Help! I'm Not a Geek

Helpful tips for using the iPad

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 15:12:00 +0000

I just came across this helpful post with 50 tips for using your iPad.

http://appsineducation.blogspot.com/2011/04/50-really-useful-ipad-2-tips-and-tricks.html

It was written by Gregory Swanson and he says, "An absolute gem of an article by John Brandon and Graham Barlow from MacLife on 30th March over at TechRadar"

Changing the Language on Your Computer

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 15:11:00 +0000

Computers allow you to change all sorts of things in order to make them easier for you to use. Each thing that you change only changes SOME of the programs on your computer.

This post will at least show you where to go to change the language. Knowing that it can be done is the first step.

You may need to go into each of the programs that you want to use and change the language that it uses. The way this is done varies with each program, but there are a few things that are the same. The instructions below should get you started. As usual, if you have anything to add to what is here please put a comment so that we can all learn from each other.

ON A MAC
On a Mac all of the controls are in the System Preferences.

The best place to find these is to click on the Apple at the top corner of the screen. On my computer it is black, but it can also be a rainbow apple.
Look for the word System Preferences in the window that comes down.
When you choose System Preferences you will see that in the top row you have a choice called Languages and Text.

When you open this up it will give you lots of choices for how you want your computer to communicate to you.
Down below that you will see something called "Universal Access". This is where you can change the size of the font and the color of the screen. You can also make it so that your computer talks to you and change the speed of the keyboard and the mouse.

3. On the top row is a button called Languages and Text. Click on this to set the main language for your computer to use.

4. Once you have clicked on it you can drag the language you want your computer to show to the top of the list. You can also change several other things that have to do with language here, like what characters show up when you type or what format is shown for money or time.

On this blog there is an arrow on the top right that lets me change the language that it shows up in and it changes right away.

ON A PC

On a PC all of the set up items are found in the Control Panel. Click on the Start Button or picture of windows on the bottom left corner. On the right side you will see the words Control Panel.

In this window you will be able to change the LOCATION which tells the computer that you are in a different country. Your time will change on the clock. Then you can choose the tab at the top of the page Keyboards and Languages. Here you can choose to change the default language for input.

When you open the Control Panel one of the choices is Clock, Language and Region.

Click on that choice and then choose Region and Language.

Once you have set your main languages there is a language bar that shows up at the top and you can switch back and forth.

When I changed the language settings on my computer it seemed to change the languages on most of the webpages in Internet Explorer.

It also changed the way that words showed up in the controls of my computer.

Happy Halloween

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:09:00 +0000

Today I am just writing a quick post to wish you a Happy Halloween and remind you that there are all sorts of fun virtual ways to enjoy the holiday.

The picture in this post is a pumpkin carving I made a few years ago. It is easy to go online and find a pattern for a pumpkin that you can print out and then transfer to a pumpkin and carve.

Here are some sites for doing that:

http://www.zombiepumpkins.com/

http://www.bhg.com/halloween/pumpkin-carving/printable-pumpkin-stencils/

http://www.rd.com/slideshows/12-free-printable-pumpkin-carving-stencils/2/

Then if you don't like the mess there are sites where you can virtually carve a pumpkin:

http://spookathon.com/halloween/pumpkin-carver.php

http://www.abcya.com/pumpkin_carving.htm

http://www.methodshop.com/games/play/pumpkin-carve/index.shtml

And then there are apps for your iPhone and/or iPad!

http://gigaom.com/apple/use-your-iphone-or-ipad-to-carve-a-cooler-pumpkin/

Editing Toolbars in Microsoft Word

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 15:46:00 +0000

I often use my favorite tool (word wrapping ) when creating a document. It allows me to line up text to images in the way that I want them to look. It is in the picture toolbar. I find it by going to VIEW-TOOLBARS-PICTURE. It is part of the picture toolbar, but did not show up most of the time when I used MS Word. I had to click on the little arrow at the end of the toolbar that let me know that there were MORE tools and then find it.

Today I decided that there must be a way to edit the toolbar so that I don't have to look for the wrap text tool every time. There must be a way that I can add it to the toolbar where I can see it all of the time. I did find out how:

1. Click on VIEW-TOOLBARS and choose CUSTOMIZE.

2. A window opens. Click on the top where it says COMMAND.

3. When the COMMAND window is open you can drag and drop tools from the list of tools right to the menu OR drag tools off of the menu on the toolbar and they disappear.

4. In the Customize window you will see two choices. First is the Categories. When you click on each category a new list of commands appears on the right side.

5. It took a while, but I found the word wrap tool under the category of Drawing. I was then able to drag it right onto the toolbar where I wanted it to be!

BEFORE

AFTER

I have a lot of tools on the toolbar that I never use, so I would like to drag them off and then I have tools that I use often and I want them to be easy to find. Here is the before and after pictures of my toolbar!

It is amazing how many tools there are! So many possibilities!

BONUS INFORMATION

One added tip: You can resize and move your toolbars anywhere you want on your computer screen, so that they are best for you. You just need to be able to drag two different things.

This is the bottom corner blown up so you can see it better.

1. The right bottom corner, which looks like a folded corner-look for the three little diagonal lines.

2. The left side bar. The side bar always has a circle at the top and what looks like little dots under it.

3. To make the bar into a long skinny bar that you can put on the left or right side of your screen drag the corner until it is a line and then drag the top until it is where you want it to show up.

You can delete a toolbar by putting your arrow on top of the circle. It will turn red and then you click.

If a toolbar is missing you can choose VIEW> TOOLBARS and look for the toolbar that you want to show up and it will reappear.

Updating your iPhone to IOS5

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 17:57:00 +0000

Today when I went to sync my iPhone it told me that I needed to update to IOS5. There are a lot of changes in this version, so I though I had better do it. I said yes and it began doing whatever it does when it updates and syncs. I continued working on the computer to get some things done that I needed to do. When I looked back at my phone it looked like it had synced, but when I went to iTunes on the computer it said,"An error occurred while backing up this iPhone (-5000). I went back to check my phone. It looked OK, but when I tried to open on of my games nothing happened (a black screen).

It is such a horrible feeling when this happens. But I kept having to remind myself that everything was still on my computer because I have been syncing often. Even if it was not on my computer right now I have been doing regular back ups of my computer, so I could restore the data from a back up in the past. (REMINDER-Have you been backing up what you have on your computer to an external hard drive?) It is hard not to feel panicked though!

When a sync goes wrong you can always choose RESTORE to restore your iPhone to the state when you got it. This will empty everything off of your phone, but remember it is still all on your computer. I clicked on Restore once and it seemed to get stuck again. So, I looked online. I have learned that you can find help for almost anything by typing it into a Google Search. I typed "problems with iphone update 5" into the search box and found this link http://www.zdnet.com/blog/storage/beware-the-ios-5-update/1553 The article described the same thing that had happened to me. That made me feel a little better. Reading it gave me the courage to try RESTORE again. This time it worked like it was supposed to. After the iPhone is restored I then chose to SYNC so that it put my calendar, contacts, and especially my apps back onto the iPhone. It is now all working again.

Dropbox-A great way to collaborate

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 22:27:00 +0000

For the last few weeks I have been working with someone from a distance and we have been sharing files in such a great way! Dropbox is a program that you can download to your computer, iPhone, Blackberry, Android or iPad. It creates what looks like another Folder or Drive on your device. It is a place where you can put files that you want to share with someone else OR that you just want to be able to access in more than one location on more than one computer. You can even go to a computer you have never used and log into Dropbox online to access all of your files.

My friend and I were trying to figure out how she could share a bunch of photos, that we had agreed I would resize and crop, with me. There were a lot of photos and we wanted to start out with the largest sizes we could so that the quality was good. First she copied them all onto a thumb drive and I tried to put them onto my computer, but we had some problems. Either the thumb drive was not good or it was because she is working on a PC and I work on a Mac. So, we decided to try Dropbox as a way to share files. Here is how it works:

1. My friend uploaded all of the pictures into the SHARED folder in her Dropbox.

2. She invited me to share the files with her. I got an email and accepted.

3. Now when I open my shared folder the folder that she uploaded there appears. I can access all of the pictures that she sent me and work on them.

4. I edit the pictures for her and then put them in other folders inside the folder that we are sharing. She can access them and let me know if they are OK or what else needs to be done on them.

It is amazing and easy!

p.s. You remember 'the cloud' that everyone talks about? Well, that is how this works. The files in the dropbox are actually stored on a server (computer) somewhere and by sharing that folder more than one person can access it OR you can get your files from any computer that has WiFi access.

Addition to Printing Address Labels

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 19:21:00 +0000

The recent post about printing address labels was from Eileen. She came to me and said that my response was nice, but I didn't understand what she wanted. She wanted to print a DIFFERENT picture next to each address.

Well, I am not sure if the following information is helpful or not. With the Mac Address Book you can assign an image to each of your contacts. I usually try to take pictures of people that I add into my address book so I have both their picture and their information. You could just as easily put pictures of different flowers or anything you want for each person. The address book will allow you to print a LIST (not labels) which has those pictures showing right next to their phone numbers. For this list each person has their own picture.

When you set it up you have a choice of what information to display. My computer started by just showing the phone numbers, but I was able to add the address, email, and birthdays. There are a lot of other choices. You can see an example on the side. These pictures are tied to the information and so if you delete one of your contacts the image is also deleted. See the link above for more detailed information about creating this. The main thing to remember is the word PRINT! You have to choose that before you can set anything up.

Merge Labels for Holiday Letters with Pictures

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 18:09:00 +0000

I just learned something REALLY cool about making address labels with pictures with a Mac. It is really easy using the built in Address Book.

1. Make sure that all of the addresses you want to print labels or envelopes for are listed in your Address Book.

2. Open your Address Book and hold down command as you click on the names of the people that need address labels or envelopes.

3. Now you do something that does NOT make sense, but works. You go to FILE>PRINT this is at the top of the screen on the left side.

4. A small window opens up and seeing it you may think that nothing has really happened! Click on the down triangle next to the name of your printer and the window will open up!

5. Now you should see a place where you can set up your labels to look the way you want them to. You could also choose just to print envelopes, lists or an address book.

6. You can change the font of the label, put a picture on it, and the picture of the font.

7. Choose the layout that you need to have. The program has all of the Avery Labels listed, so you can just look at your box of labels to see what number you need to put in.

When it is all set up all you have to do is to press PRINT!

Really cool! I may do Christmas Cards after all.

Basic Email with Gmail

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 22:44:00 +0000

This next week I will be working with some people who are really new to using technology and want to learn how to do email. I prepared a handout for them and so I thought I would share it here also.

EMAIL BASICS

STEP-BY-STEP GUIDE TO EMAILING

We are going to use GMAIL as an example since most email works about the same way. There will be some differences in the way your email looks and works if you use something else.

GETTING STARTED

1. Go to http://gmail.com

2. If you have a Google account you can just log in. If you do not have an account you have to choose to create one by clicking on the red button at the top right. Creating one is free.

3. Fill in the form that comes up.

You will often see something like this strange word when you are creating an account for something online. If you can type in the letters it means that you are a human with eyes and a brain and not just a computer. If you cannot read the letters you can try your best and it will give you a second chance with a different word OR click on the handicapped sign and hear the letters.

All of this ONLY HAS TO BE DONE ONCE!! Now you have an email account. You should write down your email address and password and keep it somewhere that you will remember.

SENDING A MESSAGE

1. Click on the button on the left side that says COMPOSE MAIL.

2. Type the email address of the person you want to write to in the space that says TO. Gmail can also keep all of your contacts, so if you have entered some into it you can click on TO and a list will appear. You can just click on the person you want to write to.

3. Give your message a subject-this is usually a few words describing the content.

4. In the big box type your message.

5. Press SEND. If you do not want to send it you can choose SAVE or DISCARD.

6. Unfinished email is always kept in the folder called DRAFTS, so if you started one and were not able to finish look there.

All of your sent mail is saved in the SENT MAIL box. This is great if you are not sure if you emailed someone or not or if they want you to send something again that they lost.

READING EMAIL

When you open your email program the first thing you should see is your INBOX. This is the place where all new email goes. Your INBOX shows you who it is from, the subject line in the message and the date that it came in.

New messages are in BOLD. To read you just click on the message and it opens up. After reading a message you can

· ARCHIVE it-save it, but out of the INBOX. To see it I must go to ALL MAIL.

· Put it in the SPAM folder by clicking the word SPAM - spam is mail that you do not want to get. The program learns what you put into your SPAM folder and blocks future emails for you.

· DELETE it-If you are done with this message forever you can delete it. The message is findable for a month or so and then is deleted completely from the server.

· REPLY-When a message there is a REPLY button on the top right side. Click on this and a new message screen pops up with the message you are answering quoted at the bottom. You can just reply the same way that you send mail.

ATTACHMENTS

Sometimes email that you receive has one attachment or more. An attachment is a separate file that someone has sent you. It is usually a photograph or a document they want to share with you.

Attachments you receive will show up on the bottom of the message. You can click to View them or you can Download them or save them.

You will know that you have an attachment because it will have a paperclip next to the message when it is in your inbox.

If you have something that you want to attach to an email you are writing here are the steps:

1. Write the email.

2. Click on Attach a File, which is just below the area where you wrote the Subject of the message.

3. This will open a window that will allow you to find the file you want to send on your computer. In this example I have saved something to my desktop so that it is easy to find.

IMPORTANT TIPS

If you type your email in all CAPS it means you are yelling!
Since you do not have facial features or gestures to see email can often be misunderstood. Reread what you write and make sure it is clear.
Only forward email to people that you know might be interested in the content. Too many people forward "cute" things to everyone in their mailbox.
There are many places on the Internet where you can get keyboard codes that mean that you are smiling :-) sticking out your tongue :-P and many other things.

All email works about the same way. Here is a simplification:

1. You send email to a friend.

2. The email you sent goes to another computer, a server.

3. Your message is relayed to your friend. Now when they open their email program your message will be there.

Replying works the same way

4. Your friend reads your message and types a reply. It goes to the cloud

5. The cloud (server) sends it on to you.

There are two ways that people do email: OFFLINE OR ONLINE

OFFLINE: you are using a program in your computer. When you turn on your computer and go to that program all of the messages that have come in since you last checked are automatically put in your list right from the cloud.

ONLINE: If you do your email online you are actually connecting to the cloud directly. If you use Yahoo, GMAIL or Hotmail this is what is happening.

The main advantage of doing your email OFFLINE is that even though you have to be online in order to download your mail you can read and write even when the Internet is not working. As soon as your computer connects to the Internet again your email will be sent. If you do your email only ONLINE there is no way to access it or to write email if the Internet is down.

5 Tips for Frustrated Teachers

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 19:58:00 +0000

We are starting into October and school has been going a while. My teacher friends are tired and stressed. Using technology is tough when you are feeling that way. Here are a few tips:

Here are five tips for dealing with classroom technology

ENHANCE YOUR LESSONS: Only use technology when it enhances or adds something of value to your lessons. If students are writing book reports have them record their voices and listen to themselves while editing what they have written. Technology should not distract from learning. PowerPoint can be a good example of this. It can be more of a distraction from what the students really need to be learning than an enhancement. The bells and whistles can detract from what is important to learn.
ALWAYS HAVE A PLAN B: Make sure that you can easily go back to the non technology way of doing things if the network is down or if all of the laptops seem to be acting up. (Also trust your kids, sometimes it is easy for them to figure out something that seems impossible to you.)
BABY STEPS: Every school year take on at least one challenge for yourself in using technology. You do not have to teach every subject and every lesson with technology, but you do need to keep stretching yourself and using more.
LEARN FROM EACH OTHER: Collaboration is the key with using technology. Learn from what other teachers in your school are doing or if there is no one else in your school or grade level sign on to Twitter and find like-minded teachers to learn from in 140 characters or less!
DON’T FORCE IT: I have learned the hard way that if something is not working it is much better to just quit, relax and try it again later when I am not feeling frustrated. OFTEN things work the second time after I and the computer have cooled down.

Not only are you being irresponsible as a teacher if you are not using technology, you are also hurting yourself. I know many teachers who were ready to quit, but technology brought new life into their teaching. Try it! It can be fun!

Thanks to http://www.seemsartless.com/index.php?pic=1565 for the photo.

Help! I keep getting email (notifications) from Facebook!

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 19:49:00 +0000

I just got a request from a very supportive reader who has a Facebook account, but does not use it too much. She keeps getting emails (notifications) about her account that are mainly meant to get her to use Facebook more. She wants that to stop. Here are the step by step instructions:

1. Go to http://facebook.com and log in to your account.

2. In the top right corner click on the triangle to open the menu where you can choose Account Settings.

3. Now in the top right side you will see a menu and choose Notifications.
4. This is where you can control what Facebook notifies you about.

My supporter got this message, so she should go to the Facebook notifications and make sure that there are no checkmarks next to photo tags, pokes, or friend requests and the messages will stop coming.

For most people it is good to get some notifications because it lets you know when other people tag you in a photo or connect to you in some way or another. I always like to know if I am tagged in a photo so that I can ask my friend to take it down if I do not like it.

I have my Facebook set so that it just sends me a digest of summary notifications instead of individual notifications for each thing. It seems to work for me.

Virus Anxiety and Internet Security

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 23:01:00 +0000

If you have ever thought you had a virus on your computer you understand the anxiety and confusion that it can bring. I will attempt in this post to make things a tiny bit clearer for you so that the next time this happens you will feel more confident dealing with it.

VIRUS PROTECTION

A virus is a computer illness that can be passed from computer to computer through the network. Sometimes viruses are malicious, someone created them to mess something up. Sometimes they get into your computer and use your information (Like sending email out to all of your friends in your name). The most important thing you can do is to have a VIRUS protection program running on every machine that you use, especially if you have a PC. But a virus protection program is no good if you have not set it up to download the new virus definitions regularly and to run through your computer on a regular basis. There are new viruses created every day and so it is impossible to install something one time and then be done with it.

GET A VIRUS PROTECTION PROGRAM

There are several very common virus protection programs available. Some of the best known are Norton, McAfee, and AVG, but there are many others. They all work in similar ways. After you buy the software you continue to pay a smaller monthly or quarterly fee and every day at a time you set up, all of the new virus definitions are downloaded. The next time you run your virus protection it will find any problems. You can set it up to automatically get rid of the viruses it finds. It creates a report so that you can see what it has done. You can run it in the background and do other things, but it may slow down your computer. You can also run it at a certain time when you are not using your computer (midnight), but you have to leave the computer ON and connected to the Internet.

AVG has a free version which is simpler, but is often used by nonprofit organizations that do not have money to purchase a full protection program. Each of the other programs does many other things, so when you are looking for one to purchase you should compare them. Look at a comparison site like: http://anti-virus-software-review.toptenreviews.com/ the different programs are listed in a chart and you can see what is the same and different about them. They all work, so choose one that seems the most helpful and affordable to you.

BEST ADVICE
1. Never click on links that are sent to you in email! The link on the email may actually take you somewhere different than it says because it just connects to code in the background which you do not see. You can go to the Internet and type the URL that you see into the Location bar.
2. REGULARLY back up everything that is on your computer so that if the worst happens and you lose everything on that computer you will have a back up and can start over.
3. Keep your virus protection program up to date.
4. If your computer gets a virus relax and expect that it will be a hassle and take some time, but it will be resolved. Hopefully you have Virus Protection installed and active, so you can just call the 800 number if you need help.
5. Do not pass on hoaxes (see below)

THE 800 NUMBER VOCABULARY
Once you have a Virus Protection program your best friend is the 800 number. There are so many different things that can happen that it is difficult to cover them all here. If you have the phone number handy you can call and get help when you need it. I was recently helping out a Child Development Center with a laptop that they had. I just could not figure out how to make the Virus Program (AVG) that I had downloaded work correctly. I used the 800 number and even though I did not understand every word that the person from the Philippines was telling me I was able to follow their direction and eventually it all worked!

What often happens in cases like this is that the help desk person uses vocabulary that is new to you and so it is very difficult to understand what they are trying to say. Additionally, customers often say things like "my computer is broken" and so the help desk person has very little to go on when trying to help. I am starting to keep a vocabulary sheet that I will post as an attachment on the right side of the blog. Here are today's words:

malware - short for malicious software. Software that gets onto your computer and does bad things. Malware is the larger term for virus, worm, trojans, and spyware.
virus - a small program or script that does something bad to your computer.
hacker - someone who "hacks" or gets into computers by getting passwords or creating programs
worm - a type of virus that replicates itself in your computer causing problems
trojan horse - viruses that masquerade as regular programs like games, but do damage.
system software or files - the programs that make your computer work.
operating system - They system that makes your program work. Examples are Mac OSX, Tiger, Lion, Windows XP, and Windows 2007.
version number - You may be asked what version you are using of the anti virus software or of the computer. The person helping you should be able to explain how to find this out.
firewall - A system designed to prevent unauthorized access to a private network. You probably do not need this for a home computer, but they are regularly used for public places. A firewall is just like a wall that keeps people from accessing things.
Internet Security vs. Virus Protection- Virus protection programs are limited to keeping viruses from getting onto your computers, but there are also programs that offer Internet security. Internet security refers to protection from identity theft while using the internet and many other things.

Start-Run - You may be asked to go to START and choose RUN. Run will open up a black window with white letters. This is programming language and you can type into this area and make things happen. The tech person helping you will tell you what to type. One example is cmd which means command and tells the computer what to do
spyware - a program put onto your computer without your knowledge that sends out information about what you do on your computer.
Phishing - The act of sending email to someone that looks legitimate and causes them to click on a link or reply to the message. This is used to get people to surrender private information that is used for Identity Theft.

EMOTIONAL STATE
If you are sure that your computer has a virus the first thing to do is to relax about it. There is nothing that anxiety will solve and it can make you prone to bad decision making. If you are very frustrated it is best to set your computer aside and do other things for a few hours and then go back to it. Most likely you will have to be on the phone with someone in the Philippines for hours trying to explain what is happening and maybe understanding only a fraction of what they say to you. You WILL succeed and things will clear up. Just do not expect it to be quick or easy.

HOAXES
If you are like me, you regularly get notes from friends telling you of urgent things that you need to do. Maybe it is sending a note to someone to cheer them up. Maybe it is clicking on a link. Maybe it is just warning you that something horrible will be happening in the next week. Sometimes these are legitimate, but other times they are hoaxes which float around for years and years on the internet. You can find out by going to a website that keeps up with all of the hoaxes that are out there and researches them to find out what is true. Always make a point of going to one of these sites to be sure that what you have received is legitimate before doing what it says or sending it on to other friends.

Snopes.com - http://www.snopes.com/snopes.asp

Hoax Slayer - http://www.hoax-slayer.com/

A fun place to learn about hoaxes through out history is the Museum of Hoaxes: http://www.museumofhoaxes.com

The Museum of Hoaxes has a Test to see if you can recognize a Hoax photo.
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/tests/hoaxphototest.html

So you want to make a webpage?

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 20:08:00 +0000

The coolest thing just happened. All day I have been planning on writing this blog post about creating your own website. I have been looking into iWeb and some other things and I decided to take a break and look at my Facebook. There was a message from my friend Sandy from Alaska!! She needs help creating a web page for the Salmon Filet business that she and her husband run. So, now I have a REAL reason to research and write! I love that!!

Sandy says that she does not want to put lots of time and money into a website, but needs one that will "mainly be just a place for people who hear word of mouth and want to be sure we are a real company to be trusted. Suspect all we will need to do is have up some pictures, contact and company information and a paypal link. (Maybe also a guestbook and "hit counter".)"

I was just at the Austin Women's Entrepreneurial Luncheon and the advice given there was to hire someone to design your site. The successful women that spoke to us said that a well designed website is worth every penny. It should be a content management system so that you can update and change it yourself after the design is done. I am sure that this is great advice for most new businesses. A designer is an artist and it can make a huge difference in the impression that people have of your business.

However, I know there are lots of reasons for designing your own and it is easier than ever, so I am going to do a quick review of some website software and online possibilities and I hope it will answer that question and maybe more.

BACKGROUND

a server

Knowing just a little about how webpages work will help you with the decision of how you want to make one. A web page is just a bunch of files, including pictures that are on a SERVER.

A server is just a computer, like the one you have, but it probably has more memory and some software to make it act differently than yours.

When you make a webpage you usually work on your own computer to create the website and then when it is done put it on the server so that other people can see it. As long as it is on your own computer other people cannot see it at all. A webpage has a URL, or address that lets you know where to find it called a Domain Name.

So there are three things that you need to have a working webpage:
1. A program on your computer to help you design the page.
2. A server to put the webpage on so that other people can see it.
3. A Domain Name or address for the page.

Luckily NOW there are lots of ways that you can make your own webpage without having to have your own server or even your own domain name. The sites that I share about below all offer FREE versions, but if you want to put your own Domain Name onto the page there is a way to pay a little bit and do it.

Wix.com says that you can create a website with no programming, just drag and drop! There are lots of templates to choose from and examples of what others have done. All you have to do is to go to this page and choose "START NOW" and you can make your page. You can use Wix for free or pay for a Premium website. A premium website includes your own Domain Name, good support services and premier hosting. Even with the free site your site will be hosted on their servers. Your Domain Name will be at www.wix.com/(your choice of name).
Sample site: http://www.wix.com/janic55/Imnotageek

Google Sites was not as easy as wix.com for me. You go to http://sites.google.com and sign in and then you choose CREATE SITE. You can choose among the templates that they provide. After that there are LOTS of choices. I found that I was frustrated with how to do certain things. It was not clear to me and when I clicked on things they took me to unexpected places. I think that taking some time I will be able to make a page looking about what I want it to look like, but it will take more time than I want to spend right now. Here is a link to the little I was able to accomplish on this page. I am sure it could be much better.
https://sites.google.com/site/sample2imnotageek/

Wordpress is what many new pages on the internet are made with. There are two versions of Wordpress. One is Wordpress.org and it is the open source code so that you can create your own Wordpress site. I am sure that this is the best way to go, but it was intimidating to me. I went to Wordpress.org and downloaded the files and then I was sort of stuck. For this version you need to have your own hosting space, so that after you create the page on your computer you can upload it to the web somewhere.

For a recent project I decided to use Wordpress.com. It is the version of Wordpress that is connected to webspace. You can create a page here for FREE. It will be named http://(your choice).wordpress.com and will be kept on the Wordpress.com server. If you want to use your own Domain Name you can pay a little and Wordpress can use that name instead of the name with wordpress.com. They can actually sell you the Domain Name. Wordpress.com has templates that you can choose and then guides you through changing those templates so that they look how you want them to. Here is an example of a site using Wordpress.com http://austinmennonite.org

There are other softwares for creating websites and even a free one (Kompozer) that I know of, but I am not going to take more time or space talking about them now. I just want to end with a little advice.

1. Think FIRST about what you want your page to look like and what you want to have on your page. Collect all of the graphics first.

2. Make sure that you put the most important information RIGHT on the front page because often people do not click beyond that and may miss what is really important to you.

3. Try things and then preview to see if you like them. NOTHING is permanent. If you don't like something you can change it. Some times I don't know what something does when I click on it, so I will click on it to see. If it changes something I don't like I know I can go back and fix it, but I have learned.

Finally, remember the advice from the beginning: A good website is worth paying for. Especially if you are in business your website should communicate with people so that they want your product. It is worth hiring a designer to create a page that will work for you.

Starting a Business? Get a Digital Footprint. Today-Facebook Ads

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 15:06:00 +0000

Last Friday I attended the Women's Entrepreneurial Luncheon. There I heard about and met many women who are at different stages in starting businesses. The panel of speakers recommended several things that relate to technology use. They mentioned knowing both Excel and Powerpoint especially in terms of communicating with Lenders about the plans for the business. They talked about the importance of having a professional looking website and an online presence. Facebook, Twitter and reading blogs were mentioned. It really emphasized for me how much things have changed.

So, this post will focus on Facebook Ads step by step.

I. HAVING A DIGITAL FOOTPRINT
You all know what a footprint is, but you may not have thought about having a digital footprint. This is an imprint of what people can find out about you online. If you Google my name (Janice Friesen) you can find out a lot about me. Most of it is stuff that I have intentionally put online. I recently searched for one of my customers and found out wonderful things about his life and the things he has done.

Your company digital footprint should be something that shows you in a good light and lets your customers know what you want them to know about you. Facebook is just one part of that digital foot print. You do not even need to have a personal Facebook account in order to create a business page or ad.

II. THE FIRST PLACE TO GO
There are very clear and helpful directions for how to do this in the Facebook Help Center. To get to that you go to http://facebook.com and then at the bottom of the page click on HELP. You do NOT have to log in.

III. CREATING A FACEBOOK PAGE OR AD FOR YOUR BUSINESS
You can start with a Business Page OR an Ad. A Page is a place where you can communicate to your customers about what you are doing. People can "like" your page, but it does not give them access to your private information or information about others who like the page. When anyone clicks "LIKE", a message about your business is posted to their wall stating that they like your business. You also receive an email about their connection to you and there is a number on the page that shows how many people "like" your business.

Facebook Ads is the next step. It allows you to narrow down where you want your ads to show up, what type of people should see them and how much you want to pay for them. You fill in the form for your Ad with a picture, some text and a link to your business webpage or email. The ad will show up on people's Facebook pages as many times as you have budgeted. I set my first one up saying that I would pay $3 a click for up to $12 a day. I targeted Austin, Texas and chose that it go to everyone who was had not indicated that they "like" I'm not a Geek.com yet. Facebook regularly sent me information on how many "impressions" (how many times it showed up on a page) the Ad had and how much I was spending for clicks. I was surprised to have many people that I do not know LIKING I'm not a Geek.com and actually clicking on the ad. Now I am able to adjust the number of clicks or total amount I want to spend a day so that it better meets the business goals. You can even create an ad with a coupon that people can get by clicking the ad. I am just at the beginning of using this, so I cannot say how effective it will be. There is a very similar Ad feature in Google which will bring your ad up to the top of the search results for Google. There is so much to explore and learn!

P.S. A free addition for my faithful readers. In

First Grade Pirates

honor of Talk Like a Pirate day here is a podcast done last year by some cute First Grade student-pirates.

Setting up a Meeting - The Easy Way!!

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:20:00 +0000

Recently, I had to set up a meeting for five people who have very different life schedules and also ideas about how to spend time. Here in Austin, TX people live pretty far apart and so if a meeting includes some people who live far north and others who live far south it is best to find a time when everyone is already in a central location. Most of the time I have no idea where everyone lives, so I found a great solution. It is called DOODLE.COM.

Doodle is absolutely free! There is a premium version and other options that cost something, but to create a Doodle and send it out doesn't even require a login. All you need to do is to press the button on the front page that says "Schedule an Event". Then you list all of the dates and times that are possible for the meeting and send the URL out to the participants.

When they get the email with the URL it takes them to the site where they can indicate which times work for them. As each one fills in their best times you get email notifying you who has responded. In a short time you can easily see what time is best for the majority of the people and send them a note with the final meeting information! It is SO easy!

One other program that does something similar is EVITE.COM. Evite is a bit more formal and has more information included. On Evite you can create an invitation to an event and people can sign up on a calendar. The best use I have seen of Evite is coordination of meals for someone who has just had a baby or is ill. Without tons of phone calls you can create a calendar that shows what is needed and when it is needed. People can sign up and even indicate exactly what they are bringing or offering to do and so you don't have lots of overlap in people's help.

I think that these two programs are examples of some of the best uses of technology to make our lives easier. Often technology just complicates our lives. It can be frustrating. The learning curve can be steep OR things don't work when you need them to. These two online sites have been reliable and VERY easy to use and saved hundreds of hours.

Google Forms

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:52:00 +0000

Google has a whole suite of programs that you can use online called Google Docs. These are very similar to Microsoft Office that most of us are familiar with, but the saved documents are stored on their server (the cloud!) so that you can access them anywhere. They can also be shared so that more than one person can access, read and edit the document depending on how you set it up.

Today I am going to talk about something called Google Forms because it is so cool and easy to use. Google Forms is similar to Survey Monkey or any other type of survey software. You create a form that can be filled out by other people and then the results are collected in one place and you can manipulate them there.

You must have a Google Account to use Google Forms. Once you have one and have logged in you can choose to create a form.

A window will open up where you can design your own form. The form is fairly self explanatory to fill in. You put in each question or statement, directions for those who are filling it out. Choose a question type and put a check to indicate whether it is required.

Google offers 97 different themes so that you can change the way that your form looks.

Once you have designed your form you can choose to email it to the people who you want to fill it out. A window opens up where you can type in email addresses or choose from the contacts that you already have in your Google Docs account. You can also embed the form into your blog or website so that people who go there can fill it out (see the sample at the bottom of the blog and fill it out if you want to!)

When people fill out the form the results are automatically recorded on a Google Spreadsheet that is tied to the form. They see a window allowing them to go back to the form or to create their own form. The spreadsheet looks like this.

You can pull down the Form menu and choose "summary of responses" to see graphs that summarize your responses. You can also easily put formulas into the spreadsheet to average or sum up any numbers in the responses.

I used this for a contest where judges had to score pictures that students drew. Rather than trying to get everyone together at the same time I set up a form and then routed the pictures to each person. They could record their scores on the form and then I could just average the spreadsheet and get the responses right away!

This is an example of an embedded form. Feel free to fill it out. I will receive the feedback!:
&lt;p&gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;Loading...&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;amp;amp;lt;/p&amp;amp;amp;amp;gt;&lt;/p&gt;

HELP, I've lost my Facebook Password!!

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 14:36:00 +0000

I just got a note from my friend, Ruthie who has lost her Facebook password for some reason. She asked me to help her figure out how to get it.

She had already done the first step that a person should do when they forget a password. On the login page she clicked "forgot your password?" and entered her email address. Shortly after that she received email with a link to set a new password to get into her account. The problem is that when this happened it connected her to an OLD account that she had created by accident. This account was empty, while the other one had 209 friends, photos and lots of messages.

I was not sure how to help her, so I did what I always do and went to the HELP section of the program. I learned lots of things that might be helpful someday:

1. All accounts are connected to an email address. In your Account settings you can put in a back up email address which will allow Facebook to contact you even if your first email address is gone. Having a second email address here is important. I am adding one right now. Even if you have to create a free gmail, hotmail, or yahoo account in order to have a second add a second one do it!

2. Some times accounts are Disabled. There is a whole section on disabled accounts that might be helpful to look at.

3. In extreme cases Facebook has a way that you can Restore your Account through Friends. This still involves communicating with Facebook through a recognized email address. If you can not solve your problem any other way you may want to look at this section. I had a hard time finding it and learned that which words you use is really important. I kept looking for "restore" and could not find it, but when I used "recover" it worked.

4. You can get to the Facebook HELP CENTER even if you are not logged in by going to the bottom of the login page and looking for the small word "help" on the bottom right side.

5. You are not supposed to be able to make more than one account with the same email address. With my email address I made a business page, but it is tied to my Facebook page and acts a little differently. You can also create GROUPS with Facebook to have a password protected space that only certain people can access.

Saving your Photos from Fire Two-Picasa

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 21:30:00 +0000

Picture downloaded from Picasa from Jeremy King

Yesterday we talked about Flickr as one place that you can upload your pictures. Having all your precious photos online somewhere means that they will not be damaged if there is an earthquake, flood or a fire. Today I will talk a little about Picasa.

Picasa works a little differently than Flickr. It actually has two parts. One is a program on your computer and the other is online file space.

You start with Picasa by going to http://picasa.google.com and downloading a copy of the free program. It puts a program on your computer that can automatically look for all of the pictures on your computer and display them into the one program. It does not actually move any of the pictures, but puts a pointer to them so that you can find them all in one place. So far all you have is a program that helps you organize what is already on your computer.

The thing I find most irritating thing about Picasa is that it automatically goes and finds all of your pictures, so when you open it up you see a scrolling window on the bottom left side that automatically finds and categorizes all of the graphics on your computer. You can set it up to only look in certain folders for pictures.

First go to Tools>Folder Manager

In the Folder Manager you can indicate which folders you want Picasa to look for new pictures. Now when you open the program it will only collect and display the new photos you wanted it to find.

Picasa always leaves the original of your photos the same as it was. It is a program for organizing and editing your photos. When you open a picture and do some editing of it the original is not changed and when you save it a second copy is saved so that the original stays the same.

The next thing that you can do with Picasa is to upload your pictures to a web album. This web album works like Flickr. You can choose to upload the pictures you want there and you can make them public or private. The photos that you have not uploaded yourself are NOT on the web and will be destroyed or lost if your computer is damaged.

In order to upload any pictures that you want to save find the picture or folder from the left side menu and at the top of the window that appears choose SHARE. You will be given a choice to share these pictures publicly or privately.

When you have uploaded them you will find them at http://picasaweb.google.com. From here you can either search everyone's public photos with the search at the top of the page or log into your own album. Your online web album also has privacy settings. Here you can allow people to see your images, but not download them or even keep them completely private so that only you can see them when you log in.

Picasa recommends that you make a back up copy of all of your pictures using TOOLS>BACK UP PICTURES in order to be sure that you are actually saving all of the originals. The program automatically resizes the photos when you upload them so that they do not take up too much space. You can set it up so that your original sizes are uploaded, but it will take a lot of room and you may use up space quickly. If you lose your external hard drive in a fire you will be happy to at least have the smaller versions saved.

Because Picasa is a Google program it has a connection to Blogger and so any images that are posted to a blog are also posted in Picasa online. All of the images from this blog can be found in the Picasa album from this blog.

There is some fantastic information here that goes more in depth. https://sites.google.com/site/picasaresources/faq

There is so much more that you can do with either Picasa or Flickr, but this should give you a start saving your precious photos. Picasa is made for editing, organizing, sharing and creating things with your photos.

Save those Photos and other things from Fire

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 19:15:00 +0000

In Austin, Texas this week we are dealing with fires that are out of control. I read somewhere this morning that over 800 houses have burned down. That makes me sad and thoughtful. Two weeks ago my son's apartment in Chicago burned down (http://www.indiegogo.com/Dan-Friesen-Fire-Relief-donation page set up by his brother has links to news articles about the fire). When Dan's apartment burned I did not think about it much. I was concerned more about him and did not apply it to myself. Now that much of Bastrop right outside of Austin is burning I am starting to think about me, especially since it is so smokey outside. What have I done to think about dealing with fire?

There are lots of websites that offer help with what to do in general - http://www.statefundca.com/safety/safetymeeting/SafetyMeetingArticle.aspx?ArticleID=43, but this post is about how technology can help you.

As I write I am backing up my computer. I have a small hard drive that plugs into my computer and keeps a copy of everything I have on it. I think I may start carrying that in my purse. It is very small and has so much information on it. Even if I lose my computer I would still be able to get a new one and put back on it the things that I have stored. Even better much of what I have is actually saved on servers somewhere else. Any time I need to go to a website and log in I am usually saving things on "the cloud" (or actually some computer somewhere). Even if my house burns down and I lose my computer and my hard drive I can still get to those things.

That brings to mind two programs which are extremely helpful: Flickr and Picasa. I will talk about Flickr today and Picasa tomorrow. Both of them are Photo saving websites where you can upload your photos for FREE. If there is a disaster you can still get your pictures back using any other computer.

http://www.flickr.com/
Flickr allows you to upload 300 mb each week for free. When you have gotten to that limit you must wait until the next week to upload or you can pay $25 annually for a pro account. When you upload a picture here the program automatically resizes the file to several different sizes so that it is not too large for the web.

One of the first things you want to do is to set up your privacy settings. After you have logged in you can find this by clicking on your name in the right top corner. You can choose to share your pictures or to make them private. If you make them private they will not show up when someone does a search. There are also very detailed settings in your account where you can allow some photos to show and others not, or maybe allow them to show, but not be copied or printed.

When you open up Flickr you see a greeting in a different language each time! The program starts out on the Home page where you can either go to your Photostream to see all of your pictures or to Upload Pictures or Video where you can do the uploading.

There is a lot you can do with your photos in Flickr which I could talk about on a different post. You can organize them into galleries and sets and you can mark them with lots of information like locations, names of people and tags.

Since the focus of this post is on saving important things in a fire the main thing is this: If you upload your pictures to a site like Flickr can be retrieved.

If something happened with all of your photos they will still be on Flickr. You may want to download another back up copy of all of them. This is not easy to do in the size of the original, but it is possible. If something like that would happen you may need to use a third party piece of software to do the whole download. If you want just a picture at a time it is not a problem.

Tomorrow I will look into Picasa and compare the two. There are other Photo saving and sharing sites so if you know about one that should be mentioned please comment.

Getting Help

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 22:00:00 +0000

Deleting an account in Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:52:00 +0000

I am not having success keeping up with Facebook week. It is Sunday and so far the "week" has been two weeks and I have not been regularly writing. So, this will be the last one for the Facebook series for right now.

There may be other things that you are curious about, so please feel free to give me ideas for future posts! Today I will be talking about getting rid of a Facebook account. What happens when you do not want your account anymore?

If you are thinking that you do not want to use your account any more go into the account settings and choose SECURITY. At the bottom you will see the words "DEACTIVATE YOUR ACCOUNT". When you click on it you have a second chance and Facebook does what it can to try to persuade you into keeping your account active. Even after deactivating your account you can choose to opt in or out of receiving email from Facebook from your friends.

Notice that they say "deactivate" rather than delete or totally shut down. When you do this Your profile is disabled (people cannot look you up) and your name and pictures are removed from anything you have shared. Your profile information and friend lists are saved in case you want to come back. This is often used for people temporarily. You can reactivate your account by logging back into it.

PERMANENT DELETION of your account is a different thing. In order to do this you have to send a request to Facebook to have it done. If you do this you cannot change your mind and come back to your account Information like your name, email address, mailing address, and IM screen name and other personal information is removed from their database.

Another way of dealing with an inactive account is MEMORIALIZING the account. When someone passes away it is possible to leave their account up, but make it inactive as a memorial to that person.

True Confession: Most of this information has come from the Help documents available right at Facebook. You can easily find this type of thing out on your own, but maybe this summary is helpful.

p.s. Another place to look for information about Facebook is on their own Facebook page which can be found by clicking About Us at the bottom of the page or searching for Facebook in the search window. It is so full of information that I am not sure how you find what you want, but it is good to know about. I learned that Oprah is doing a live Facebook show!

Setting up your Facebook Profile

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:07:00 +0000

Your Facebook profile is important because it is what other people see when they come to your page. If you have set your privacy settings they only see what you have allowed, but the people you have given permission to will see your profile.

To get there you click on the word "profile" on the right of the top bar. Now on the top right you will have a choice to EDIT or VIEW your profile. VIEW allows you to see what other people see of your profile so that you can change your privacy settings if you want to.

When you click on Edit Profile you have the chance to change lots of things about your profile.

Basic Information-This is pretty straight forward and has your name, location and statement.

Profile Picture-This is where you can upload a picture from your computer that you want to use for your profile picture. Most people put pictures of themselves on Facebook, but you can put up any picture that you would like to represent you. You can also take a picture if you have a camera on your computer and use that. When you have uploaded a picture click on Edit thumbnail and you will be able to adjust what part of the picture shows up in your profile.

Friends and Family, Education and Work, Philosophy, Arts and Entertainment, Sports, Activities and Interests and Contact Information are all optional. You do not have to fill this all in if you do not want to. Ads on Facebook are targeted and so you will get ads that are closer to your interests if you do fill this in.

For example in my profile it says I am a teacher and so I get an ad about Autism. The ads change every time you go in.

Sometimes the ads relate to things that your friends or family "like". This means that on a page (like I'm not a geek.com) someone has clicked the hand to say that they like it. You will be notified about things your friends like because the company thinks you probably will like it also.

All of this information is optional. Some people do not like to fill it in because they do not trust Facebook or others to use the information wisely. Others put lots of information into their profile because they want visitors to know about them.

SECURITY STORY
Recently I looked at my address book and noticed that everyone who is one of my Facebook Friends now has a Facebook webpage linked to them. I was shocked. I did not put that information in there. I am sure that Facebook decided it was a fast way for me to get to my friend's profiles and so they just added them. They may have announced this somewhere, but I don't remember seeing it. It bothers me because I would not like someone writing extra stuff in my paper address book. It is private. I think of my digital address book the same way. It is spooky to know that they can access it that way.

Embed Code

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 15:27:00 +0000

On Flickr, YouTube and many other sites you get the choice to use "embed code" in order to put any media (picture, video or audio) on Facebook or another website. Here are the steps for using the embed code:

Go to the site that has the picture or video you want to use. To find the embed code choose SHARE. You will be given a choice to post to various places or get the link to copy and an embed code (on Flickr it was called HTML or BBedit code). Copy the embed code.

Go back to the page you want the media to be on. To go back to the place that you want the picture to show up, choose EDIT HTML or whatever you need to do in order to edit the code. You can guess where you think the picture should go by looking at the code on the page. It includes the words that are on the page, so if you do a search (CTRL-F or F3 on a Mac) for those words you can paste the code directly into the HTML. Here is an example: (I searched for the words "Here is an Example:)

When I pasted the code into the HTML on my blog this is what actually showed up!
Now you can save, publish or preview to see that the picture or video that you wanted to show is now on your webpage.

The reason to use embed code is that the picture STAYS on the site where it was originally and you just put in a pointer to that place. When someone looks at your page the computer automatically gets the picture or video from the other place and puts it on your page.

Tomorrow we are back to Facebook!

Detour from Facebook-Video, YouTube, Vimeo and others

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 15:41:00 +0000

Last week I was in California helping out my Mom and so I didn't write all of the posts I was planning to about Facebook, so we will have to come back to that.

Today's post is about video. I was motivated to write it because a professor I know asked me about posting his lectures on the web. Since I had to look up and try things I thought it would be a good topic to share about. I hope I will be able to do more writing about issues people ask about as time goes on. This is especially for my teacher friends who might want to do something, but have no time to figure it out.

SHARING VIDEO ON THE INTERNET
First of all video files are HUGE. The size depends on what resolution the video was taken at. High resolution videos are the best to watch on your big screen TV or to submit to festivals like Sundance, but if you just want to put your video on the web so that someone can see it there are lots of options. Each of these sites resizes your video automatically to make it perfect for viewing on a computer screen. They also provide embed code (We will have to talk about that tomorrow) so that you can put your video onto your blog or website.

http://www.youtube.com
The best known and most used video site is YouTube. There are videos up on YouTube on every topic you can imagine (and some that you can't even imagine). If you want to post a video to YouTube first you need to sign up for a free account.

Next set up your own channel. You can use your channel as a place to collect videos that you like as well as a place to get to all of your own videos easily.

When you first get to your channel page you will have lots of choices. You can make it look the way you want it to look.

At the very top of the screen you will see the word UPLOAD. When you have a video that you want to put onto your channel click "UPLOAD" and you will be walked through all of the steps.

Be sure to set the privacy settings that you want. YouTube offers three settings:
Public-Anyone can see your videos and searches can find them.
Private-You can share your video with ONLY 50 or fewer people who already have accounts with YouTube.
Unlisted-Only people who have the link to the video can view it. The number of people is only limited by your sharing. People who you share the link with DO NOT have to have YouTube accounts to watch the video.

There are many other video sharing sites and they all work in about the same way. There are a few differences and I will list the ones I know about and their differences here. It is not meant to be a comprehensive list, so if you have one to add it will be welcome.

Vimeo emphasizes quality and creativity. It was made by film makers and can work with HD video. There are Video classes on the site if you want to learn more.
Privacy: Public, Only Moderators can view (you need to enter their emails), Password Protected-people do not need an account, but need the password to view the video.
http://vimeo.com

YouTube created for schools. This has different settings for students and teachers allowing teachers to do more.
http://www.schooltube.com/

http://www.teachertube.com/
Similar to SchoolTube, but created with teachers in mind. Today when I looked at it the site was extremely slow, so I don't have privacy information.

Surprisingly I could not find a site for professors to upload their lectures. There are LOTS of sites where you can go and watch the top professors in the world lecture and there are online classes, but not an upload site! One other thing I learned is that you can actually watch MOVIES on YouTube. They cost $1.99

I am sure there are other sites out there, but these are the ones that I know about and that are FREE
I hope people will add comments if they know about other places.

10 Essential Privacy Settings on Facebook

noreply@blogger.com (Janice Friesen) — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 04:12:00 +0000

As I was writing this I took time to look at all of the privacy settings on Facebook. I came away thinking that I have a lot of control of what I want to share and what I want private. I also felt a little strange about how many privacy choices there are and how easy it is to miss some of the settings that seem important. An article from mashable.com really helped me to figure out some of the most important settings.

Facebook privacy settings
http://mashable.com/2011/02/07/facebook-privacy-guide/

1. Sharing Settings:

Account > Privacy Settings > Sharing on Facebook
Facebook allows you to set your sharing settings so that everyone, friends of friends (this means that your friends can see your content and THEIR friends can see them also) or only friends can see your content. Each item is listed and you can either set them all the same way or do a custom setting where each one has different setting. If you do not indicate what you want it is possible that some of your content (pictures, status updates, etc...) will be seen by friends of your friends. This could be a LOT of people that you do not really know.

2. Existing Photo Settings:
Account > Privacy Settings > Sharing on Facebook > Customize Settings > Edit album privacy for existing photos
It is really important to make sure to set the privacy settings for your existing photo albums. As you create each album you choose what level of privacy it should have. However, your existing albums are probably all set as viewable by everyone. When I went in and checked mine were.

3. Friends Checking you into Places:

Account > Privacy Settings > Sharing on Facebook > Customize Settings > Friends can check me in to Places
If you do not want someone else notifying the world where you are you may want to be sure to change this setting.
It lets your friends check you in to Places. "Having someone else telling the world where you are can be unpleasant and even dangerous in some cases. If you want to avoid it, disable this feature."

4. Connecting on Facebook
Account > Privacy Settings > Connecting on Facebook
These settings determine how people can find you on Facebook. Can anyone search for you? Are your listings open to everyone?

5. Apps You Use
Account > Privacy Settings > Apps and Websites > Apps You Use
Facebook is full of additional apps (or applications). For example Yelp, Pandora, etc... Each one has its own privacy settings. Either go to each one and be sure that you are in agreement with how they are sharing your content or remove them and only keep the ones you use regularly.

6. Instant Personalization
Account > Privacy Settings > Apps and Websites > Instant Personalization
This allows third party companies to access your information so that they can tailor their information to match your interest. I think this is sort of spooky and also sort of amazing. These sites can only access information that you have marked for public sharing.

7. Info Accessible through your friends:
Account > Privacy Settings > Apps and Websites > Info accessible through your friends
You may think that you have set all of your settings so that only your friends can see what is there, but until you have gone to this level and indicated which information can be shared through them you are not done with setup. I was pleased to see that the default was that NO information was shared and that I had the choice to add specific things to share.

8. Public Search
Account > Privacy Settings > Apps and Websites > Public Search
Do you want people to be able to search for you through Google or another search engine and find your Facebook page? They will still have to request to be your friend, but you can set it up so that your profile does not even show up when someone searches in Google or other places.

9. Friend Lists
Friends > Edit Friends > Create a List
You can simplify setting up your privacy settings by creating lists of friends that fall into different groups. For example: family, work friends, childhood friends, etc... You can then set up privacy settings that apply to a group rather than an individual.

10. Using HTTPS
Account > Account Settings > Account Security > Secure Browsing (HTTPS)
Now go back to the main page and choose Account>Account Settings rather than Privacy Settings. There is a setting called Account Security. It talks about secure browsing with HTTPS. HTTPS is a programming language behind Facebook that will make it more difficult for anyone to hack into your account. It is recommended that you choose this setting to be more secure.

One problem with these settings is that they keep changing. Keeping up with new ones can be a problem. Even now there is a warning that appears on top of the privacy settings:

I have decided to do the best I can to set up my privacy settings so that they work for me. I know that they are not perfect, but the benefits of using Facebook in my opinion outweigh the questions of privacy. I know and respect that everyone does not feel that way and so each person has to decide for themselves about this issue.