening up two windows, one of your H drive, one of your My Documents folder. Highlight everything in your My Documents folder, click and drag it to your H drive.)

2) Export any favorites/bookmarks you have saved in your internet browser (Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox). I’ve created a couple of how-to documents on this topic and they are attached.

Saving your bookmarks in Firefox
Saving your bookmarks in Internet Explorer

I hope you find this helpful!
Katrina

Renewing a Video from REMC8

Katrina Gormley — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 19:27:51 +0000

If you would like to keep a video you have borrowed from the REMC longer than the date they have indicated, you can ask for a renewal. To do so, visit the REMC Online Booking page, choose “Extend Video Bookings”, the choose “Extend/Renew”.

Burning Files to a CD w/Windows XP

Katrina Gormley — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:25:12 +0000

I had to write directions for how to burn files to a CD for a family member this summer and thought I’d pass them along to anyone else who’d like to know how … I hope you find these helpful! Click on the link below to open the .pdf file.
Burning Files to CD with WinXP

REMC 8 Online Booking for Videos

Katrina Gormley — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 20:05:33 +0000

The address for the REMC8 webpage has changed. Those of you who book videos online will want to update your bookmarks/favorites, the page can now be found @ http://www.kentisd.org . The link on the Teacher Resources page has been updated to reflect this change.