As part of Tech Tuesday, the IT Department held a session covering a bunch of quick and easy tech tips to help you be more efficient using the technology on campus. The session was so well received, we created this article with all the resources and plan to hold a similar session in the Spring 2023 semester.
Recorded Tech Tuesday from Nov 15, 2022
Cheatsheet of Quick Tech Tips Content
| Important! | |
| Links | Paths to IT resource information: Solutions articles - https://blueridgecc.freshservice.com/support/solutions IT site on the Insider - https://blueridge0.sharepoint.com/sites/InfoTech IT page on the website - https://www.blueridge.edu/services-support/technology-support/ Welcome to Blue Ridge (Quick Start Guide) - https://blueridgecc.freshservice.com/support/solutions/articles/17000089455 |
| Reboot your computer daily, not just log off | SHUT DOWN YOUR COMPUTER ON A DAILY BASIS - Computers are like toilets, you don't want the "junk (poo)" to pile up day after day. It becomes a stinky mess. Flush the toilet daily by shutting down your computer each night (not just logging off, a full shut down) |
| Always lock your screen when you walk away. | Always lock your screen when you walk away from your computer. Even if you are in an office. Quick way to lock your screen with Windows Key + L. On a Mac the key combination is Control+Command+Q |
| Browsers | |
| Log into your browsers | Chrome, Firefox and Edge all allow you to login to your web browser itself. Logging into your browser saves your bookmarks to "the cloud" so they will be accessible to you on any computer or phone where you are also logged in using that same web browser. This can also be handy to get to a page that you recently opened on your phone or computer. |
| Accidentally closed a browser tab | If you close a tab by mistake, you can bring it back by simply pressing Ctrl + Shift + T and get back to what you were doing. You can press Cmd + Shift + T to bring back a closed tab if you're on Mac. |
| Pin tabs in browser | Pin your favorite tabs to save space on your tab bar without losing quick access to your favorite pages. To Pin a tab, right-click any open tab and select Pin Tab. |
| Documents | |
| Clean up a copy/paste | If you are copying and pasting, paste it in Notepad first, then copy and paste from there so you don't paste the hidden code from the source copy. |
| Clipboard (Copy-n-paste) History! | Clipboard history is a new Windows 10/11 feature. This allows you to keep multiple items on your copy-n-paste clipboard. To turn on clipboard history, hold the Windows Logo Key and press the letter "V". The first time you do this, it will prompt you to confirm enabling Clipboard history. Once enabled, use Windows Key + V to select from items on your clipboard to paste. Everything in the clipboard history is cleared when you logout or reboot your computer. |
| Do not save documents to desktop or C drive | Do not save your documents to your desktop or c drive. Everyone has their own g drive that will follow you when you get a new computer...desktop and c drive will be lost |
| Google Calendar | |
| Use you calendar! | Use your Google calendar! Other employees can look at your free/busy time to schedule meetings, etc. |
| Find a time to meet directly through your calendar | Use the "Find a Time" feature of the Google calendar to quickly find times that appear to be available for your co-workers. First, create a meeting invite as you normally would. Enter in all the names of people you want at that meeting. Then click the "Find A Time" tab on the meeting event. Browse around the calendar until you find a time that appears to work for everyone and then save the meeting. |
| Add the Employee Deadlines and Events to your calendar | Add the Employee Deadlines and Events feed to your Google calendar following these instructions - https://blueridgecc.freshservice.com/support/solutions/articles/17000052239 |
| Google Chat | |
| Active and recent chats on bottom left of Gmail | Active and recent chats are on your left bottom of your email screen. A red dot indicates an unread message/chat. |
| Gmail (Email) | |
| Reply all to group emails | Email etiquette: REPLY ALL when replying to an email thread that has a group of other people in it. That way, you can be sure everyone involved in that email thread sees your reply. The reply icon with one arrow is reply only to one person, two arrows is reply to all. |
| Filter your email inbox | Create filters to organize your inbox and make your daily workflow easier. Think of it as a filing system for your incoming email. Use these instructions to set up your filters - https://blueridgecc.freshservice.com/support/solutions/articles/17000063015 |
| Set an email to send in the future | You can set an email to send in the future. Click the dropdown on the blue "Send" button to set your options. |
| Set up email send undo | From your Google email inbox screen, click the gear icon towards the top right. Then select "See all settings" and find the "Undo Send" setting. We suggest changing this to 10 or 20 seconds. The undo send is the only way to actually "undo" sending an email. Once the email has been sent, there is no real way to recall the email. (Unless you are Lucille Ball). |
| Do not include the logo, mission, or disclaimer in your email signature | Please remove the logo from your signature!!! The mission and logo are automatically added to everyone's email as part of the "send" process. |
| There is a College policy on email signatures | If your signature doesn't look like this, we can help you clean it up: https://blueridgecc.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FINALPPM/pages/571343223/8.1.4+Electronic+Mail |
| If you have to ask, it's phishing. Mark as phishing or delete | If you have to ask, it's phishing. Don't forward, just mark as phishing. |
| Use your calendar in the same screen as your email | Clicking the addons (the vertical icons with Google calender on the top) on the right side lets you use your calendar from the same screen as your email. If you want to create an appointment based on an open email, clicking on the calender sidebar with start a new event with the title of the email you have open. |
| Overall/General | |
| Keyboard shortcuts for the win! | Keyboard shortcuts are a lifesaver, a quick google search will give you a list of the shortcuts for the programs you use the most. |
| Shortcuts to copy, paste or undo | Copy = Hold Control and press C; Page = Hold control and Press V; Undo = Hold Control and press Z. On a Mac, these commands are the same - just use the "Command" key instead of Control. (The command key is the key directly to the left / right of the spacebar. It has a clover-leaf like icon on it.) |
| Screenshot = Shift + Windows key + s | To screenshot something, Shift + Windows +s |
| Red squiggly underline means you need to spell correct | Most programs and/or online platforms have spell correct. If a word has an underline, right click on it to find the correct spelling and click on it. Be careful of autocorrect. The spell check program does not know what you are actually trying to say. It only knows the word you typed wasn't in the dictionary and it will suggest words that are similar to the misspelled word. It can't read your mind. Yet. |
| Google is your work friend | Google is your work friend! If you are wondering how to do something on your computer, usually a quick Google search will give you the answer. For example, you create a bunch of tables in Excel and you want to make the process go faster, do a Google search for "shortcut to create an Excel table" and you will find the answer is ctrl + t. |
| IT Status page for outages | IT has a status page for outages - https://blueridgecc.freshstatus.io/- that is linked on most IT Department pages. If you are experiencing problems and think the network might be down or you are wondering how long before the network is back up, check the status page! |
| Passwords | |
| Check that the password you type in is what you think | Trouble logging in or creating a new password? Type your password into note pad or other program on a computer where you are logged in. where you can see it to make sure that there are no typo's. Highlight it and use ctrl+x to cut it out of the user field. Then use ctrl+v to paste it in to the password field. (Note: cannot do this at the windows login screen. copy and paste is disabled BUT you can click on the eyeball in the password field to see what you have typed in.) |
| Phones | |
| Many different ways to look up someone's phone number | There are many ways to look up someone's phone number - Directory search on the phone (the book icon), Insider people search (the search bar at the top of insider.blueridge.edu), directory search on the website (https://www.blueridge.edu/about-blue-ridge/faculty-staff-directory/) |
| Printing | |
| Set up your ID card on the nearest Sharp printer | Set up your ID card on the nearest Sharp printer so you just need to present your ID card to log in. |
| Sharp printers have a cheatsheet | All Sharp printers have a guide or cheatsheet somewhere near it (there is also a solutions article on it) |
| Sharp printers have a physical keyboard | All sharp printers have a physical keyboard that slides out from behind the screen |
| Print to Global Print Release | If you print to either of the "Global Print Release" printers, you can pick up your print job at any printer. This is the most secure way to print as you will need to present your ID card or login to release the print job so you know no one else can see it or accidently take it. |
| Screen Capture/Screenshots | |
| Screen Capture | A screen shot is a "picture" of your computer screen. Screen shots can be useful for multiple reasons - for example including a screen shot of an error message is very helpful when you are contacting IT Help Desk to troubleshoot a problem. There are multiple ways to take a screen shot:
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