Fix a slow Mac computer - best approach

Help: My Mac is getting slower, has delays, and has often a spinning beach-ball!

Ok, it's time for safe boot and a repair permissions act!

Why/what is that: Safe Boot?
It is a useful tool for isolating problems & conflicts by putting OS X's startup volume in Safe mode. It will run your Mac with a minimum of extensions loaded, it performs basic checks and - best of all - it allows you to run Disk Utility in the most efficient way.

Why should I Repair Permissions?
File and folder permissions are crucial to your computer system. Well, one of the (few!) flaws of Unix-based systems is the fact that installing of software can mess-up those permissions, and that will result in your computer getting slower and slower. 

This is the reason, why people sometime suggest to perform a 'complete new fresh install' of your whole Mac. This would bring all permissions back to default, and all will be fast again. Now, that would be a lot of work too! Well, Disk utility in Safe Mode will do a whole lot of special repairs, in a lot less time - and it's of sure the BEST thing you should try (before doing a complete new installation . . .)!

It wil fix things a lot, and you might experience a new fast Mac afterwards! And just so you know: running Disk Utility in Safe mode is more effective than running it just from your Mac in normal operation. 

Ok, here are the steps:
1. For Safe Boot: restart your computer while holding the Shift key

2. Do not let go of the Shift key until your screen says Safe Boot

3. Once you see the screen with the words Safe Boot let go of the Shift key. Now login (as usual)

4. Open Disk Utility located in the Utility folder of your Applications folder

5. Select the main hard drive and have First Aid  selected in the Disk Utility window

6. Select Repair Disk Permissions (do not select 'verify')

7. When Disk Utility is ready, you will see  "Permissions repair complete". It might take a long while!

After this, you should restart your computer! And, hopefully, things will be better, as repairing the Disk Permissions in Safe Boot will take care of many problems.

Of course, check how full your harddisk is! Keep a minimum of 20% free (no kidding!). Your OS needs that space for swapping files and caches around. Also, use 'Activity Monitor' (in Utilities) to monitor what is going on under the hood. Keep an eye on the CPU loads and discover Memory eaters.

Last tip: having more than 10 Tabs open in (any) browser, will cost a lot of memory being used. The - fabulous - extension 'OneTab' can help you there, just download and use, you will not regret. Browser's little helper on the way! http://www.one-tab.com

Running Windows Explorer on your Mac

We all had that problem: a travel booking system, or a CD with medical images or . . . requires Windows and Internet Explorer.

You have several options on a Mac: installing Bootcamp with a paid version of Windows, or using virtualisation software such as VMware.

All do-able, but at a cost, and perhaps not so convenient for the very occasional need. 

Well, there is a - free - option as well, and it uses a little trick. You will work with a 30-day 'trial' version of Windows, and after that period is over, you basically reset the trial back to a new start, and then you can go again . . .

http://osxdaily.com/2011/09/04/internet-explorer-for-mac-ie7-ie8-ie-9-free/

Shows how to do all of this. Don't worry, it's pretty easy, and don't let the Terminal commands scare you off.

It takes a bit, but it will work fine. Virtualbox is free software (from the big Oracle), and although it's not a speed monster,

Windows XP with Explorer 7 (or 9) will work just fine. 

The steps are:

1. download and install Virtualbox

2. download and install Windows via a terminal command

3. hah, there is no 3. Just be patient and then: Done! Just start it all up now, and go ahead!



       Screenshot: The Terminal Window - downloading (and automatic) installation of Windows

        Screenshot: Starting Windows after installation of Virtualbox

Update: I just experienced some issues when installing the Windows XP with the terminal command on my Macbook with Maverick 10.9.1 (fresh installed, but that's another topic . . )

A bit of Googling revealed that Microsoft does offer "trial" versions of their OS to be used with virtualisation software. Here is the link: http://modern.ie/en-us/virtualization-tools#downloads

Grab the version of Windows that you prefer, download the compressed files (multiple parts) and then go from there. Windows 8 will run pretty slow, XP will be speedy, keep that in mind. Well, I am doing a download from this link right now :-)

Great free Visual Art iBook resource

Need some ideas how to use iPads in the Art class room?

Come and grab an excellent, 41 pages free iBook at

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/ipad-art/id706608032?mt=11

written by Cathy Hunt, an ADE (Apple Distinguished Educator)

(she is on the web at: http://www.ipadartroom.com )

Highly recommend!

"Hour of code" invitation to faculty

Dear Faculty,

as promised, here is some more info:

The hour of code =  an international campaign, aiming to have students of all ages introduced to (at least for a bit!)

the ideas and principles of writing computer code. The event is supported by a great website, full of resources:

http://csedweek.org/resource_kit  The aim is to reach 10.000.000 students!

And, it will be easy on your part: 

• The Self-guided lessons require little or no involvement from the teacher

• Requires no previous experience on behalf of the student or the teacher

• Can be completed in one hour or less.

               

Coding is not a geek thing anymore (well, sort of), nowadays there are many graphical tools available, that deal

more with the logical steps involved, as compared to typing lines of code in a sequence.

Scratch (invented by MIT) is such an example. 

How can you get involved?

Pick an hour next week, dedicate a class and do it altogether!

Step-1:

Introduce the campaign by showing - takes a few minutes - a few videos as to why programming is important

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYZF6oIZtfc  Bill Gates and others (2 minutes only)

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehDAP1OQ9Zw  a 6 year old explains how he got to develop Apps (4 minutes)

Maybe show the info graphic -> on page http://code.org/stats  of the campaign website. Has some great facts,

showing that we/schools are not catering for those jobs.

Step-2:

Pick the right level coding exercise from the options available at 

       http://code.org/learn

You might wanna try some of the options yourself, decide and then get going!

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

|||||||||||||||||||| HELP ME ||||||||||||||||||| HELP ME ||||||||||||||||||||||| HELP ME |||||||||||||||||| HELP ME ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Ok, If you miss the time to try them out, then find here are a few hand-picked suggestions:

Lower level:

http://www.tynker.com/hour-of-code/  Many options to tackle small programming tasks. 

Middle level:

http://code.org/api/hour/begin/scratch This is very nice: the exercises are based on Scratch, a wonderful free

programming language by MIT. All graphical, and guarantees a lot of fun.

Higher level:

If most of your students have an Android phone, you could try the MIT app AppInventor. With this, one can develop an Android 

App (not IOS Apple) in no time. Will be an eyeopener for many!

http://appinventor.mit.edu/explore/hour-of-code.html

On an iPad:

The free App "Light-bot-hour of Code" is downloaded on all of the MS/US iPads. It features an hour of coding basics, slick!

You can book the iPads with Marcel (as stock lasts!) 

http://light-bot.com/hoc.html  you actually can also do this on-line (Flash based) with a Mac

We hope you will give it a go, sometime next week. 

If not, all the resources are still around, and you are not bound to this week.

"Yes, I will move ahead". 1 step at a time"

Maverick for Macbook - some of the new features you can expect

Maverick -> Apple's latest operating system (10.9) is out. Most Macbooks from 10.7 onwards can be upgraded.  And, in contrary to Apple's tradition, this one is free!

 Photo Credit: Brenna Daugherty via Compfight

However, at Chadwick we recommend to wait with upgrading, as we are experiencing a number of issues so far.  Some are minor, some are quite annoying. E.g. Mail behaves rather bad, and some users gave report of very sluggish computers. We keep track of issues and are testing our configurations. You can ask the students in your class/sections, many have upgraded - and you will have some varying responses as to how happy they are! Some actually had to downgrade (back t0 10.8) again. Did Apple do a bad thing? Hard to tell. There are so many factors playing a role, a nightmare to test them all.

If you are curious what you are missing, then here are some links to Atomic Learning videos that describe the main new features

Getting Started with Mac OS X Mavericks Training

What you'll learn in this training

• Using tabs in the Finder
• Merging multiple Finder windows
• Using iBooks for Mac
• Finding a location in Maps
• Sharing locations and directions in Maps

Tech will inform you all when we have a stable version, and then you could go ahead.

Students that have upgraded are now causing some trouble with handing in work, especially when using Pages and Keynote. The free Maverick update does come with free updates to those programs. They produce different file formats  though, and are not compatible with the versions on the faculty 10.7 or 10.8 laptops.

How to solve:
Students should select the option to save the Pages or Keynote in the older iWork-09 format. Luckily that can still be done by exporting:

Alternatively, you and your class could opt for using Google Presentation and Google Docs as the basic software for presentations. 

That way, they do not have to send large files, but only have to share links with you! No problems with different versions either!

And, if you would think that Google presentation is lacking features, then have a look at he following (short) video,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bt9F7tKcZcU

it will show a stunning presentation, and yes, all made within Google presentation.

Yes, Google Apps is getting better every day!

Google Sites - how to make it all look better!

Find here a few hints/tips/resources etc. to working with Google Sites.

They might give you some new ideas!

Design tricks:

http://www.googlesiteswebdesign.com/

This site has many outstanding tricks for enhancing your site.

https://sites.google.com/a/googleapps.com/sitesbp/site-development/tips-tricks

This site is pretty awesome, it shows some nice tips, AND people can contribute (using a form!). Just explore!

Menu tricks:

Google sites can have customized menus on the side (and the top). Here is how to do so!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r1QL_5mijI

How to add a horizontal navigation menu bar in detail:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWdImBSF-JM

Gadgets:

You can insert ready-made gadgets via the "insert" -> ".... More Gadgets ...." menu.

They usually are easy to configure, and will display specified content on your pages.

Google also has an extended list of gadgets on the following directory available:

http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open&cat=all

You can select from their list. Explore and try one or two, so you get the feel of it!

More Embedding tricks:

Many third-party tools exist that can be added to your site. They can display the local weather, run a slideshow, 

show your most recent visitors etc.

Most of them will use "embedded" html code, sometimes in an iFrame.

If you want to try the effect of embedded code before you use it, you can do so at w3schools!

Copy/paste your code, and visit http://www.w3schools.com/

You then can tinker around, and see the results. Pretty slick for testing size, colors, effects etc.

A good site with tips and examples for Widgets/html embeddin etc. is

http://www.steegle.com/websites/google-sites-help

These guys know Google sites in and out.

Take care: a Google search might reveal widgetbox www.widgetbox.com/) , they will stop business March 2014 though.

Another 'take care' issue:

Some widgets and gadgets will not run properly anymore, as Google Chrome now has extra security checks built-in.

They deal with not allowing a mix of https (secure) and http (insecure) sites. Tough to solve right now.

Working with Safari for those gadgets will not show the errors. 

Google Site Examples (good ones!)

https://sites.google.com/site/arvidaok/

A great 'teacher' site: uses blog (announcement entries) in 2 diff. ways 

http://www.konini-primary.school.nz/

An example (slick!) of a schools website

https://sites.google.com/site/dieselandmerlot/

Nice banner, simple design

https://sites.google.com/a/medinacommunityband.org/www/Home

A community site, great startpage with photos

http://www.revue-emulations.net/

Just top-notch! In French, but have a look!

Tutorials:

https://sites.google.com/site/amslerclassroom/sampe-teacher-pages

Great tutorials AND examples

https://sites.google.com/site/mflynchsites/examples-of-google-sites

Great examples AND a great tutorial for all functions as well. 

And of course: we have our subscription to video tutorials at Atomic Learning:

http://www.atomiclearning.com/k12/googlesites

( username = hidden  Password= hidden )

Important Google drive sharing tip

I have seen a few glitches happening with sharing of files and folders with Google Drive.

When somebody changes content in a Google Drive Folder that is shared with you, there is the danger that one deletes/dislocates content for others.

Keep in mind:

Moving a Whole Shared Folder to your "MyDrive" is ok to do

Moving (or deleting) single Folders/Files out of a Shared Folder is NOT ok to do.

I created a graphic below that explains it all in a visual way:

To eliminate possible errors, create Shared folders with View access rights only (as much as possible). 

If you share a folder with your team/students, you might want to consider following option:

Have the Main Folder View for all.

In that main Folder create 2 more folders, one with View and one with Edit access. That way, you keep the View-folder always save!

Good to know:

In case content was deleted, it still lives for a month in the bin (of the one who deleted the stuff).

If content IN a document was deleted, one can go back into the revisions -> and you can restore back in time.

Need a bit more visual help, a quick overview of Google drive perhaps?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SjRH3SImlM

This short video will give you some time-saving tips as well!

Want to learn how to setup Google Drive Sync (keep a synced backup of all your files in MyDrive on your own laptop)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzwDk5JHQw4

This is a recommended step to do!