How to turn off Groupwise Notify on your Macbook Pro

For those of you wanting to turn Groupwise Notify off on your MacBook Pro, here is a simple screen shot showing you how to do so.

Hiding the SmartBoard Floating Toolbar on your MacBook Pro

Recently, several of you have come to see me wanting to get rid of the Smart board floating toolbar. Even though pressing on the double arrow buttons will hide most of the toolbar many of you just want it off your desktop.

 

To do so we have to take it out of the start up items.  Once you remove it from the start up items I would advise putting the board tools icon in the dock allowing you to pull up the floating toolbar as needed.  

To take it out of the start up items simply go to System Preferences ->  Users and Groups->Login Items -> highlight the smart board items and hit the negative sign. Once you restart you should notice the board tools will not appear.

Playful Learning Lexington 2013: Lexington, KY

Playful Learning Lexington 2013: Lexington, KY. October 22, 9:00 am CT. The Learning Games Network invites you to a free hands-on workshop to learn about new resources, strategies, and opportunities to bring game-based learning to your classroom! National experts in the use of digital media in education will lead a series of discussions and working sessions designed to introduce tools and techniques to engage students through game-based learning while addressing Common Core learning goals.  Click on the link to register, http://beta.playfullearning.com/rsvp/lexington-oct-2013/registration

Mountain Lion and Software Compatibility

A student came to see me today after upgrading to Mountain Lion because her Microsoft Office icons in her dock no longer worked. The reason for this is that Mountain Lion does not support PPC applications.   Few students will have this issue because only Sayre Bundles prior to 2009 had a version of Office earlier than 2008.   If you are unsure and want to check your laptop configuration before upgrading follow these instructions:

1. Click "Apple" menu and choose "About this Mac"
2. Choose the "More Info" button
3. On the left hand column select "Applications", under the software section
4. Under the kind section in the menu bar you can see if the application is "PowerPC" or "Universal".  PowerPC applications will NOT run under Mountain Lion.

 You will need to find an upgrade or replacement for that application.

Connected Educator Month

The US Department of Education has declared October "Connected Educator Month," aimed at broadening and deepening educator participation in online communities and networks. Connected Educator Month will be celebrated with a month of online events and activities sponsored by more than 150 major national education organizations, communities, and companies.  If you are interested take a look at the Connected Educator calendar.  Also, edWeb, one of the communities joining in the event, is giving educators one free webinar during October, take a look at their calender, edWeb Google Calendar, and see if there is anything of interest.

Quickoffice

Quickoffice is now free for IOS and Android users.  This may be a nice tool for the MS iPad users who are also teaching in the US and working with Office.  Take a look and see how it compares with some of the other apps you have been using.  I played with it a bit and really liked it for the excel spreadsheet but not as much for the documents.  Take a look and let me know your thoughts!

iCloud: iCloud storage and backup overview

A faculty member came to me today unable to use her iPad because icloud was unable to back up her data.  We had to force quite her iPad by holding down both the sleep/wake button and the Home button until the screen turned black and the Apple logo appeared.  Once we restarted we were able to see that she had used all her iCloud allotment.  

Here is what Apple says about iCloud. Your iCloud account includes 5 GB of free storage for iCloud Mail, Documents in the Cloud, and your iOS device backups. Your purchased music, apps, books, and TV shows, as well as your photo stream, don’t count against the 5 GB of free storage. If your iCloud storage starts to get full, you can make more space available by removing items you don’t need to store in iCloud. For example, you can free up iCloud storage space by not backing up specific iOS apps or removing the backup of a device you have replaced. Go to Settings>iCloud>Storage & Backup>Manage Storage, tap the name of your device under Backups, then under Backup Options turn Camera Roll to Off.  However, it may be best to keep it turned on and use it how it was intended and to rather remove the pictures from the iPad as suggested below:

1. Back up the pics to the computer (done)
2. Remove the backed up pictures from the iPad
3. Learn about and utilize PHOTOSTREAM (including its limitations like no videos, only 1000 pics and only for 30 days) to make backing up and saving the photos from the phone easy and simple.

Alternatively, you can also increase your storage by upgrading your iCloud storage plan. 

Here is a great resource page for iCloud support, http://www.apple.com/support/icloud/.