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Windows 10

Quick Assist: A Free Remote Support Tool for Windows

by Demosesneeds Punchard October 13, 2021

written by Demosesneeds Punchard

If one of your jobs is to provide regular computer support to end users, you have probably experienced this scenario before. You find a product to help you with a problem only to think, “Man, this is garbage!” You later take a second look and see that someone has rebuilt it, polished it, and put it on display and it now makes you scream, “WOW! Where can I get one of these?!” This is how I felt when I saw Quick Assist, formerly Windows Remote Assistance (pre-Windows 10). The theme of the application is the same, but with the improvements, it now shines. And it’s a fantastic tool to use with your district staff (or even if you are called upon to help your parents better use their computers!).

What Is Quick Assist?

Quick Assist is a tool that will allow you to access another Windows computer over a network or using the internet. With the user’s permission, you can control or view their machine to assist them with a problem or issue. I am a practical admin and absolutely love it when things just work. When helping a user, I strive first to work quickly and second to assist them to the best of my ability. Quick Assist is my motto. This tool delivers on its namesake with its quick functionality and ability to assist.

To quickly assist someone without having to jump through hoops and reinvent the wheel is, as you know, priceless– which brings me to my next point. Quick Assist is free for both personal and commercial use since it is native to all Windows 10 operating systems. Other tools are available for free personal use, but they incur a small fee for commercial use. Not the case with Quick Assist.

How to Use Quick Assist

The more I use this tool, the more I love its simplicity. The Quick Assist Windows application can be easily launched by searching for quick assistance utilizing the search function in Windows. Once you start Quick Assist, you will be presented with two options: “Get assistance” or “Give assistance.”

If you want to provide assistance, you will select “Assist another person,” which will generate a unique security code. As the person assisting, you will need to give this code to the user who requires assistance. Instructions are provided for how you can do this if you click “Provide instructions.”

Note: This tool is seamless for users that have Azure or Office 365 organization login credentials. The user receiving assistance is not required to authenticate. They will just need the code that is given by the support person. This provides more of a single sign-on (SSO) experience when launching the tool. If you are doing this from a stand-alone computer, no need to worry; it just takes a little more brainpower to remember your Microsoft credentials. If you do not have Microsoft credentials, you are in luck! You can sign up via the login page for free.

Once logged in, you will be presented with two options for providing assistance: “Take full control” and “View screen.” Once you make your selection, the user being helped will still need to allow you to take control on their end.

After this step has been completed, the remote session is up and running. But wait! I want to dive just a little deeper and discuss some of the noticeable support tools in the menu.

Quick Assist Menu

The menu has some really great, simple tools. We can easily use it as a training tool with some of the annotation features. Easy come, easy go with a click of the black “End” square on the right side of the menu.

Select Monitor – Shows all available monitors being used by the user you are helping, and you can target specific ones
Annotate – Provides you with annotation tools such as pens, etc.
Actual Size – This will show in the remote res, but will not enlarge on your screen
Toggle Instruction Channel – Offers a simple chat feature
Reconnect – Give the option to re-establish the connection
Task Manager – Allows you to troubleshoot currently running applications
Pause – Pauses the session
End – Ends the session

It’s just that easy. I really love things that work. No figuring out IP addresses or searching for computer names is needed! Just on-demand, remote support near and far with no configuration necessary.

Here are some great how-to resources, and here is an excellent Quick Assist video for you.

October 13, 2021 7 comments

Google Drive Cleaner: Remove Duplicate Files

by Miguel Guhlin July 25, 2018

written by Miguel Guhlin

Has Google Drive become your backup solution of choice? Instead of multiple, external USB hard drives stashed around your home or office, do you just save everything to Google Drive now? You’re not alone. In spite of relying on just one backup, Google Drive has become the safest place to store original copies of your prized photos, videos, even your MP3 music collection. I keep encrypted copies of critical documents in Google Drive, as well as many other documents. There’s a problem with that, though. This blog entry focuses on one key Google Drive tip you will find you can’t live without. It is the answer to a question you may be even be paying for. The question we’ll explore the answer to is How do you get rid of duplicate files?

Benefits of Removing Duplicate Files

Wondering what the benefits are of removing duplicate files? If using Google Drive for Home/Personal use, you may be paying a fee for additional storage. If so, then eliminating duplicate files may save you some money. If you are synchronizing files to your computer, duplicate files also take up space on your hard drive.

If you are on Google Suites for Education, you have unlimited storage, so why worry about space? When you’re conducting a search on Google Drive for a file, you may end up working on several versions of a slide show. In fact, that situation happened to me earlier this year. I found myself making adjustments to one file, while my colleague worked on a duplicate. Both files had the same filename but were saved in different locations. How do duplicate copies of files get made?

How Duplicate Copies Get Made

Avoiding duplication with single files has gotten easier. You might save a file from Google, make changes, and then save it back to Drive. In the past, you might have ended up with an additional copy (a duplicate). But now Google Drive has implemented deduplication protocols that help minimize that. However, that may not work when you have multiple duplicate files scattered everywhere in your Google Drive.

Let’s say you’re working on a critical folder of essential files (e.g. photos, songs, documents for home and work). Most of these files appear in two places, maybe even more. You would like to consolidate everything into one place and then make a backup of the “pristine” set. This enables you to back everything up to one place, organize and remove duplicate files, and then, once you have everything perfect, make a backup of everything. Several ways exist to make backups of what’s on your computer, but there is one problem.

When you try to combine your multiple backups into one, you realize that you’re creating duplicates. Duplicates appear to multiply, both online and on your USB external storage devices. Soon, you end up with so many duplicates, cleaning them out is a big hassle. How do you do that?

Removing Duplicate Copies on Your Computer

If you’re on a Mac or Windows computer dealing with files and folders stored on your hard drive (or external USB drive), then the process can be easy. There are various utilities that can make the process easier. Here’s a short list of programs you can install on your computer:

Glary Duplicate Cleaner (Free): The makers of my favorite Windows utilities, Glary Utilities, offer a free tool.
DupeGuru (Free, Open Source): It is “a cross-platform (Linux, OS X, Windows) GUI tool to find duplicate files in a system.” The website states that you are able to “find duplicate files on your computer. It can scan either filenames or contents. The filename scan features a fuzzy matching algorithm that can find duplicate filenames even when they are not exactly the same.”
Free Duplicate File Finder (Ashisoft): The description from their website says, “Duplicate File Finder is a FREE tool designed to find and delete duplicate files over home and corporate network while no software is installed on another computer. Fast byte-to-byte comparison gives you the accurate results and it searches duplicate file contents regardless of filename. A list of duplicate files can be removed, moved, or copied.” Alternate download link.

There are many other tools (e.g. Clones File Checker, Google Drive Duplicate Finder, CCleaner, Duplicate Sweeper, or Dr. Duplicator for Mac OS X) that you can use to identify duplicate copies of files on your device. Running these programs on your Windows or Mac computer before combining your backups of critical files in the cloud is recommended. The process to locate duplicates can be time-consuming; these programs make the job easier and faster.

Removing Duplicate Copies with Google Drive Cleaner

If you’re using a Chromebook, however, you may not have the option of installing one of these programs. Or you may find yourself a bit befuddled with all the options these programs offer. Why not rely on a Google Drive app I have used often with success? The app, which works with Google Drive, is Drive Cleaner. After adding it and giving Drive Cleaner access to your Google Drive account with a long code, you can begin to use it.

You can see how it helped me find duplicate photos and videos in the screenshots below:

Screenshot #1: As you can see in the screenshot, I’ve added the app to my device, and told it to scan a select folder. Drive Cleaner has pulled up a list. One of the options that you will find helpful is that you have the option of “Check All (except 1st).” The benefit of this option is that if you have two, three or more duplicates of a file, you can select all but the first one that appears with a single-click. After doing a quick visual check, you can then click the “Trash All” button. What a time-saver!

Cleaner for Drive

Screenshot #2: In this image below, you can see the “Trashing” of duplicate files has begun.

Google Drive Cleaner

Screenshot #3: In this final shot, you can see the selection screen that allows you to select files/folders.

Select Files and Folders in Google Drive

One limit encountered was the total number of files Drive Cleaner can process at any one time. I recommend moving folders of files, including duplicates, into one folder, then pointing Drive Cleaner at that folder.

Wait, Wait, You’re Not Done!

If you need to recapture space quick, you will need to take one more step after deleting duplicates in Drive Cleaner. Go to your Google Drive Trash folder. Click on the Trash drop-down menu and choose “Empty Trash.” This will start a process that can take a few hours (you need only select it once). In no time, you will have recovered critical space in Google Drive. For example, I recovered over twenty gigabytes of space due to removal of duplicate files (e.g. videos, photos, copy of Google Documents). Wow!

Empty Trash duplicate files

A Final Tip

If you have a multitude of files and folders in your Google Drive, consider getting the Google Drive for Desktop application. This will allow you to run the duplicate file finder programs on your Windows/Mac computer. Chromebook users are encouraged to use the Drive Cleaner app.

July 25, 2018 0 comment

Good Teaching Microsoft Tips and Tricks

Simple Video Tricks

by Miguel Guhlin May 11, 2018

written by Miguel Guhlin

A week doesn’t go by that a friend doesn’t ask me, “Can you help me with video editing?” Lacking formidable video skills myself, this blog will show you how folks continue to believe I’m a video editing whiz. The reality couldn’t be further from the truth. Here are my simple video tricks.

Get a copy of this infographic as a Google Slides version you can edit

Trick #1 – Get Videos Off the Web

“I want this video. How do you save the video?” asks my friend. She will send me links to both YouTube and embedded videos on web pages. After explaining that this is a violation of YouTube’s Terms, I offer some tips. There are three tools that I will try to use. I’m going to share them in order of ease of use.

Approach #1 – Media Grabber (Chrome browser)

If you haven’t heard of the lightning fast Torch Browser for your Windows 10 computer, you need to check it out. It has a lot of amazing features, including streamlining your Facebook window (getting rid of advertisements), a built-in torrent downloader (we won’t be going into that much), and web music player. Since Torch Browser is based off of Chrome browser, you can use all your favorite add-ons (e.g. Screencastify) with it. Think of it as Chrome Browser Plus.

The tool that makes getting video easy is Media Grabber. This is the tool you will use to pull videos off web pages, including YouTube. It also makes it easy to strip the audio from a video. That is useful when you want just an audio file of a video file (Note: Torch saves audio in AAC format. You can convert AAC to MP3 audio format with Audacity or Cloud Convert). This is what the tool looks like in the tool bar:

You will want to click on the blue arrow icon. It will save the video to your computer as an MP4. You can further customize Media Grabber to also save the audio. To do that, go into your browser settings, just as you would in Chrome, and then go to Advanced–>Media Grabber screen. As you can see from the screenshot below, you have several options.

Approach #2 – Video Download Helper (Firefox Quantum browser)

Familiar with the new, fast Firefox Quantum browser? If not, you should give it a whirl. A complete rewrite of Firefox, it offers vast speed improvements over previous lag-prone versions. The Quantum version also features low compatibility with add-ons. Two that I must mention include the Video Download Helper and Multi-Account Containers.

The add-on that has been a long-term friend of folks who need to save videos off the web, including YouTube, is Video Download Helper. As you can see from the screenshot, I must get a copy of that Hotel Transylvania movie trailer. Video Download Helper makes doing so in a wide variety of formats easy.

Aside: What are Multi-Account Containers? This add-on is fantastic for keeping your internet cookies separate (e.g. Facebook can’t track you since all its tracking cookies are kept in their own jar). This add-on has nothing to do with video, I just felt compelled to mention it.

Approach #3 – ATube Catcher

ATube Catcher gives you access to an actual program you install on your Windows computer. It has a variety of features, best represented with this opening menu of options:

As you can see, these are drop-dead simple options for pulling video off the web. There are many options for how to save the video you get off the web. Here’s what that looks like:

The process is quite simple, only many are unaware of such a powerful, free, open source tool at their fingertips.

Trick #2 – Cropping Videos

Now that you know my top tricks for getting video off the internet, you may find this one a bit esoteric. I am often asked “How do you crop videos, like you would a picture, to get rid of a caption?” Consider this image below:

Image Source: New Bell’s South Africa TV Ad

If you want to use this video in an instructional setting, you may not want to see the caption, “Not for Sale to Persons Under the Age of 18. Drink Responsibly.” To get rid of that, follow these general steps:

Use a screen-casting tool to capture your screen and system audio
Select only the part of the screen you want in to get
Save the video

This process can be problematic for some since some screen-casting tools only let you grab the entire desktop or tab in a web browser. Still, there are several ways. This is just one approach I use with Screencastify Premium.

This awesome Chrome browser friendly add-on allows me to record a video, then crop it AFTER the screen-cast is complete. Here’s a video from Screencastify that explains the process.

Wait, wait, here’s one more trick that often comes in handy.

Trick #3 – Flip that Video

Flipping video on Android using Google Photos – Edit the video, then tap on the ROTATE option at the bottom of screen,

“An epidemic at little kids’ sporting events, I refer to this as vertical video syndrome (VVS),” says Dawn Bradley. Ever start recording video on your phone and then realize you’re holding it wrong? Here’s an example. When recording video, you are supposed to hold it sideways (horizontally). Often, though, in the excitement of the moment, we forget and the phone is held in a vertical manner (a.k.a. portrait mode). There are several ways to flip the video so it displays in landscape mode.

Use an online tool like Clideo
iOS user? Try Video Rotate and Flip ($0.99 for cropping feature)
Android user? Use Google Photos app on your device to edit the video, then rotate it.

Wasn’t That Easy?

If you are saying to yourself, “Wow, that was less painful than I thought it would be,” you are right. Getting and flipping videos isn’t as hard as it once was. Much of the work can be done with no-cost tools. Give it a try. You never know when these tricks will save you, or maybe someone who needs your help, time and stress.

May 11, 2018 0 comment

Microsoft Tips and Tricks Technical Support

Top Five PDF Annotation Tools on Windows 10

by Miguel Guhlin May 4, 2018

written by Miguel Guhlin

“I need to edit PDFs as part of my work. Do you have any suggestions?” asked a colleague two months ago. At the time, I had been relying on two Office Suites to get the job done. Neither worked all that well. My colleague’s question forced me to take a harder look at available annotation tools. Finding the right PDF tool can be a challenge. There are so many choices available online.

Need to sign a PDF document on the go? How about fill out a PDF on your smartphone or Windows 10 tablet? Here’s my top five list of tools to accomplish those needs. Before we look at the list, here are my criteria.

Get infographic as a Google Slides template you can use

PDF Criteria

The main thing I am looking for is simple tools that get the job done. With PDF annotation tools, you have many to choose from. Some feature complex graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Others are bare bones. Here are my criteria for simple PDF tools:

The tool has a simple interface.
The program facilitates editing, filling out forms, and signing documents.
It’s easy to split PDF files into their individual pages or combine multiple pages/PDF files into one.
Free or low-cost

These four criteria do not include everything you could look for in a PDF editor. But one reason to keep it simple is that Adobe Acrobat Pro offers so many features that they are baffling. We all need a little less complexity in our lives. Therefore, you won’t find FoxIt, Adobe, or NitroPDF on this list.

Now that you know what I’m looking for in a PDF editor. Let’s take a look at some of my favorites.

Tool #1 – Xodo PDF Reader & Annotator

annotation tools When I found Xodo, I was waiting to board a plane. I had to fill out a PDF form, sign it, and then email it. My Windows 10 device was stowed away; the only device I had was my Android phone. After using Xodo to get the PDF on its way, I made a mental note to see if it was available on Windows 10. Sure enough, you can get Xodo as an app in the Windows 10 Store. In addition to working as a native app on your Android or Windows 10 device, you can also access it via a web browser. A little more information about Xodo is available online:

With the Xodo web app, you can now merge multiple PDFs into one, which is perfect for when you need to compile resources into one package to send to your colleagues. And now you can merge PDFs from your computer and Google Drive.

The new Xodo web app provides more flexibility than ever before. You can now insert, delete, reorder, and even rotate pages to manipulate your PDF to fit your needs…Xodo can also open other file formats such as docx, pptx, jpeg, png, cbz, and other image files. Here’s a list of its features. Each link points to an illustrated blog post:

Merge PDFs (NEW!)
Organize pages: insert, delete, reorder, and rotate pages (NEW!)
Access PDFs on Google Drive
Online collaboration
Secure: your files never leave your computer
Print directly from your browser
Multiple view modes and flexible zoom
More annotation options
Use without signing in (NEW!)

On their website, you’ll find testimonials from its users, including classroom teachers. This is a great, free tool to use, no matter what device (e.g. Windows, iOS, Android devices; Mac and Chromebook via the Web) you are on.

Tool #2 – Drawboard PDF

annotation tools The first time I tried Drawboard PDF on my Windows 10 tablet, I almost threw the tablet out the window. Drawboard boasts various features, such as the following:

Mark up any PDF from your computer
Available on Windows 10
Ink annotations feel just like pen and paper

While Drawboard isn’t the simplest to use (I find the radial interface confusing), some will like how easy it is to highlight the screen and annotate it. You have maximum control over your digital pens and markers.

Drawboard make inserting editable shapes, lines, arrows, polygons and clouds straightforward. You can even insert dynamic content like ink signatures, images, text boxes, and notes. Want to merge, re-order, or arrange PDF documents? You will need to get the Pro version of Drawboard PDF ($4.99 on sale or $9.99 regular price).

Tool #3 – Inkscape

Need to edit words on a page in PDF? If you need to change the words on the page, then Inkscape will get the job done. It only allows you to edit a single page at a time and insert images onto a page in a PDF. Here’s a video walking you through the process of PDF editing with Inkscape:

In a pinch, you can skip buying the expensive Adobe Pro software to edit a PDF document. Use the free Inkscape. Need a vector graphics editor? Read this blog entry, Vector Images: Make Magic with Two Free Tools, to see how cross-platform (e.g. Windows, Mac, GNU/Linux) Inkscape can help.

Tool #4 – Cloud Convert

While Office suites like MS Office and Google Suites have made it easy to convert from PDF to their respective formats, you may also have a need to use Cloud Convert. It “supports the conversion between more than 200 different audio, video, document, ebook, archive, image, spreadsheet and presentation formats.” You can open PDF files from a variety of sources, then convert them to anything you like. Files can be opened from Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft’s OneDrive, or Box.

annotation tools

Cloud Convert has your back when working with PDF files that you may have stored in the cloud.

Tool #5 – PDFsam Basic

One of my go-to PDF tools (works on GNU/Linux, Mac, and Windows) for a long time has been PDF Split and Merge (SAM) Basic. The program has grown over the years. You can get the simple version of PDF SAM. It makes “split, merge, mix, extract pages and rotate PDF files” easy to do. I can’t count how many times I drop into PDF SAM to split a PDF document, extracting a single page to share out of a 100+ page document. The PDF SAM Basic offering does quite a bit. However, if you find yourself wanting to pay for PDFsam Enhanced or PDFsam Visual, you’ll find it taking a hefty chunk out of your wallet.

annotation tools

Recommendations

My top picks from my list of favorites? That depends on what you need. Since my needs range from quick form filling, signing PDFs, and/or splitting PDF documents, I rely on Xodo and PDFsam Basic as my top two tools. Need to do some quick editing? Use Inkscape.

May 4, 2018 0 comment

Good Teaching Microsoft Tips and Tricks

Windows 10 Fall Creators Update: Moviemaker Lives

by Miguel Guhlin November 11, 2017

written by Miguel Guhlin

Are you a storymaker? If so, you will want to take a hard look at Windows 10’s Photos app. In its Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, Microsoft has finally unveiled the feature-rich Story Remix TCEA reported on earlier this year. “The reimagined Photos app makes it easy to tell your story in video with a soundtrack, transitions, 3D effects, and Windows Ink,” says the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update website. Rather than a separate app, Story Remix is built into the Photos app.

Become a Storymaker

“There are so many different ways lives work out, so many stories, and every one of them is precious: full of joy and heartbreak, and a fair amount of situation comedy,” says Texas novelist Sean Stewart. How can we communicate these stories with a larger audience? Children are swapping stories online via YouTube. Whether we like the content of the stories they swap or not, we can celebrate the fact that these children are becoming familiar with the language of images and sound. So, with that in mind, how can we enhance story swapping in such a way that we take advantage of this media-rich language our children are using online?

There are many tools available online that teachers can use to accomplish this. One tool that many have missed is Microsoft’s Moviemaker. Learn more online about becoming a storymaker.

About the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update

With the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update, the Photos app offers built-in features that facilitate video creation and sharing. Get a detailed walk through online. The Windows 10 Photos app offers an easy-to-use feature set reminiscent of PhotoStory more than MovieMaker. Still, it offers a wonderful tool for creating videos of still photos and adding audio, filters, and other effects.

The re-imagined Photos app makes it easy to import photos, arrange them in sequence, and add special effects. Then you can export the video as an MP4. This video format can easily be hosted on YouTube and other online locations.

One Example

To explore the features, I combined a few pictures and made them into a video. The process was simple.

Source of Featured Images: TCEA Technology Leadership Summit, which took place on October 11, 2017 in Austin, Texas

Video Overview of Photos:

A New Generation of Hobbyists

“Digital storytelling begins,” says Joe Lambert, co-founder of the Center for Digital Storytelling, “with the notion that in the not [too] distant future, sharing one’s story through the multiple mediums of digital imagery, text, voice, sound, music, video, and animation will be the principal hobby of the world’s people.” As our world becomes more connected through the internet, the importance of learning to use digital tools to share your ideas, your vision, and your stories becomes all the more critical. Microsoft’s revised Photos app makes this all the more possible.

November 11, 2017 0 comment