Tips from Our Techs

Our Barrington 220 Techs provide support for everyone in the district...from the most advanced pro user to those just getting comfortable with technology. We asked our Techs to contribute one tip each, based upon their vast support experiences. The results below are a practical and immediately useful collection of ideas that you can begin using right now.

Kim

Mac
If an app on your Mac stops responding and you can't quit the app, you can "Force Quit" the app. On the keyboard press Command + Option + esc at the same time to bring up a menu. Or you can pull down the Apple Menu and select Force Quit. Select the app that is misbehaving and click Force Quit.

Charlie

Mac
Please remember to back up all your files! There are many options to do this: Google Drive, P Drive, Hard Drive, Flash Drive, etc. If you need assistance do not hesitate to call x. 1500 and ask for help.  This can save a lot of frustration!

Justin

Mac
For a quick and easy way to find what you are looking for on your Mac, press Command + Space to open Spotlight search. From here, you can type the name of any application or file you are looking for and open it by pressing Return.

Josh

Mac/iOS
Delete unwanted mobile device backups from your Mac to free up hard drive space.

1. Open iTunes.
2. Click on the iTunes menu and select Preferences...
3. From the Preferences... menu click on the Devices tab.
4. Highlight the device backup you would like to delete, click Delete Backup, and then OK.

Adam

iOS
If an app on your iPad is misbehaving or your iPad doesn’t seem to be working as it should, hold down the sleep/wake button and home button at the same time for at least 5 seconds to perform a hard restart. This a good first step when trying to resolve most iPad issues.

Jason

Mac
To take a screenshot on a Mac press Command + Shift + 3 at the same time to capture the whole screen, or Command + Shift + 4 to capture a custom portion of the display. If you want to take a screenshot of a Finder Window, press Command + Shift + 4 at the same time, then hit the spacebar.  A camera icon will appear. Then click on the window you want a screenshot of.

Derrick

All Devices
If your computer and/or monitor will not turn on make sure to check that the power cords are plugged snugly into the back of the device as well as the wall.

Kaitlyn

Windows
Use the Task Manager in Windows.

There are 3 ways to open Task Manager:

1. Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE, and then click on Task Manager
2. Press CTRL+SHIFT+ESC.
3. Right-click on an open spot on the taskbar, and then click on Task Manager

The first tab on the Task Manager is the Applications tab. This is where you can see all the applications you have open. You can end task, switch to, and create a new task from this tab.

End Task:
Click on the application you will like to close, and then click on end task. There will be a pop-up asking if you are sure you want to end this task. When you end a program this way, any unsaved data in the application will be lost.

Switch To:
When switching to another application, click on the application that you want to switch. Then click switch to and select the application that you want to switch to.

New Task:
To start an application, click on start new task. In the dialog box, click on Browse to find the application you will like to start and click open.


THANK YOU!

Many thanks to our Techs, and Mark Polzin (Technology Support Supervisor) for compiling this list.