Category Archives: ITF Help

Backing up your files with “Time Machine”

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I just want to remind everyone that if you have not backed up your Macbook Pro already, you really should (take it from me … I lost all of my data when my new Macbook unexpectedly crashed!  Backing up protects you in the case of a computer failure and/or if your laptop gets lost/stolen).  You can back-up on your Mac easily by using Time Machine.”

If you don’t have one already, you will need to purchase an external hard drive (look for a portable external hard drive).  Then you should plug it into your laptop and initiate “Time Machine” (you can do this by clicking on the round-arrow-clock-like symbol to the left of the wireless icon on the top menubar (not such a great description, I know!) or simply by opening “Time Machine” in your Applications.  Then it should guide you through the steps (it will probably have to re-format your external hard drive, so make sure you haven’t saved anything on there first).

the first back-up will take a long time (many hours!) because it copies everything on your machine.  but after that it only takes a moment or two, because it only saves the changes that have been made since your last back-up.  you can back up as frequently as you want simply by plugging in your external hard drive to your laptop.

Let me know if you have any problems with this (I’d be happy to go through this process with you during my office hours) … and please do back up so that you can keep all of your work, photos, music, videos (etc.) for as long as you want!

How to resize your photos for the Web/ePortfolios

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Before you upload your images to our course site, you should make sure to resize them so that they don’t take up too much space on our course site/MHC web server.

No worries … it’s very simple to do this resizing!  Tsai-Shiou, another lovely ITF (from Queens College) has provided helpful instructions to guide you through the process.

You can even make your images smaller than what is suggested in the tutorial if you find they don’t look right within your blog posts/pages by inputting custom dimensions.  If you use the resizing option in Preview, and input one number, the other one will adjust automatically unless you tell it to do something else (the same is true for Gimp, another photo editing software that comes preloaded on your MHC Macs, and in many other apps).

Please make sure that you resize all images before uploading them to our site.

You may also want to crop your photos before resizing/uploading them in order to highlight specific parts of them.  Cropping is easiest in Preview–use the select tool, then crop (command-K), then resize as per Tsai-Shiou’s awesome tutorial.

Introductions; How to add images to posts

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In order to start exploring the site and getting comfortable with posting/adding media, please make sure to create an initial post that introduces yourself to the class.  Tell us a bit about yourself … what are your interests, hobbies, desires?  Share some photos of you (you can either pull a photo from the web if you have one up there, upload one from your computer, or … you can even take one with photoshop right now!) and your family, friends, neighborhood, etc.

Your Professor and I will make Introductory posts too, so you can get to know us a bit better as well.  Browse through everyone’s posts (if you choose the “Introductions” category for the right side of the homepage, you will be taken to all of these posts) and drop comments to get some conversation going!

Here’s a quick tutorial about how to do add images:

*Make sure that you resize all of your photos before uploading them to our course site.  You can find easy instructions for doing so here.

1.  When you decide you want to add an image to a post, click on the square button next to the right “Upload/Insert” at the top (if you scroll over it you will see that this is the “Add an Image” button).  Remember that your image will show up within the post wherever your cursor is when you click “Add Image.”  So if you want to insert the image in the middle of text, make sure to put it there.

2.  Click on “select files” (next to “Choose Files to Upload”).  If you are choosing a file from your computer, you can then browse for it (the same you would if you were uploading an attachment to an e-mail).

3.  Once you find the image you want, click “Select.”

4.  You can then re-title the image if you would like (to make it easier to manage/find later on) – if you wish, you can also add a “description” and “caption”

5.  At the bottom of the screen you can change the “alignment” and “size” of the image.

6.  Don’t forget to click “Insert into Post” (NOT “Save Changes”) at the bottom.  If you don’t click “Insert into Post,” it won’t show up in your post when you publish it.

7.  You can always click “Preview” before you click “Publish” to see what the post will like like after the images are added.

Remember, if you don’t like something, even after it is published, you can go back and change it (just click “Edit” and work away).  That’s the nice thing about blogs … you can keep revising 🙂

How to start posting/categorizing/commenting on the blog …

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Hi there!

If you’re unsure how to get started posting, here’s a quick overview:

Once you’re on our course site (and logged in!), in order to make a post, simply click on “Add New” on the grey menubar (the admin bar) at the top of the screen, and from the dropdown menu that appears, choose “Post.”  You can also go to your “Dashboard” from the same grey menubar, and this will take you to the “back end” (the control panel) of the site.  From there, you can post or do a number of other things.

Don’t forget to “Categorize” your blog before submitting it (see below for more details on that), and then to “Publish” your blog (if you only click “save” or “preview” it won’t be public).  Happy blogging  😉

A quick note about categorizing blog posts:

Just a friendly reminder to “Categorize” your posts so that it will be easier to navigate our site later on.  To do this, after you finish typing your post up, choose the appropriate “Category” from the right side of the screen.  For example, after you type up your “Introduction” blog, you should make sure to check off “Introductions.”  Otherwise the post will simply show up as “Uncategorized” (we don’t want that!).  You may have to uncheck the “Uncategorized” category (which is the default).

Oh yeah … and you should chat one another up!  How do you do this?  By commenting on your classmates’ posts:

One of the great things about the blog is its interactive nature … people post, others read and make comments, and then conversation happens!  Please read through everyone’s posts and drop comments if you feel so inspired (you can comment in reply to another comment also).  To do this, simply type in a short comment in the “leave a reply” box at the bottom of the post.

Please note that you can respond either to the original post or a specific commenter!

Don’t forget to update your ePortfolio account …

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Don’t forget to do a little house-keeping to make sure you’re all set up here:

1) Click on your name (to the right of “Howdy”) in the upper-right corner of the screen.  make sure that you select your full name (ex: “Jill Belli”) from the drop-down menu next to “display name publicly as” (you want your posts to be signed with your full name, not your username)

2) In the same screen, also change your password to protect the privacy of your account.  Make sure to jot down your username and password somewhere so you can log into your ePorfolio account in the future (you will be using this throughout your years at macaulay).

3) Add an image of yourself (preferable a head-shot) so that we get to know one another more quickly.  To do this, go “My Account” (top left of screen, in the grey menu bar) and choose “Profile” and then “Change Avatar.”  You can then upload/crop a picture that will travel around with you on site.