Alvin's Educational Technology Blog

I mentioned this when I talked about pictures, but it goes for all content.  Use folders to organize your files and do it in a logical way.  This is the single most important technical skill anyone can master and it is easy to learn.

I keep everything I create in the My Documents folder.  This makes backup simple; I only have to copy one folder to my backup drive.  I have generic folders for most things – music – pictures – taxes.  Inside these folders are more folders that separate content into more specific categories: Taxes/2007, Taxes/2006, Taxes/2005, and even Taxes/2007/Receipts.

My folder rule is simple.  Every project gets a folder and all the files for the project go in the folder. 

The graphic to the right shows my “courses” folder structure.  Each semester I create folders with the course numbers I teach.  The previous semester’s folders are copied into a “semester” folder and then moved to the “archive” folder.  The “semester” folder has a name in the form “2007 Spring”.  By organizing files in this manner I can easily grab work from any student by knowing the year and semester the student participated in a specific course. 

One other important tip.  Notice the top folder in the graphic is named “~UF Courses” instead of “UF Courses”.  There are two folders I use multiple times each day.  I want those two folders at the top of the My Documents list for quick access.  I prefixed their names with the Tilda so those folders are always alphabetically first.

You may think this “folder organization” is overkill.  I cannot disagree more.  Right now I have more than 159,000 files in My Documents dating all the way back to 1993.  If it were not for folders it would be complete chaos. I use Google Desktop as well, but it’s the folder organization that prevents my insanity.

TSPY=3.14

If you have ever inadvertently turned the Caps Lock key on and then did some typing before noticing… here’s a way to hear a sound any time that key is pressed.

 In the Contol Panel – Accessibility Options you will find the setting.

Check the box to turn on the sound.  I don’t use the Caps Lock much.  Most of the time it is pressed by mistake.  This gives me one more way to catch my mistake.

Fortunately many applications that require you to login with a password have a built-in “check” to see if the caps lock key is on.  For everything else, turn on the sound.

TSPY=0.25

What day of the week is Christmas this year?  Quick!

There are hundreds of calendar web sites and calendar applications, but the quickest way to open a calendar is in the bottom right corner of your screen.  Double-click the clock and you have a calendar.  You can go to any month and any year.  When you need a quick reference, nothing is faster.  Just make sure to Cancel when you are finished.  Otherwise you will change the date on your computer.

By the way, Christmas is on a Tuesday this year.  It took me four seconds to get to that information.  I’m still waiting on Google Calendar to open.

TSPY=1.19