Tag: tools

Valuable Coding and IT Tools

Carl Setzer
Photo by Josh Sorenson from Pexels

As an Information System student, there are a handful of tools recommended to me by my instructors that have been critical. Every one of the tools below is free. Anyway, here’s my list:

  • Notepad ++: a richly powerful text editor. It’s what I’ve done most of my HTML and CSS in, and what I’ve done a lot of my JavaScript. I have shifted, though, back to Visual Studio, at least for now. I used Visual Studio for my Visual Basic class, so I’m pretty familiar with it.
  • 7 Zip is a great Zip file tool.
  • Agent Ransack, which boosts your PC’s search utility.
  • Winmerge: a great tool for comparing files. It has helped me a few times to find that one damn character I was missing.

Anyway, what tools do you use? That you find indispensable?

 

Featured Image by Josh Sorenson from Pexels

New To Zoom? Check Out This Great Intro Video

Carl Setzer

With coronavirus forcing us to transform education and interpersonal communication, the folks at Zoom now find their tool becoming the defacto standard, education and beyond. Plenty of organizations (churches, businesses, non-profits) are utilizing Zoom (why Zoom and not Google Hangouts? Skype? I’m not entirely sure at this point, but think it was because the reached out first…I should explore this at some point).

I’ve been a fan of Steve Dotto for years, and highly recommend his videos for guidance about things tech. Steve created this video (below) as a tutorial for many of the basic features. So, if you haven’t used Zoom, or haven’t used it extensively, I highly recommend Steve’s video. My wife (a teacher), who’s used Zoom quite a bit the past few weeks picked up some great tips. It’s highly worth your time.

 

 

The importance of my calendar, and other tools 

Carl Setzer

Oh, trying to stay on top if the mania of my life. It’s not easy right now, nor has it been so in ages. Trying to get everything I want to do done is hard.

My friends and family know that I need to enter anything asked if me into my calendar. If that doesn’t happen, it’s likely to get lost in the blizzard that is my life. Generally I grab my phone and plug “whatever” into my calendar. And those tools have evolved.

Up until a few years ago, I was a hard core Franklin-Covey devote. My lovely leather planner went pretty much everywhere with me. Now, I’m pretty fully electronic, for good and for ill. I believe there’s value in interacting with paper. Stuff seems to get into my brain better that way. But the convenience of tech, using multiple devices to access and manage stuff, and the ability to have reminders pop up have become crucial.

A few years ago, I stumbled upon a took called IQTell.  This was a solid blend, integrating my different streams of information, email, calendar, notes (including Evernote, one of my key organization tools), and tasks into a cohesive and thoughtful system. Sadly, they’ve announced that they’re discontinuing this guy. And so I’m, yet again, seeking a new system. Right know, everything is getting dumped into Evernote, which isn’t feeling too effective.

I’ll be writing about that over the next few days.