Tag: 169 tech tips
Tech Tip #82: My Picture’s a TIFF and the Program Needs a JPG
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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q: My picture file is a .bmp and I need a .jpg. What do I do?
A: Blogs and wikis and lots of online sites won’t accept .bmp image files. I no longer even save pictures in that format because so much of what I do is collaborative, which means online.
If you have an image you want to use, but it’s in this .bmp format, here’s what you do:
- Open it in MS Paint (which comes with Windows) or Photoshop
- save-as a .jpg.
Tech Tip #81: I Have Office 2010; Everyone Else Has 2003–They Can’t Read My Stuff
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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q: My school updated to Office 2010 and many parents are still on 2003. What can I do so they can read my stuff?
A: When you save the doc, go to File-save as, and select file type 97-2003
Tech Tip #80: My Internet Stopped Working
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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q:My internet stopped for no reason. I’m in the middle of something important. What can I do?
A: Do what the pros do–unplug it, wait ten seconds and plug it in again. Half the time, this is all it takes.
The same applies to a printer that stops for no known reason–turn it off, wait ten seconds and turn it back on.
It’s something about tasks being shuffled out of the way and needing to re-establish their order. All I know is it works often enough, it’s my first line of defense to problem-solving this particular problem. (more…)
Tech Tip #79: Saving Your File so Everyone Can Read it
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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q: I need to make my Word document readable by colleagues that don’t have MS Word. What do I do?
A: MS Office 2007 and 2010 makes that easy. (more…)
Tech Tip #77: Laptop Frozen? Here’s Another Solution
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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q:My laptop won’t turn off. What do I do?
A: Do a hard reboot. Hold the power button in ten seconds, until the laptop turns off, and reboot.
Question? Email me at askatechteacher@gmail.com and I’ll answer.
Tech Tip #76: Laptop Frozen? Here’s What You Do
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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q:My laptop is frozen. I can’t even turn it off. What do I do?
A: To fix a recalcitrant laptop, remove the battery, wait ten seconds and put it back and start up again. Half the time, that’ll fix it. (more…)
Tech Tip #75: What’s My IP Address
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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q: I need my computer’s IP address, but I don’t know where to find it. Help!
A: Go to: My IP Address.com . I keep mine on my homepage so it’s right there.
Tech Tip #73: Alt+??? Brings up which Menu Command?
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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q: I always forget the keyboard shortcuts for the menu commands. Can you give me a list?
A: I’ll do one better. MS Office 07 and 10 makes that easy. Just push the Alt key and it tells you what number or letter is associated with which menu command. (more…)
Tech Tip #72: How to Move Pics Around in Documents
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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q: I put a picture in my document, but it won’t move. How do I fix that?
A: Word’s default for putting a picture on a page is ‘inline’–it treats it as text. Like words on a document, it can’t be easily moved.
Here’s how to fix that:
Tech Tip #71: Visit Foreign Language Google Search
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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q: English isn’t my first language. How do I go to Google in other languages?
A: To visit the foreign language Google search engines, type:
www.google.co
Then add the country extension you would like to visit. For example, Japan is .jp, so if I typed:
…I’d get this:
