Computing Tips and Tricks

Do you login to the Portal to connect to Moodle? Do you Copy/Cut/Paste text by going to the File menu? Do you never use your right mouse button (or does your Mac not even have a right mouse button)? Do you stop your PowerPoint presentation to open a web page or media clip and then stumble back to your presentation? Does the existence of the Control key make you suspicious? Does your twelve-year-old cringe whenever you start to work on your computer?

If you answered “Yes” to any of the above, then this post is for you (and for many others out there). And even if you are a computer whiz who knows all about these topics you may still find my message motivating.

First I offer a disclaimer – my message is not one of “shame on you” for seeing so much of yourself in the introductory paragraph or generally not knowing enough about your computer. We are all busy and its so very easy to keep doing what we’ve been doing for so long.

That said, we all know that computer technology has tremendous capacity for saving us time and effort and realize that we could be much more efficient using it. We know this but usually don’t take the time to really take advantage. And, yes, we usually must spend some time to learn a new technique or setting; all this technology is not intuitive (no, not even the famous Mac interface is all that intuitive, and forget the iPad where the “i” most definitely does not stand for “intuitive”).

From the introductory questions above you should realize that I’m thinking about some basic things requiring a minimum of effort to learn, not those looming, greater tasks like tackling the Moodle Gradebook or the right Excel functions to do your grade calculations. I will wager that most you could spend a few minutes learning one or two much more basic functions which could save you hours over a semester.

There are hundreds of things that you might learn to save you time and effort, so when and where do you start? My philosophy is —  if some process seems to take “too long,”  or seems “too hard,” or seems to lead to “too many mistakes,” or just seems “too complex,”  then we should check to see if there is a better way.  

How might you learn some of these things?  Certainly you could ask your friendly ITS staffer or administrative assistant or a colleague or a “geek” friend. Some of these topics may be good to address during instructional technologist office hours, perhaps, or when a TSA is working on your computer.  You can also submit an ITSHelp request, conduct an on-line search, or spend a minute using the Help menu (yep, they are still there and they have improved over the years).  You may also be able to attend an appropriate ITS  technology workshop – check our schedule here.

Here’s to more efficient computing for all of us! Please take a minute to improve your efficiency or reduce your frustration!

In the meantime, here are some interesting on-line sites with technology tips and tricks:

• LifeHacker
• TechnoFile
• Tool Kit (a bit premature to mention, perhaps, but it looks promising; I will update this link soon)

Please comment with your favorite tech tip sites.

…dan wheeler

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For those wondering about the alternatives for the opening paragraph’s scenarios:

• Moodle is always accessible at the address moodle.colgate.edu – type it in the address box at the top of your browser — and then Bookmark it
• Simple editing and much more can be done via keyboard shortcuts – press and hold Ctrl for Windows or Command for Mac  and then press – C to copy, X to cut, or V to paste (and while you’re there check out S for save, Z for undo, and …)
• Simple editing can be done it both Windows and Mac using the right mouse click – select some text and right click on it to see the options to copy, cut, paste, and more.  If your Mac doesn’t seem to have a right mouse button, it can be configured in System Preferences, or simulated by pressing Ctrl and then clicking.
• The right-click has many options beyond editing text. Try a right-click on a document or a desktop icon or something in or at the top of a list or …
• Switching to another application is another keystroke option. Hold Alt (Windows) or Command (Mac) and press Tab to switch from and back to your running PowerPoint Slide Show. 
• The Control (Ctrl) key is one of several keys, such as Alt and Option, which let us do more with fewer keystrokes (at the cost of memorizing some odd combinations) 
• Wait 12 years