How to backup your student’s files

As the end of the year is closing in, I would like remind all parents and students that we’ll be erasing and wiping the data off of the computers to prepare them for a fresh install for the next school year.

Please review the how-to videos linked to below if you want to archive and backup any of the data before turning in the laptops.

Clean Up Your Mac
http://gallery.me.com/gbusch6/100194

Backup to DVD media
http://gallery.me.com/gbusch6/100223

Backup iTunes
http://gallery.me.com/gbusch6/100209

Backup Movies
http://gallery.me.com/gbusch6/100208

Backup iPhoto
http://gallery.me.com/gbusch6/100210

Please use the download link to allow you and your students to watch these videos offline.

In the videos, I refer to using an external hard drive, if you don’t have an external hard drive you can find them at most electronic retail stores like Best Buy, Radio Shack, Fry’s etc. We will be offering hard drives for sale at the beginning of next school year at special pricing along with other accessories, however we will not be able to coordinate an order at this time. You other option is to use DVD media and you can follow my video on how to burn to blank DVD media.

Here is a link to the recommended external drive we purchased earlier this year for backup.

Iomega eGo Mac Edition
http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-FireWire-Portable-External-34649/dp/B002BWOO1G/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1273692022&sr=1-4

Making the switch to Mac

I found a great article online that I wanted to pass along for those of you that are making the switch to Mac from Windows. If you have already made the switch you can learn some things in the series as well.

Switchers Guide: Moving from Windows to the Mac (source — MacWorld.com article written by Harry McCracken)

 

 

Dropbox – Swiss Army Knife of Storage

Link to my quick overview of Dropbox. Hosted on my personal Dropbox account.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/105881/Dropbox_-_Swiss_Army_Knife_of_Storage/index.html

For more information go to, http://www.getdropbox.com

 

USB Headsets – Setting up on the Mac

Click on the Tutorial link on the right and view a step by step how-to to get it setup right for use with Keynote, iMovie and other programs that you wish to record audio using the built in microphones on USB headsets.

Or click here.

1-to-1 Year Two: Lessons learned

I’m looking forward to year two of our 1-to-1 laptop initiative at Salem. Now that I have had some experience with managing over 450 laptops and desktops it has made me more aware of those things everyone needs to know and spend more time doing.

Back Me Up Please...

The first is backup. I can’t say it enough and you will all get tired of me talking about it this year, but I have horror and success stories to prove that it is very important. The great thing is backup is now no longer difficult and time consuming. Since moving to the Mac platform 100%, we are now able to discuss backup strategies that can be applied universally to all. I’m planning on releasing a couple of how-to videos on backup using your Macs soon.
The second is maintenance. I have now seen all the computers come back this summer and I’d say over half are in pretty bad shape. It is more than the physically worn and dirty condition, which is to be expected with white Macbooks. I’m seeing an chaotic mess of files with no organization.

Remember my previous post about cluttered desktops?

I will also be looking to show you how to keep organized. If your are disorganized after only one year of work on your laptop imagine what it will look like in 2 more years?

Keep posted here over the next couple of months as I will give you the tools and ideas that will hopefully make your digital life more secure(backed up) and organized.

Managing my life with Evernote

I don’t know about you, but I find myself spending much of my time organizing and reorganizing notes either on my computer or on paper. I’m copying and pasting into stickies or to-do notes, but often times I’m in a place away from my computer, so I can’t recall that to-do list or information I needed to remember.

I’ve started using this awesome app called “Evernote” and it really has changed how I look at organizing my work and personal information. Go to www.evernote.com to check out this unbelievable free tool to get yourself organized.

Evernote goes beyond the typical note and to-do applications that are on your computer. As they put it on their website,

Remember everything.

Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere. Did we mention that it’s free?

The fact is you can capture and input virutally anything: tasks and to-dos, notes and research, web pages, whiteboards, business cards, scribbles, snapshots, and even twitter messages. There are many was to get stuff into Evernote besides typing into a text window like drag-n-drop, web clipping, email, record audio and scan directly into Evernote.

The thing though that makes this app really powerful and flexible is that you can install this app on many different devices. The information you input & capture is instantly synchronized to all the different devices you have installed Evernote on. If you have a Windows PC, a Mac desktop or laptop, and a smartphone (iPhone, Windows Mobile more soon) you will be able to access all your stuff from any of these devices. You can even create a public notebook and share your stuff with others.

The uses of an app like this are limited only to your imagination, but you could use it as a study tool, recipe organizer, receipt tracker, and even a portable travel guide.

There is a paid version which removes any of the adds you see in the desktop version and allows you to sync and upload any file from your computer. Pretty cool and not too expensive at $45 a year.

Mac running slow?

There are some common reasons why your Mac can run slower than it does normally. I will list a few top ones here and also point you to a couple webpages that give a more comprehensive list of potential things that cause your Mac to run slower.

• Cluttered Desktop

Having too many files and folders on your desktop can slowdown your machine. Put the free floating files into folders in your home directory instead.

• Too Many Widget running in the background

Every widget uses up a little bit of memory. This can add up to a whole lot of system resources being used on little applications you aren’t using. Remove any widgets that you aren’t using often or at all.

Go to the following link to see all of these and more reasons why your Mac is running slower.

17 reasons why your mac is so unbelievably slow

RSS in Mail and Organizing RSS

RSS in Mail and Organizing RSS

Trying to find a better way to manage all that information out there on the internet. Are you trying to keep up with all your teacher’s blogs, news and other websites?

You can get a handle on all that information and get it to show up in one place. Here are a  couple quick videos done by Apple that show you how to subscribe to the RSS feeds and have them show up in Apple’s Mail program.

RSS in Mail
http://www.apple.com/business/theater/#tutorial=organizingrss

Organizing RSS
http://www.apple.com/business/theater/#tutorial=rssinmail

If you want to learn more about RSS, here is a link to a great explanation of what exactly it is and why you should use it: http://www.whatisrss.com/

Quick way to pull contact information from an email – Mac OS X

Quick Technology Tips
by your “IT GUY,” Greg Busch

If you are new to the Mac and are use to using Microsoft’s email programs like Outlook and Entourage, then you are not used to my email and contacts apps being separate, like Mail and Address Book. It’s easy to send contact info from Mail to Address Book though with no copying and pasting required.

First, mouse over a name or email address in the From or To line of a message header—it’ll be highlighted in blue, with a white arrow to the right. Click that arrow for a menu, and choose Add To Address Book (see pic).

Address Book will open in case you want to add more information to the contact’s card, or file the card in a group, but you can ignore the Address Book window for now and stay in Mail.

Now, what if the contact info you want isn’t in the header, but in the body of the email, or in the signature?  Just mouse over a name, phone number, or email address, and Mail will draw a gray dotted line around it, with a gray arrow to the right. Click that arrow for a menu and select Create New Contact, or Add To Existing Contact. If it doesn’t show a gray dotted line around it try simply right-clicking on the info (see pic).

Creating a voiceover in Garageband ’09

I have created a step by step tutorial to show you how to create a voiceover in Garageband that can be used in various other projects, like a Keynote presentation or simply shared on your blog.

Here is the PDF file: create-voiceover-in-garageband