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Three Tech Tips for the Technophobe in You

September 13, 2011, 11:00 am

By Lincoln Mullen

LudditesLast month we asked you, our readers, for your ideas about what ProfHacker should cover in the coming academic year. Among the many helpful suggestions, there was a theme that stood out to me. Here it is in your own words.

I would love to see some technology-related posts written by people who are not technologically inclined. (kaitlinwalsh)

I’d also like to see some articles that take the concerns of techno-curmudgeons and Luddites a little more seriously. (matt_l)

I’d second the comment that some of the reviewers are a little too in love with technology–and perhaps are of a younger generation–than most of the readers, so that there’s a lot of tacit knowledge here that needs to be made explicit. (bethelcollege)

These are entirely reasonable suggestions. After all, there is—and should be—a bit of a technophobe in each of us, asking the question, Will trying this new approach/technology/tool really help me, or will it just waste my time?

So technophobes, “techno-curmudgeons, and Luddites,” here are three simple suggestions. None of them requires you to learn a new technology or tool. None of them requires you to install software. You can accomplish each of these in less than an hour. And each of these simple tips can be your gateway, if you choose, to a more advanced concept that we’ve already covered at ProfHacker.

1. Backup Your Most Important Project Right Now

What’s the most important or urgent project you are working on right now? What would happen to your article, grant, or book chapter if your computer crashed right now? You need to back it up immediately. It would be best if your whole computer were backed up, but we’re going to keep this simple. So do one of the following:

  • E-mail a copy of the document to yourself so that it is stored on your university’s mail servers or in GMail.
  • Burn a CD with your project files.
  • Copy your files to a thumb drive.
  • Copy your files to the networked drive your university provides.

None of those solutions is ideal. But you probably know how to do at least one of them without learning anything new. If not, Google instructions for your operating system: “burn CD Windows 7.” You’ll be better off having an emergency backup.

Next step: Now that you’ve done a one-time backup of your most important project, it’s time to do regular, automated backups of everything. Read these ProfHacker posts by Jason and Natalie, and you’ll learn how.

2. Write for an Hour in a Plain Text Editor

If you’re like most people, your word processor sometimes makes you want to pull your hair out or drop your computer from the roof of the highest academic building. Whether it’s Microsoft Word, Open Office, or some alternative, the tool gets in the way of the most important thing you need to do.

So, for the next hour of writing, close your word processor and write in a text editor instead. If you’re on Windows, that means opening Notepad (which is in your Start menu). If you’re on a Mac, then you should open TextEdit (which is in your Applications folder). There’s nothing to learn about these text editors. Unlike a word processor they’ll stay out of your way. Just write for the next hour in the big blank box. At the end of the hour, you’ll have plain text. And you can do anything you want with it: most likely copy and paste it into the word processor you’ve been using.

Next step: Now that you’ve gotten a taste for how much easier it can be to write in plain text, you can learn more about what you can do with plain text from my post about Markdown, Alex’s post about JDarkRoom, or Bryn Lutes’s post about LaTeX.

3. Organize Your Files for One Project

If you’re working on a project, chances are your digital files are in a mess. Your Word files are named  ”final draft.docx,” “final final draft.docx,” and “revised final final draft.docx”; you have a bunch of JSTOR files whose filenames are an incomprehensible string of digits; and so on. Take fifteen minutes and logically organize the files for your most important project. Fifteen minutes now will save you time and frustration, both now and when you revisit the project months later.

Next step: Read Jason’s posts about file naming conventions and organizing class files (and the comments), Ryan’s post about organizing PDFs, or Amy’s posts about getting started with Zotero (part 1, part 2).

What simple technical tips do you have to offer our readers?

 

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  • rpaterson

    Along with the theme expressed in the comments from readers above about people being “in love with the technology”…future musings and real thinking about the relationship of (and how) technologies can improve teaching and learning. I think it’s pretty clear how it has improved research. But when it comes to teaching and learning…we end up discussing specific tech tools not what is happening in the T’/L process. And we see new tools on the market and invent things to do with them. An OK approach but results are based on serendipity. 

  • pruneski01

    Another valuable tool for backing up files is Dropbox. It’s a free program that gives you 2GB of storage space. It installs as a folder on your computer, and any file put in there can be synced between multiple computers (office, home, laptop, blackberry, etc). The files are also available through a password-protected website so you can access them from anywhere with an internet connection. You can also share folders with colleagues so it’s great for collaborative projects. http://db.tt/pQN1XUd

  • carolsaller

    I would encourage readers to learn one or two shortcuts in word-processing. It will make you feel powerful and techy! Instead of using the mouse to get a command out of a menu, you just type a two-key command. You can read about learning shortcuts here: http://www.subversivecopyeditor.com/blog/2010/05/wordprocessing-basics.html.

  • copesan

    Dear Profhacker:
    Based on this and other columns, I think I wuv you.

  • jabberwocky12

    If you’re working on a project that requires a large number of articles as references, then you will, no doubt, be accessing the articles online.  No matter how unimportant the article might seem at a first glance, you want to keep a copy of it on your machine (because you will be working on a computer, but won’t always be online).  So,

     - download the electronic version of the article (pdf version is best);

     - save the file with the name in this format: FirstAuthorsSurnameAndDate (e.g. Jones1997.pdf).  That way, a simple folder view will show you all your articles, and individual articles will be easier to find.  (If Jones has 2 articles from 1997, or if its a different Jones, then just call the second one “Jones1997_02.pdf”).  No need to rename the first one, it will still be first in the list.

     - If you know something is discussed in some of your articles, but you can’t remember which, use Adobe Reader’s search feature to search for a phrase in all files though the entire folder (incl. sub-folders, if you want) – it will find all the articles in that folder with that phrase, and will be ready to open them.  Many scanned articles, unfortunately, can’t be searched.

    A little advanced, but useful:
    Adobe Reader Ver X has a markup feature that allows you to make comments on the document (Even if the original creator has turned that feature off).  You will need to re-save the file (the original still stays), so just keep the original file name (Jone1997.pdf), and add the word “Comments” to it (Jones1997Comments.pdf), so that you know that it is the original plus your comments, and you folder listing will keep the two together. 

  • mamakatephd

    I sympathize with Luddites to a certain degree, especially as I get older.  On the other hand, it is up to them to grab the bull by the horns and keep their technology skills up.  Schools have had computers now for 20 years or so, and those who have kept up [IMHO] are able to keep students more engaged in the classroom.  So being unable to decently format a document, use Excel for a gradebook, or put together a pretty good PowerPoint presentation is beyond Luddite and passes into negligence…

  • 11196496

    Try WordPerfect. Right above the status bar at the bottom of the page you can have a space showing all the codes in your text, such as spaces, Hard Page, Italics, etc.). It makes creating camera-ready copy or a text for someone else to work on a breeze compared to MicrosoftWord. If you need to zap all the italics, e.g., there is an edit function that searches codes as well as letters and words.

  • kaitlinwalsh

    Thanks for considering my comment.  I’m not a technophobe, but I work with people who might be, and I am always looking for tips to help folks get started with technology.

  • drjeff

    I second the Dropbox ( http://db.tt/YVP0jdH ) comment, and mention there are also Mozy ( https://mozy.com/?ref=VKXPV7 ) and SpiderOak ( https://spideroak.com/download/referral/e916758be0aa7a4f9ded7a03fc7acb5b ). 

    You can ask “your technical friend” which is better for you, or just use Dropbox for its greater simplicity (it’s almost scary how simple they made it).

    The point is, and THIS IS IMPORTANT: having a backup copy *nearby* will only protect you from half of the bad things that could happen to your documents!  Yes, the most common ways people get files destroyed is accidentally deleting them, or hard drive failure.  But there’s fire, flood, hurricane, tornado, and even nearby lightning strikes, all of which can destroy your backup at the same time they kill your computer.

    So be sure you also have some form of online backup for those files you would be really upset to have disappear.  All of the 3 sources listed at the top of this comment will give you 2 Gb for free (a bit more if you use a referral link like the ones in this comment), or “as much as you’re liable to need” for about $50/year.

  • bookwomanca

    If someone joins Dropbox and uses your name as a referral you get more storage for free. Tell your friends!!!

  • ivanacg

    Thank you for considering comments of people who might not be as inclined towards the digital world as we are. As Kaitlinwalsh pointed out, we work with them. As a learning support librarian in a dual use library (public/academic) in the U.K. I encounter different types of people who need support (yes, even the digital natives!). My heart goes out to a certain group of people (some are elderly but not only they) who are too tired or confused to be navigating the cyber world. But they have to. In our current hybrid print/digital world, more and more services are only online and a great number of people is forced to use computers and go online to get basic things done (pay parking permits, council tax, etc.). In such cases of basic digital literacy, my rule of thumb is: evaluate the level of comfort the person has with technology, evaluate how open-minded they are… support what you are doing with the basic logic behind it so that they are not remembering just commands but the logic of a command.

  • drjeff

    They have to use a referral link (like the ones in my comment above) for the referral to work.

  • http://ltlatnd.wordpress.com Chris Clark

    These are great ideas! I shared them with my readers and posted a few more strategies to try when using a program you already know. See http://wp.me/prJu2-1BI

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