Tag: 169 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 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…)

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…)

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.

(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 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…)

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.

(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 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…)

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:

(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 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:

www.google.co.jp

…I’d get this:

(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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: The desktop icons are tiny on my desktop. I don’t know how it happened, so I don’t know how to undo it. Please help!

A: This solution I learned in self-defense, like many other tips I share, when my students figured it out and made my desktop icons HUGE. Here’s how you fix that:

• Highlight all desktop icons by click and dragging a box around them
• Push Ctrl and roll the mouse wheel.
• It enlarges or delarges for you

That’s it. How wonderful. I no longer have to squint at icons too small for my eyes.

(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 week, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!

Q: How do I check to see where my kids/students have been online without making them think I don’t trust them?

A: If they’ve been online without you (because you considered them mature enough for this action), by all means check up on them. This is not a sign of distrust any more than guiding them through any other new skill is. This is you showing them the correct way to use the internet. You’re not spying on your children; you’re making sure everything is OK, kind of like checking in on them while they sleep.

Go to what’s called ‘history’. ‘History‘ is where a list of all the websites whoever logged in under a particular user name went. Here’s how you do it:

• Hold Control key (Ctrl) and push H. That brings up a sidebar with the sites they’ve visited.
• Select the time frame you’re interested in

(more…)