Quick Tech Updates

Welcome back!  It is always an exciting time of year.  I wanted to update everyone on some of the technology changes over the summer.  Some are behind the scenes while others are a bit more obvious.

I am sure all of you get annoying emails from wealthy people in Africa wanting to GIVE you money or from phishing scams regarding some fictitious bank account.  I get them, too - usually a few each day.  All of our outside email passes through MoreNet on its route to your inbox.  MoreNet applies their filters and tries to catch as much spam as possible.  Some estimates I have seen show that spam constitutes 80% to 90% of all email.  In other words, if you get 100 messages delivered to your mailbox each day from outside sources, then there are another 900 messages that are filtered out before they get to you.

I have been trying to learn more about gmail and google in recent weeks, making myself use gmail as a compiler of all of my email accounts.  One of my complaints initially is that when I compose an email, I frequently want to open another email to copy or refer to something.  That is a feature I could do with our Willard Web-mail.  I just learned that gmail has a feature that lets you pop your mail out into its own window.  It is called the "new window" icon and it is located in the upper right hand corner.  Simply click the compose new mail button.  When the window opens look in the upper right hand corner above the To: box.  It is two small boxes with an arrow in the middle.  When you click on the icon, it opens your compose mail window into a window of its own.  Then you are free to search your other emails without interfering with your new mail window.

I have been trying to learn more about gmail and google in recent weeks, making myself use gmail as a compiler of all of my email accounts. One of my complaints initially is that when I compose an email, I frequently want to open another email to copy or refer to something. That is a feature I could do with our Willard Web-mail. I just learned that gmail has a feature that lets you pop your mail out into its own window. It is called the "new window" icon and it is located in the upper right hand corner. Simply click the compose new mail button. When the window opens look in the upper right hand corner above the To: box. It is two small boxes with an arrow in the middle. When you click on the icon, it opens your compose mail window into a window of its own. Then you are free to search your other emails without interfering with your new mail window.

_________________________ Bob Andrus, Technology Director Willard R-II School District

I know some of you are using Google to check or "pop" in to get your Willard mail as well.  I do this as well, but always caution people that there is a 10-15 minute lag in the mail being delivered in Google.  Now gmail has built in a "refresh" feature that lets you tell gmail to go check your other accounts.  To activate it, simple open your gmail account, go to settings and then click the labs area in the tabs on the upper right.  Scroll down until you find the item called "Refresh Pop Accounts" and click enable.  Save your settings and you will see a new label in gmail called refresh.

I recently had a conversation with someone that pointed out to me how little most people know about searching.  I agree.  Most people throw in a quick word or phrase and just rely on luck.  Here are some tips from a google cheat sheet to help you get started making better searches  Try some of these in your google search box and see if they make sense:
EXAMPLE...................FINDS PAGES CONTAINING...

vacation hawaii ...............the words vacation and Hawaii

Maui OR Hawaii ...........either the word Maui or the word Hawaii

"To each his own" ..........the exact phrase to each his own

virus-computer ...............the word virus but NOT the word computer

+sock ............................only the word sock, and not the plural or tenses

~auto loan ......................loan info for auto and its synonyms: truck, car, etc

define:computer ............definitions of the word computer from the web

red * blue .......................words red and blue separated by one or more word

I'm feeling lucky ..............takes you directly to first web page returned

For more search tips check out the "explore google search" page.

Have you ever had to fill out a PDF form and your only real choices were to print it out and hand-write the form or use a typewriter.  (Does anybody still have a typewriter?)  Janetta sent me a link to a handy website that will allow you to fill out a pdf form online, download it, and save, print or email it.  The link is simply:
https://www.fillanypdf.com/

I played with it a bit and it works great.  The only stipulation is that it can't be a form with several pages.  I do not know the limit but I had good success with a two page form.  There is even a free-hand pencil tool if you want to try your hand at a signature.

This one is for you Google addicts out there. I love google. It is clearly rewriting the way we do things on a daily basis. Their gmail and google docs are very popular and their search engine is widely used. And don't even get me started on some of the neat concepts and ideas in google labs. But did you know that if you are have a gmail account / google account, then google tracks your information such as search history? I read an article the other day about a new feature in Google called google dashboard. Sure enough, I can go back and look at my search history - when logged into gmail- for the past 2 and 1/2 years! I guess it is a useful feature if I wanted to look back at something I had searched for, but I am not sure why I couldn't just search again. I guess it is useful if you are worried that someone is using your computer to look up inappropriate subjects. But I couldn't help feeling just a bit "invaded" when I learned that they were tracking my history. Something about seeing exactly what I was reading in April, 2007 makes me paranoid.

I recently attended a mini-conference on some of the seldom used "neat" features of google. Did you know google would do these things?

• To see the weather for many U.S. and worldwide cities, type "weather" followed by the city and state, U.S. zip code, or city and country.
• To see current market data for a given company or fund, type the ticker symbol into the search box. On the results page, you can click the link to see more data from Google Finance.
• To see the time in many cities around the world, type in "time" and the name of the city.
• To see scores and schedules for sports teams type the team name or league name into the search box. This is enabled for many leagues including the National Basketball Association, National Football League, National Hockey League, and Major League Baseball.
• To use Google's built-in calculator function, simply enter the calculation you'd like done into the search box.

To learn more about some of the neat features built into google (such as restaurant and movie find, populations, measurement conversions, etc. - click on the link.