Indiana University: IT Training Tips Blog

Several months ago I finally broke down and purchased a smart phone. I was out of town and my GPS stopped working, and I decided to take the plunge. Instead of buying another Garmin, I would buy a smart phone that included a navigation app.

Even though I am usually an “early adopter” and pride myself on keeping up with all the new devices on the market, I had never liked the idea that while you can do so many things on a smart phone, typically the phones are so small that you can’t really see what you are doing. When the sales person showed me the Samsung Galaxy Note II, I knew that this large mobile phone was perfect for me.

I have been using my Samsung now for approximately 3 months and I absolutely love it. I don’t know how I ever got along without it. No, it’s not a trendy iPhone, but the screen is large enough (5.5″) that I can actually read the email in my Inbox. I can follow the directions on my navigation app, read and edit important documents, and I even have enough screen space that I can surf the web and actually SEE what is there.

The Samsung Galaxy Note II is an Android device and so there are multitudes of apps available for use with it. As I mentioned earlier, I love the Navigation app and I use it all the time. The Samsung “Speak your destination” feature is fantastic, and it allows me to press a button, tell my smartphone where I want to go, and immediately see the route on my screen.

Since I don’t have time to explore the many applications that are available for my new phone, I thought it would be fun to put this topic out there so that you, the followers of our blog, could chime in and tell us about your favorite Android apps. Got one that you really like? Let us know. Add your comments below.

Have you ever tried to set a single Ruler Guide across a two-page spread in InDesign– and been frustrated in the effort?  A Ruler Guide that extends across a spread is called a Spread Guide. To create one, set the view so you can see the Pasteboard and then drag the guide out across the pasteboard instead of across the printable area. Viola–it extends all the way across the spread. If you are zoomed in, hold the Ctrl key while you drag.

To place a copy of a Ruler Guide or Spread Guide on other pages, point to the guide and right-click when you see the cursor change. In the right-click menu, choose Copy. On following pages, from the Menu bar, choose Edit, and Paste in Place.

Remember also that you can only see Ruler and Spread Guides in Normal view.

So you attended an IT Training workshop. Where do you go from here?

The Workshop Experience
We design IT Training Workshops  to teach you the essentials of a particular software program. We guide you trough a series of tasks to give you hands-on experience, and we provide an explanation of why certain tasks are done in certain ways. There is a whole lot of information crammed into that 3-hour slot. Unless you have a photographic memory, you’re not going to remember it all. Once you leave the classroom it’s up to you. You have to “use it, or lose it,” as they say.

What’s Next?
After the workshop, you have to ask yourself how proficient you  want to become with this software. If you don’t want to do anything beyond what we covered in the materials, you’re all set.  Just get to work on the task at hand and refer to the materials if needed. For many students, what they learned in those three hours is all they’ll ever need to know.
For those of you who want to complete tasks that are beyond the scope of the materials, or you want to become a true expert, you’ll have to take matters into your own hands. Here are some tips for taking your learning to the next level: (more…)

Do you use keyboard shortcuts to activate tools in InDesign?

If so, you  know that just typing the letter that appears in parentheses when you hold the pointer over any tool (called the tool tip) works nicely — except if you are currently working with the Type tool. In that case, when you press any key you simply type the letter. This can be frustrating if you are trying to work quickly and efficiently.

To quickly switch to another tool when the type tool is active, press the Escape key and then type the letter of the tool you want to activate. If you want to switch to the Hand tool, press Alt with the h key.

Adobe Captivate 6 is eLearning authoring software, and broadly speaking, eLearning is learning online or via some electronic device.  It’s a different experience than you would have sitting in a classroom and taking notes as a lecturer gives you information.  For some, the experience is better, and for others, it’s worse.  Whatever you think of it, it’s here, so why not get involved?  Here’s an  infographic  to give  you some insight about the trend in online education in the United States. It’s trending upward! Recently, IU announced a major new online learning initiative called IU Online.  Check out the press release to learn more.

So, back to Captivate 6. IU students, faculty, and staff can download it from IUware free of charge. You can’t beat that! Captivate 6 gives you features like:

• Rapid eLearning content development
• More effective collaboration
• Interactive eLearning experiences
• Rich multimedia to attract learners
• Easy quizzing
• Delivery virtually anywhere
• Scoring, tracking, and reporting

You’re itching to learn all about this cool tool aren’t you? Luckily, IT Training has a Captivate 6: The Basics workshop planned.  It’s an online workshop (imagine that), scheduled for Tuesday, December 4th from 2:00 to 4:00 pm. In the meantime, go ahead and download Captivate 6 and start playing around with it. You can also find Captivate 6 training on lynda.com.

If you’re an educator you may be called upon to create some online learning content, so learn how to do it and impress your boss.  If you’re a student you can surely use Captivate to put together some pretty nifty class projects. There’s something for everyone, so start learning today.

Captivate 6 opening screen

Watch this video to learn what you can expect at this year’s IT Training Conference.

I create videos, podcasts, and other digital material for delivery via the Web. I want my work to be visually and sonically interesting, but I’m not a professional designer or musician, and I don’t have lots of money to spend on assets from stock photo, video, and music services. My solution is the Creative Commons.

Founded in 2001, the Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that enables content creators to share their knowledge and creations through free, legal tools.  If you want others to be able to use your work only if they credit you with its creation, you can apply a license that states just that. There are licenses that give others the right to change your work and not give you credit, or change your work but state that the new work came from your original. You can disallow use of your work for commercial purposes or even dedicate your work to the public domain. Visit the Creative Commons website to learn about all of these options and others.

So, when I’m looking for background music for a podcast I can go to this page, http://search.creativecommons.org/ and run a search. When I find music I like, I add the music to my podcast and make sure I’m following the rules stated in the license.

The thing I love about the Creative Commons is that it helps make the Internet a place for openness and sharing; a place where everyone can participate. Their vision statement is this:  “…nothing less than realizing the full potential of the Internet — universal access to research and education, full participation in culture — to drive a new era of development, growth, and productivity. ”

I encourage you to take advantage of this wonderful resource.

Creative Commons licensed works will have a logo like one of these attached to them:

Creative Commons license buttons

On this week’s episode we’re discussing ways to reduce the amount of paper we print at IT Training. We’d love to hear your ideas!

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it2go – The IT Training Podcast

We’re back after a little break. Jason’s talking about Pivot Tables and letting you know how to use them, and describing which IT Training workshops contain more information. We’re going to be moving to an every other week schedule from now on, so keep an eye out for our new episode in 2 weeks!

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it2go – The IT Training Podcast

If you’re familiar with InDesign and the Pages panel, you should already be aware as to how to add pages and even work with Master Pages so that you can carry designs throughout your document. But sometimes you have a document that may need different page sizes. Up until recently, the only way to do this would be to create different InDesign documents and then combine them together in a book, or perhaps some other way that I have never thought of. However, with InDesign CS5 and later, you can actually adjust your InDesign page sizes (much like creating Master pages) inside the Pages panel. It’s really quite simple. Let’s take a look at how that is made possible.

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