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DecTech <dectech>

"Student Technology"

	DecTech5: Mind Maps	329 giorni fa
	Mind Maps This week, I’m going to let you all into the secret behind the success of DecTech, Mind Maps. A Mind Map is a visual way of interacting with linked ideas or concepts. It is basically a diagram made up of ideas linked together. An Idea consists of a word in a shape, normally a circle. To express the relationship between ideas, we use arrows called links. You can move around ideas and links as much as you want. You can customize your diagram with pictures, to make an idea stand out. How can I use mind maps? In a lecture, try drawing a Mind Map to take notes, the added task might just keep you awake. Or draw up your lecture notes as a mind map to help you revise. Mind Maps make reviewing material easier, as you don’t have to look over pages of notes. They also make the ideas a lot clearer. Mind Maps are also useful for essays, projects or articles. You can explore different orders of ideas as well as viewing everything in one page. It will make the essay easier, especially if you can’t think where to start. Mind Maps are great for brain storming. Every two weeks, DecTech starts life as a mind map. Without it, I couldn’t work out how to structure my article. How do you make mind maps? Well this is in DecTech for a reason. Inspiration is a mind mapping software programme that is installed on every PC on campus. Go to programs and launch inspiration. Think of something you want to do, an essay or project, article or revision. When you start the programme, you will be in design view. This means you can start drawing your mind map straight away. Click in the bubble in the middle of the screen. Delete the text and write the main theme of your mind map. Now, let’s add some other ideas. Click the red lightning bolt or hit Ctrl+R. When the red lightning bolt appears, type other ideas related to the first one, separate them by hitting enter. You can do this in any idea. You don’t have to just make bubbles, in the image pallet, click or search for an image. Click on the outline view. This displays your diagram in text and you can re-order sections. Click ‘Export’ button, click ‘ok’ twice and it will load word. This will export outline view and design view into word, so you get an outline and a diagram. You can delete the diagram and use the outline to write your essay. You can use the diagram to explain your big idea to other people, or to upload the image to the internet. Here’s a screen shot of Inspiration and a Mind Map I used to explain some ways of fixing your computer. Follow it at your own peril! I've added it in photos. Thanks for reading. If you have any questions or topic you would like me to cover, email me at Declan.p.meenagh@nuim.ie. I have stopped doing computer help in the Speak Easy due to a lack of interest, but you can still email me with any computer related questions. Happy Christmas and New Year, may you get many cool gadgets. Hopefully Mind Maps will help you not fail the exams; that’s what I’m hoping anyway!
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	DecTech4: noothcreative.ie	329 giorni fa
	This week, I spoke to Eamonn and Ruth, two Maynooth students who built a website. It’s called noothcreative.ie and it’s to showcase creative work from Maynooth students in the areas of film, music, photography, multimedia, drama and literature. It is designed to let other students critique submissions and for prospective employers to see your work. I talked to Ruth about the project Q: How did you come up with and develop the idea? A: The idea spurred from a simple need to showcase students work in the hope that it could increase competitiveness and creativity. We started off by designing a site where students could have their own personal portfolios but due to strong competition we decided that a showcase might be more of a compelling idea. The hope is that once the site attains a significant viewership, prospective employers would get wind of it and see the work. Not only will individual students be able to guide employers to their creative accomplishments but the whole university could gain a stronger name in the creative arts, which it deserves. Q: How did you make the site? A: We pursued the idea last Summer. Eamonn has a good knowledge of web design so he began to put up the actual site. We have changed the whole design since and will probably change it again when the site begins to grow. Q: How hard was it to build the site? A: It was a learning process that brought about alot of roadblocks, from legal issues to CSS web design it really has been a very challenging, but hopefully, a rewarding project. Noothcreative.ie is online now, so go have a look and submit some work. In a future issue, I’ll talk about ways to build websites, what is WISIWIG and building Bebo applications. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions, email them to declan.p.meenagh@nuim.ie and don’t forget the speak easy on Tuesdays from 1.30 for computer help.
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	DecTech3: the internet	329 giorni fa
	I’m doing a multiple part series on a big topic called THE INTERNET AND THE WWW! This isn’t about text book definitions; it’s just to explain what’s behind the web services you use every day. The internet is a global network of linked computers. The World Wide Web is a set of documents linked together. The words Internet and the WWW aren’t interchangeable. The Internet can be used to access the world wide web along with other services like gaming, chat and email. The USA created ARPA, Advanced Research Projects Agency, in 1958 in response to Sputnik. ARPA created the ARPANET in 1969, which connected universities in LA and California. The term internet was first used in 1974. The World Wide Web was invented by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. It was published by CERN in 1991. Today’s internet has tons of cool new features including Blogs, Podcasts and Wiki’s. The word Blog came from web log, and is a page with regularly updated posts usually of a similar theme. Recent research found there were 112 million blogs on the internet. I’ll talk about Podcasts and Wiki’s in more detail soon, but basicly, a Podcast is audio or video delivered by a feed on the internet. Wiki’s are pages built and edited by multiple people. The most popular example of this is Wikipedia, however wiki’s can be useful for smaller projects as well. To get on the internet you need something to put up and somewhere to publish it. Content is what you want to publish on the internet. Lets look at some reasons to do this: -A club or society can use a website to promote events and let members keep in touch. -Having a personal blog with regular updates can help friends keep in touch with you and promote yourself to future employers. -The internet is a great place to run a campaign as all the services you’ll need are free. Perhaps the best place to start is Bebo. If you were to build a website yourself, users would have to register to post comments and use forums. Everyone is already on Bebo, so they have accounts and they won’t need to register. Most clubs and societies have a Bebo group and find it useful. I asked Sinéad Wright, Co-President of the GLB why they use bebo. “We use Bebo because we saw it as the most active network on Campus. It was blocked from Long Corridor because it was so popular that people couldn’t get a computer.” What features do you find useful? “The blogs and polls have been useful for the name change. The blogs allow people to respond to upcoming events.” I’ve just recently started using Facebook. It has similar features to Bebo, but a different interface. It isn’t as popular in Ireland, but it is growing, so keep an eye on it. If social networks aren’t your thing, why not check out Google’s Blogger. Blogger gives you a webpage where you can post updates with text, pictures or videos. There are really easy settings to change the look or what appears on the page. Just head over to www.blogger.com to check it out, and to see it in action, go to declan06.blogspot.com. But if lengthy posts aren’t your thing perhaps you want to start Twittering. Twitter lets you answer the question ‘What are you doing?’ Your posts are limited to 140 characters, so it doesn’t take too long to update. There is a big community in Twitter, and you can message other users. You can also send updates from your mobile phone. Get started at www.twitter.com or check it out at www.twitter.com/dagda. What if you want a combination of the above? The idea of Tumblr is to let you post whatever you want, if it’s just a few words, a long post or photo, audio, video or link. Check it out at www.tumblr.com or see it in action at dagda.tumblr.com. In a later issue I’ll cover more advanced web development Including how to set up a CMS and how to write your own site from scratch. If you have any questions or want something featured in DecTech, email declan.p.meenagh@nuim.ie and don’t forget to come to The Speakeasy every Tuesday from 1.30-2.30 if you want any help with computers or to talk about the column. No question is too stupid!
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	DecTech2: encryption	329 giorni fa
	As SH! Week is drawing to a close; I thought I’d talk about protection. Not the numerous free condoms dotted around my desk, but how to protect yourself in a digital world. I’ll teach you how to use military grade encryption software to protect those files you don’t want anyone else to see (of course, I’m talking about sensitive financial information, I’m sure you don’t have any porn!). So, how to protect your information? There is a free and open source tool called TrueCrypt which will help you do this. # Go to http://www.truecrypt.org and download the programme. When you install it, Make sure you uncheck the box that says clear page files, if you don’t it will fuck up any other programs you have running! # Install it and launch the programme. # When the programme loads, click on ‘Create Volume’. In the box that appears, make sure the ‘create a file container’ option is selected, and click next. # On the next screen click ‘Standard TrueCrypt Volume’ # On the next screen click ‘select file…’, and make up a file, anywhere with any name. This can be a word document(.doc), a picture file(.jpg)) or an MP3 file(.mp3). It doesn’t matter which you call it, as it won’t be a real file. It’ll just be a pile of rubbish until you use a password, but we’ll cover that later. # Create the file and click next # The next screen has different options for ways to encrypt the data, but you can leave it the way it is. # Just click next. # In the next screen, you have to put in how much space you want the file to take up. Look at the files you want to encrypt and round it up. When you enter the size, click next # The next screen is where you put your password. IF YOU FORGET YOUR PASSWORD, YOU WON’T BE ABLE TO GET IT BACK AND YOUR DATA WILL BE LOST FOREVER! # It recommends you use a password of at least 20 characters. This is a bit extreme, but you should have something long and not just one word. The way people try to crack passwords is by trying every word in the dictionary, then trying every combination of letters in the alphabet, then adding numbers and symbols. The best type of password is one with both small and capital letters and numbers. I’ll write more on secure passwords in a later issue. # Type in your password, retype it in the confirm box and click next. # The final screen is where the encryption happens. The file needs some random data, so it takes it from the mouse and keyboard, so move the mouse around a lot to make your files even more secure. Click finish and your container is ready. Before you encrypt something important, practice with a blank document, or something you don’t need. Now you need to mount the file, so you can see what’s hidden inside. # In the TrueCrype main window there are a list of letters. Select one, and decide the text box, click ‘select file…’. # Select the file you created earlier and open it. # Then click the Mount button. # Enter the password and click ok. # Now go into My Computer, click on the letter you chose earlier, and open it. You can paste anything you want to encrypt here. It acts just like a USB key. When you’re finished, go to the TrueCrypt window and click Dismount. It goes away from My Computer, and you can move the file wherever you want. There are more advanced topics you can look into on the TrueCrypt website, but be careful, as you could loose data. Just a quick note, although cryptography software is legal in Ireland, it’s not legal everywhere, be aware of the laws regarding encryption if your using this software outside of Ireland.
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	DecTech1: get colege email into gmail	329 giorni fa
	Welcome to DecTech, The Spoke’s newest column about everything digital. I’m DECLAN MEENAGH, SU Equality Officer, web master of Omega and the DA, and a MInds Admin. My email address is: declan.p.meenagh@nuim.ie and if you want your question answered in the next issue of the spoke email it to me with ‘DecTech’ in the subject line. This week we will be giving you some tips and tricks for using a Gmail (or nuimsu) account Before I begin, I must warn you. Gmail is a beta. This means it is being tested. Google ‘could’ decide to just stop it. They could also decide to charge for using it. There could also be some bugs. I’m saying this just to cover my tracks, it’s really unlikely that any of this will happen. I haven’t seen a bug in gmail and I’ve been using it for about two years. And it’s so successful that Google won’t discontinue it. The first thing I’m going to do is tell you how you can receive your @nuim.ie webmail in your gmail account. Doing this will stop your e-mail from arriving in your nuim webmail account, they will only appear in gmail. First login to gmail; click settings (in the top right corner) and then accounts. You need to do two things; first you need to ‘POP’ (Post Office Protocol) your email into gmail. Then you need to set up gmail to send email from your NUIM account, don’t worry if that sounds complicated, I’ll walk you through the steps. Click on ‘Add another mail account’ under ‘get mail from other accounts’. This will bring up a pop-up screen, so make sure your pop-up blocker isn’t blocking it. You will need to enter your NUIM email address and then click next step. Then you’ll need to fill in your NUIM username and password. If the box labeled “POP Server” isn’t filled in, type ‘mail.nuim.ie’. Click ‘add account’ and this part is done. Go back to settings and under ‘send mail as’ click on ‘add another email address’. Type in your NUIM email address and click ‘Next Step’. You then need to click back into your main gmail inbox and wait until you are e-mailed a code. This could take a few minutes. Go back to the pop-up and type the code in the box. Click ‘add account’. You’re done! To send email from your NUIM account click ‘Compose Mail’ and under the ‘FROM’ drop down box, select your NUIM account. Now I’m going to tell you how to set up so that your gmail (or nuimsu account, this is particularly relevant to all the clubs and societies who’ve had to set up a nuimsu account recently) will forward mail to another account. Just click ‘settings’. Go to the ‘Forwarding and POP/IMAP’ tab. At the top of this tab is a box where you can type in the address you wish to forward your mail to. You can also decide what happens to the mail in the gmail or nuimsu account, it’s handy to have a backup so I’d suggest selecting ‘archive gmail (or NUI Maynooth Students’ Union) copy’. Do this and then simply click ‘Save Changes’ in the bottom of the screen, that’s all there is to it. Don’t forget to email me your questions. I’ll be in the Speak Easy every Tuesday at 1pm running a computer help centre. There will be volunteers there to help with any computer related questions, so do come along.
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