|
|
|
|
This page is to respond to anyone who has questions about computers and their uses in education. Feel free to email a question by clicking here. Responses will be posted within the week. Answers are left on this site for at least two months. You may address your question to Dan Gottfried, Dave Zurhellen, or Athena Swikata.
Questions: I would like to take my classroom computer home for the summer to learn the new software we bought. How do I do this? Simple. Get you supervisor's approval (verbal), then write down everything you are taking, including the BOCES inventory sticker numbers, and send this list to your supervisor. My task bar has disappeared. Help! What has really happened is that it has been resized and is at the bottom of the screen. If you look closely, you can see the very top of it on the bottom of the desktop. Carefully put your pointer over the gray little line. The pointer should turn to up-and-down arrows. Hold down the left mouse button and drag it up to the size you want it. OK? My task bar is on the left side (or right side or top) of my screen. How did it get there and what do I do to get it back to the bottom? The task bar can be put on any of the four sides of the desktop simply by pointing at an unused (gray) portion and holding down the left mouse button and dragging it to the new location. My Macintosh computer keeps crashing. Help! The most common causes of Mac crashes is having too many programs open at the same time. To remedy this, click on the icon that looks like a screen on the upper right hand corner of the desktop . Look at the list of things open at the moment. If anything but 'finder' is listed, choose each item on the list and then close it by going to the 'file' menu and selecting 'quit'. Do this regularly (along with trying to remember to close programs when you exit them) and you will have far fewer crashes. My Macintosh has stopped printing. What should I try? Click on the apple icon in the upper ;left hand corner of the desktop. Select 'chooser' from the drop-down menu. In chooser, select your printer. If you are warned to turn off 'appletalk', do so. If this does not fix the problem, try rebooting. If this does not correct the problem, reinstall your printer software. Finally, if all else fails, it may be that your battery is getting weak. Call SpEdTech! Help! My mouse has become sluggish and sometimes the pointer doesn't move even when I move the mouse. What's wrong? Do I need a new mouse? Sometimes you do need a new mouse, but this is rare. First try using a different mouse pad. Sometimes the old one becomes too slippery. Next, turn the mouse over and remove the circular cover by twisting in the direction indicated. Remove the ball and clean it (with alcohol, if handy). Next, look at the three rollers inside. They are usually dirty. Clean them. Reinsert the ball and the cover. This works over 90% of the time. If it doesn't, get a new ball. They cost a dollar or so. Finally, if all else fails, get a new rodent! A lot of times, I put one of my young student's software in the computer and the computer says, "This program requires 256 colors." What does this mean? How do I fix it? This is mainly a PC problem, not a Macintosh. A long time ago, computers were only able to draw 16 different colors at one time. Then someone developed software that would allow 256 colors, a big improvement. Programs were written to require 256 colors. Soon after, software was written to produce thousands, then millions of colors. Most computers are set to produce 64,000 colors. However, when you put in the programs that require 256 colors, the program simply reads that the computer is not set to 256 and fails, even though the program could run easily at 64,000 colors! If the program tells you that the computer should run in 256 colors, and offers to try running at the current settings, say 'yes' and everything should be fine. If the program tells you that the program cannot run unless set to 256 colors, this is what you do:
Your software should work now, but remember you have reduced the computer's ability to use thousands of colors. If you work with photographs and other things requiring many colors, go back and change the settings to the original color palette. Once you have practiced this process several times, it takes about 30 seconds to complete. My new Hewlett-Packard 1120 printer sometimes stops printing half way through a document. Why? The answer is simple, the solution is a bit more complicated. Your printer is 'bidirectional'. That is, not only does your computer communicate to the printer, but the computer also listens to the printer, constantly monitoring its presence. If the printer, even for a moment, cannot communicate. the computer shuts down the printing. this can happen for many reasons. The solution is simple: tell the computer not to listen to the printer and tell the printer not to talk to the computer. This is the difficult part and we would prefer to come fix it for you than to explain how to do it. My Bestweb account sometimes does not work. I dial in and get in to Bestweb, but the user name and password aren't finished and I am detached. What's up? This is usually due to the quality of your phone line. We have found Bestweb is overly sensitive to poor phone lines. Some classes can log onto AOL every time and fail at Bestweb half the time. The solution is to just keep trying and alert BOCES O&M that your phone line is poor. Also let SpEdTech know. |