Thursday, October 27, 2011

Hidden text in Word 2007 and password protecting

Just a couple of Word things that I need when preparing examination papers!!


How do you remove Hidden Text from a Word Document?


Working with a copy of the document (just in case!!)



  • Use Office button (or File) > Prepare > Inspect document > [Inspect]

  • You will see the Hidden  Text option and a button [Remove All]


How do you add a password to your document?



  • Use Office button (or File) > Prepare > Encrypt document and enter your password

  • then re-enter it to make sure.


Warning - it is pretty well impossible to recover the document if you forget the password!!


How do you remove a password from a file?



  • Use Office button (or File) > Prepare > Encrypt document and delete your password


 

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Using Open Education Resources (OERs) in Blended Teaching: Is it worth it?

For the CITRENZ Conference in Rotorua, New Zealand ( http://www.citrenz.ac.nz) I prepared a paper "Using Open Education Resources (OERs) in Blended Teaching: Is it worth it?" using wiki researcher ( http://wikiresearcher.org/User:Mverhaart/CITRENZ/2011OER ).  While developing the paper I asked readers to help build the paper by either editing the paper or adding comments. Interestingly apart from two colleagues there was no feedback -there were many views however. One possible issue is the difficulty in adding ad-hoc comments (as a password/userid etc is required before you can edit/add a comment, a need to know wiki-code, etc..), so to provide another way to allow readers to make comments I have created this blog entry. So if you want to comment on the paper and feel more comfortable with adding to a blog entry, do so here.

 

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

eduMOOC: Introductions

Having tried to read many of the introductions realised that for a group with this number of participants (> 2000) the number of posts (220 at the moment) to read is just too many. An idea would be to ask participants to restrict their posts to just two short sentences. Also google groups lists in the oldest first rather than newest which is the opposite to things like twitter.

Monday, June 27, 2011

eduMOOC

Trying to decide whether to blog here or on http://wikieducator.org/User:Mverhaart/My_2011_eduMOOC_blog . Will see which works out best.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Wi-fi (Wi-5) hotspot rating

Have been to a few hi-fi hotspot places recently and thought it would be good to create a wi-5 hotspot rating system !

So here is my first go. Would really appreciate some comments so we can make this ubiquitous and the ratings need some trendy names. At the moment I am playing around with the rating so expect it to evolve for the time being. Apologies to the few companies mentioned but someone has to start to give an example (If I have got it wrong let me know and I'll upgrade your status)

Version 1 (June 2011)



  • Wi5(☆☆☆☆☆) (Free)

    • 5+ = Unlimited Wifi

    • 5 = Free wifi (requires accepting conditions, no password/userid)

    • 5- = ?

      • Wi☆5 (☆☆☆☆☆+)Wellington free wi-fi: (Covers the area south from Frank
        Kitts Lagoon and along the waterfront side of Te Papa.)

      • Wi☆5(☆☆☆☆☆-) MacDonalds (There is no time-limit, but there is a data limit of 50MB per customer.)





  • Wi5(☆☆☆☆) = Free Wifi requires a password

    • 4 + = wifi requires passcode but publically viewable (e.g. on a blackboard)

    • 4 = wifi requires passcode available on a docket

    • 4 - = wifi requires password but have to ask staff member

      • Wi☆5(☆☆☆☆-) At E's cafe, (Havelock North), Hawthorne’s Coffee Roasters (Havelock North, NZ)





  • Wi5(☆☆☆) = (Pay) 3G access

    • 3+ =

    • 3 =

    • 3- =

      • Wi☆5(☆☆☆-) Vodafone $1 / 10MB per day (a minus rating as 10MB is pretty small)





  • Wi5(☆☆) = (Pay) Buy a ticket with a password

    • 2+ = ?

    • 2 = ?

    • 2 - =

      • Wi☆5 (☆☆-): provider: ???: The crossing (Napier, NZ)

      • Wi☆5 (☆☆-): provider: ???: BJ's cafe & Coffee House





  • Wi5(☆) = (Pay) Pay with a userid/password

    • 1+ = ?

    • 1 = ?

    • 1- = ?

      • Wi☆5(☆-) provider: ???: The crossing (Napier NZ)

      • Wi☆5 (☆-)provider: ???: BJ's cafe & Coffee House





  • 0 = No access (3G only)



 

Friday, April 29, 2011

Black (Blank) screen on Laptop (Backlight Inverter)

Issue: Have a problem with a laptop when screen went blank.

Quick check: If you shine a strong torch at the screen is there an image?

Possible problem: Backlight inverter

Apparently a common problem is a faulty backlight inverter. One quick test is to shine a torch onto the screen to see if the image is actually still there. On ours we used a Big dolphin torch and the image was still there. So have sourced a backlight inverter from trademe ( bwl http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/Listings.aspx?member=512606 ) will update blog to show progress.

For Compaq there is a fix-it video "Replacing the laptop backlight inverter" on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucaJA324hbg

Well that didnt work so back to Dr Google

Possible problem: CCFL lamp

Possible problem is the CCFL lamp. This is much trickier to repair... we may give this a go to.. who knows and we'll learn heaps as well.

http://www.laptoprepair101.com/laptop/2007/12/09/replace-laptop-backlight-ccfl-lamp/

Possible problem: Cables

Other resources:

Thursday, March 10, 2011

zotero standalone version

From JJ

"An alpha release of standalone Zotero has been announced, part of the larger Zotero Everywhere project. Standalone Zotero Alpha does not require Firefox to run and is available for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. Alpha plugins to connect standalone Zotero to the Google Chrome and Safari browsers are already available (a plugin for Internet Explorer is planned).

And I didn't know there was a chrome plugin either !!

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

XP Antivirus (Malware)

This is a real pain.. while surfing for content on a Security class XP Antivirus installed itself. If continuously nags to say you have virus's (which are false) and asks for money. It has a believable interface and looks like an actual Microsoft program.

To remove http://www.myantispyware.com/2010/11/11/how-to-remove-xp-antispyware-2011-virus/

This needs you to create a  registry patch file, then we ran

spybot http://download.cnet.com/Spybot-Search-amp-Destroy/3000-8022_4-10122137.html

Which finally removed the damn thing!

Future (and present) uses of Glass

A Day Made of Glass... Made possible by Corning

Miku 39 on youtube. Computer performer using #Vocaloid s/ware in a live concert. http://trunc.it/f1yst

 

Friday, March 4, 2011

2011 (some interesting numbers)

From one of my students

This year we will experience 4 unusual dates.... 1/1/11, 1/11/11, 11/1/11, 11/11/11 .........

NOW go figure this out.... take the last 2 digits of the year you were born plus the age you will be this year and it WILL EQUAL .... 111 !!!!!

Friday, February 11, 2011

Application stacks for Open Source Software

http://bitnami.org

Run your favorite apps ...  Joomla!DrupalRedmine,MediawikiWordpress,... on your favorite platform. BitNami Stacks include an open source application and all of the other software necessary to run it, such as Apache, MySQL, PHP or Ruby..

(Also from JJ)

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Web page Colour scheme designer

Another link from JJ to help you with the colours in your web site.

http://colorschemedesigner.com/