Tech Tips

Since some of you have just created your first blog and some of you mentioned you liked my blog I decided to create this page for technology tips. Do not get me wrong please, I am not a professional and I do not think I’m smarter or better at using technology than any of you especially than our teachers. I want to learn from each of you, but I also want to share my knowledge and maybe help you improve your blogging skills and hopefully save some time to our teachers, so they could teach us more complicated and new things.

So, if you have any question, feel free to post a comment here and if you don’t want to ask in public, send me an e-mail.

All the best

Marija

I will keep adding tips below this entry.

1 - Creating pages on a blog

My first tip at the very beginning of the course was related to creating pages on a blog. I have created the instructions and here’s a link to that file:

http://www.box.com/s/014ebd40d9a79b931630

2 - Adding links

If you want to add a link to your blog, pay attention to these things:

1. When you copy the link, make sure you mark the copied text as a link. Mark the text, go to options above the post, find the link option, click on it and enter the web address of the link.

2. While editing link, make sure you tick the box that says: Open this link in a new window

3. If you have a red background on your blog, don’t use the dark red colours for your links or the text in general. This goes for any similar colours. Make the contrast, experiment with colours and see what looks best.

3 - Taking a screenshot

I was recently asked if I could explain taking a screenshot, the photo of the computer screen.

I guess there are many ways of taking a screenshot but I am familiar with two most popular.

1. On your keyboard click CTRL and then, while holding CTRL, click the Print Screen key which is on the keyboard too.

Go to Paint (Accessories – Paint) then Edit – Paste. Now you can save it (Save as) and later on crop it if you want to.

2. The second popular way is Jing. It’s a free program and you can find it here http://www.techsmith.com/download/jing/default.asp  You download it and install it. When you need a screenshot start the program, click Take a screenshot and then Share or Save. If you decide to share it, the screenshot is then uploaded on their server and in few seconds you get the link that you can pass to another person.

Both explanations that I have written may seem complicated, but after trying any of these two ways, you’ll see it’s rather easy. If you need further explanation, do not hesitate to ask.


4 - Sending a voicemail

As you can see, on the right side of my blog there is a widget and it says Send Voicemail. It’s a simple widget that could easily be added to your blog if you want to. I have started using this widget a couple of weeks ago, but I have discovered that not many teachers are willing to actually leave a voicemail. It is still a mystery to me why is that so. Without going further into reasons for that I would like one of you at least, to be brave enough and send me a voicemail J If you have the headphones or the microphone, just press the widget on the right, click on Start Recording (if it asks you to allow using your headphones, click on allow), say anything you like and then click send. You can then enter your name and an e-mail if you want to and then press send. If you enter the e-mail I can send you a voicemail back. 

Looking forward to your voicemails! J

5. Adding links to Nicenet

I have just spent an hour or an hour and a half trying to find out how to create a link on Nicenet. I have seen our teachers posting links that could easily be opened directly from forum so I wondered if I could do it. I went to FAQs but that document didn’t help. Then I googled.. and I googled.. and I googled.. and I edited my post on Nicenet for about 10 times and finally discovered a solution!!! Well, at least one part of it.

If you want to turn the text, for instance a word or two words, into the URL, do it like this:

Example 1: <a HREF="http://www.esl-lab.com/index.htm"> ESL-Lab </a>

Example 2: <a HREF="http://www.esl-lab.com/trip1/trip1.htm"> Vacation Plans </a>

The example 1 is then shown like this: ESL-Lab

The example 2 is then shown like this: Vacation Plans

Watch out for the spaces between the characters or use my link and edit it in a Word document first, then copy it to Nicenet. You just need to replace my link with yours and my key words ESL-Lab with yours.

I didn’t want to bother teachers and ask them for the instructions, but after spending so much time searching, now I feel a bit sorry for not doing so J I hope my tip will at least save you some time.

Later on I will try to learn how to show the entire link, not only the link hidden behind the words and how to make the link open in a new window..


6. To Do Lists


I have been using an offline 'to do list', but then I remembered several visually nice and useful websites. 
The most important thing is that you can access these lists anywhere; you don’t have to save them in your computers. You can also share them. Here is a screenshot of one of them and several links below the picture that may be helpful to you.

1. http://www.doitdoitdone.com How to use it: http://www.doitdoitdone.com/howto.html

2. https://www.brilliant.li/

3. http://www.rememberthemilk.com/

4. http://planner.zoho.com/login?serviceurl=%2Flogin.do

7. SpeakPipe

First of all I wish to thank Georgia for being the first one and at this moment the only one who has sent me a voicemail using SpeakPipe.
She has also asked me to give more details about this tool, so here they are:

You can find this tool here: http://www.speakpipe.com . You just need to register and then you can paste the SpeakPipe code in your blog or a website. You can also customize the message you want the visitors to see when they go to your blog, so it can be in your native language or in English but adjusted to your needs.

When someone leaves you a message using SpeakPipe, if he has left his e-mail during the sending, you can reply to him by voice and he will receive the link to your voicemail by email.

If you have further questions, feel free to ask using comments option or to send me  a voicemail :)