Category: Tech tips

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: My child has a program on the computer and I can’t figure out how to get out of it. There’s no File-exit, no menu. What do I do?

A: Try the old standby from Windows’ earliest days–Alt+F4. It works on almost all programs. I use it on the kindergarten programs in my lab all the time.

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: When I open the internet (or a document), the window is small. It barely fills half the screen. What’s the quickest way to make it bigger?

A: There are two easy solutions, one faster than the other

• Click the maximize box in the upper right corner of the document (it looks like a hollow square and resides next to the X).
• If you have youngers whose fine motor skills aren’t quite there and aiming/clicking that tiny box is really a challenge, here’s a better way: Double click the blue title bar at the top of the document. That takes care of it without aiming at the tiny spot.

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I want to link my Word document (or my Outlook email) to a website. How do I do that?

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q:I see a blue phrase on my page. It’s underlined. I’m told that’s a link to a website. How do I make it work?

A: Activating a link in MS Word or most of the MS Office products is simple.

• hover over the word or phrase
• Push Ctrl+click to activate

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers and from students about how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I don’t know why, but I never remember the date. Unfortunately, I have to type it often at school/work/home. Is there a shortcut for people like me?

A: Who does remember the date? No problem. Just push Shift+Alt+D. That puts the current date into any Word document (use Ctrl+; in Excel).

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: I want my home/business/classroom to be as paperless as possible. What’s a good first step?

A: Do you make fliers or announcements in Publisher, then print them? Don’t do that. Use the email tool on the toolbar:

• Create your flier. Make sure its perfect
• Click on the email tool on the toolbar
• Fill in To, Subject, as you normally would on an email
• The flier appears as the body of the email.

This can also be done in MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: My youngers constantly save a blank document over their file. How? Instead of ‘open’, they use the menu command ‘save-as’ and lose all their work. Is there any way to retrieve the file?

A: Absolutely. I just found out about this recently. Bring the file up in Windows Explorer. Right click on the file name and select ‘Restore previous version’. Select the latest version that’s not today.

Every time I do this, I’m a hero for ten minutes.

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: My computer is old and crashes sometimes. What’s a good rule to follow so I don’t lose my work?

A: Saving is easier than you think. I know, you’re thinking it is easy, so what’s the deal?

Do you save every ten minutes?

Have you ever lost your work because… it just disappeared. Maybe a power surge. Maybe you pressed the wrong button. Who knows, but hours worth of work evaporated.

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As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy! (more…)

As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: My desktop icons disappeared for no known reason. What do I do?

A: This is a question I get from parents more often than you’d think. One moment, they’re all there, lined up like little soldiers. The next, they’re gone.

Here’s what works about 80% of the time:

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