I’ve just learned Illustrator to work on a graphic and later a site map for a webtext publication I’ve finishing for Computers and Composition Online. I could not for the life of me figure out how to resize the document in AI so I could output/place it as just that size I needed. Finally I had an epiphany. Here’s how I did it!

1. When the AI file is ready to be published, go to FILE – SAVE FOR WEB&DEVICES. Make the appropriate settings adjustments (like leaving transparency intact).
2. Save where you want the file (in my case, it’s inside my DreamWeaver Image library).
3. Open the .gif file (if you save as .jpg, there’s no transparency) in PHOTOSHOP (yep, you could’ve thought of this, too!)
4. Use marquee (m) to choose your size, crop it.
5. Insert it into your publication. All done!

More this past several months than anytime in the past I have had to sign PDFs that someone emailed me. Now, I love PDFs but I hate that they’re not really editable unless you have the correct software: Acrobat Adobe X. I was able to acquire the software but still had issues. Most of the PDFs I come across are from educational institutions so there’s not real protection, which is great. Now, I need to fill in information like name/address but I also needed to sign the damn things. This is where it gets tricky.

Years ago I used my Wacom tablet to make a signature jpg, which I use to sign electronic letters of rec, etc… Now I want to add this small jpg into a PDF. I cannot insert an image like I would into a text document, nor can I just copy/paste from a jpg viewer. So I googled it and this is what I found.

Instructions

1 Open the PDF document in Adobe Acrobat Professional. Go to “Tools,” select “Comment and Markup,” and choose “Stamps.” Click on “Create Custom Stamp.”

2 Click the “Browse” button to select your image. In the “Show” drop-down menu, make sure to select the format that your image is in. Locate your image on your computer. Click “Select” and then click “OK.”

3 In the “Category” field, enter “My Stamps.” In the “Name” field, enter an easy to remember name for your image. Click “OK.”

4 Go back to “Tools,” then “Comment and Markup,” and select “Stamps.” Navigate to “My Stamps,” the new category you created. Select your image.

5 You should now see your image overlaying your PDF document. Move your mouse to the general area where you want your image and click. Your image is now stamped onto your document.

6 Click once on your image to select it. There should be a light blue border around the image. You can now use your mouse to re-size the image or drag it to a different part of your PDF document.

This information was found here.

Earlier today I got a cryptic message from a student that Google Docs was down and they couldn’t get to their directions for tomorrow’s project. Now mind you, I assigned this over a month ago so why wait until today to go and begin to do your work? Later I got another message from a student at a different high school doing the exact same project with the same complaint. I personally went to Google Docs from my mobile and my MacBook Pro with NO problems at all. None. So I called a colleague at the other school who was having the same exact issue. They were all getting this error. Stoopid.

Did Google Doc fail today, or did a link path break?

Now, I think I have a solution. Too many people don’t realize that there are so many EASY ways to get to certain Google places. Want mail? Try google.com/mail. Want calendar? Try google.com/calendar. Want scholar? Try google.com/scholar. Want voice? Try google.com/voice. Want docs? Try… you betcha… google.com/docs. Now when I try this, I am in like slim. The file is up on my machine in nanoseconds. Kiddies are going to gmail, click on email that notifies them that I shared something with them (cause, they won’t look if I don’t tell them it’s there!), and then the path is messed up. Bummer. So yes, something is messed up today, but in the grand scheme of things, it’s a very little error for such a ginormous company that does a pretty good job of running the world.

My response is 1) you shoulda not procrastinated. Your procrastination does not constitute a problem in my life. 2) there are 90 kids in my AP and several sections of Crabtree’s. I bet one of the over achievers downloaded the file weeks ago. This is what Google Groups is for (and I bet you know the URL for that one). Ask away. 3) be creative and try to figure it out. And by the way, in case it does work, here’s the BHS direct URL to the assignment.

Update two hours later…: Here’s an update after two hours of talking to students, colleagues, and researching online (just what I want to do on a Sunday!). The problem is NOT Google. It IS Microsoft. No one who has been using Firefox has any problem whatsoever. Every single person using IE cannot get to Google Docs. Microsoft sucks. Not Google.

So your solution is: Install a real browser like Firefox and proceed.

As part of my work with MaricopaTech, I recently blogged on Flickr and included a video I made of how to search Flickr for Creative Commons license images. Check out my post here.

Here’s a brief video on how to add gmail contacts to a mailing group. As we all know, Google Apps changes almost daily. As for now this way works!

Add Contacts to a mailing group

Lizbdavis has made a post of her greatest hits screen casts! I am totally stoked. I found Liz online a couple months ago now when searching for a del.icio.us tutorial because I was too lazy to make my own. hahahaha. She’s like me, but female and on the other side of the country. Anyway, check out her greatest hits!!

Last night I was grading and went to refresh Google docs. Suddenly everything looked a little different, and I suddenly realized they made a format change that gave me several options I’d been praying for before bed for months. Where to begin?

Page breaks – Google docs now let’s the user set his or her own page breaks, which really helps me break up really long documents.

Horizontal Rule Breaks - This is an old school formatting style that also helps break up sections, but you don’t see it that much anymore.

Label colors – just like in gmail labels, you can now color code your Google doc labels! Woohoo! For optimum use, color them the same as the gmail labels to which they correspond (e.g. all emails from English 101 people are labeled “Eng101″ and are red in color. all docs and spreadsheets from English 101 people are labeled “Eng101″ and  are read in color) Woot!

Attach doc – Now you can attach your currently opened Google doc directly to an outgoing Gmail.

Owner options – You can change ownership of docs, so if you are quitting an ongoing project, etc…

Text format Styles – You can now format text headers like Titles with H1, H2, H3, etc… which correlate nicely to word processing programs to create Table of Contents.

Now I think what I haven’t seen, but I’d like is the ability to select multiple files and archive them all into a zip file automatically. I have old class files I will probably never need again, and I’d like them off Google docs, but I don’t want to do download them one at a time. Ugh!

This rocks. This woman did the work for me, and she did it almost a year ago. Where’ve you been all my life? Liz B Davis made this Del.icio.us tutorial, and I require most of my classes to use this site. I would say less than half the students stick with it, but it’s definitely rewarding for those who do!

Del.icio.us Tutorial

Ever since I’ve hit this whole teaching online thing so hard, I always searched for an easy to use ScreenCast program where I could do simple, yet clear video tutorials that I could post quickly. I thought maybe I could do this through QuickTime Pro, but that program’s been useful elsewhere, and then I tried Pinnacle but that was better for making movies of my kid for holidays. I offered extra incentive to a student once, and I think he got bored with it all, and I even downloaded some screen cast program but nothing was perfect until Shelley recently told me about Jing Project, and after a week of not doing anything about it, I finally downloaded it. WOW! It’s a quick, small download and is customizable. You choose where you want the video or screen capture to be saved (their server, FTP, or to a file). I chose file for now, since I may want to make a video off line or want control over where and when I host it. Other than it opening in the same corner as a widget Dashboard, I am pretty stoked.