tip 9

Store it in Your CyberCloset

When you are here at school, you should be saving all documents into your my documents folder. The advantage to this, if your computer is logged into the dsd.local domain, is it is automatically being backed up by Chet on a server. Do you know if you are logging into dsd? All you have to do is pay attention when you first turn on your computer. Are you logging in with firstname.lastname with dsd in the next box? Then you are safe. If not, you should be. Ask for some help.

Today's tip though is a way to save files so they are accessible anywhere in the world without carrying a disk around or saving them to your computer.

Let’s say you’re not at school and you are typing your doctoral thesis when you decide you want to save it to work on later. Oops, you forgot to bring a disk or a flash drive with you. How are you going to save it?

Just Email it to Yourself!!

We're starting to see students do this more and more. All you have to do is access your school email via the internet (sometimes this is called webmail). Our e-mail is a free application from Google called Google Apps. It is accessible from any computer with internet access.

The easy to remember address is mail.dunmoreschooldistrict.net.

1. Start a new email (compose mail button) and put your own email address in the "TO:" line.
2. Attach the file you want to email to yourself by clicking on "Attach" or the paper clip symbol.
3. Then just click "Send" and the email will be sitting in your inbox waiting for you with your paper attached. You can log onto your webmail and access it anytime from anyplace in the world where you have the internet.

By emailing something to yourself you are essentially storing it in cyberspace until you need it. You don't have to carry it around on a disk or worry about loosing the hard copy. It just sits there in your email inbox waiting for you. And don't worry about filling your allowable space, Google gives every one of us 7.3 Gigabytes. That is more than you will ever need.

Another advantage of using Google mail is the Search Mail button in the upper center of the page. Google will search all of your mail, including who it is from, the subject line, as well as the body or text of your e-mails.

Keep in mind that many of our students know how to do this. When they ask you if they can access their email while in class they might just be trying to access their homework so they can print it out.

PRACTICE ACTIVITY: Try emailing yourself a copy of an important file you have saved on your computer. That way you’ll always have a back-up of that file waiting for you in your email in-box.

TO KEEP ON LEARNING: If you'd like to learn more about using email creatively try searching the internet for:

Email to myself

Effective email use

Email attachments

Have a Nice Day!