Technology Tuesday

Kate Browne recently joined ITS as a Technology Trainer. Kate previously worked as a Mellon Grant fellow in the Writing Program, and has experience in technology curriculum development at ISU and the McLean County State’s Attorney’s Office. She is also an English Studies PhD student at ISU writing her dissertation on the role of technology in women’s life writing and critical disability pedagogies. Kate’s favorite tech includes Evernote, animated GIFs, and speech recognition software. Stop by her office in the Thorpe Center at Ames (301D) and say hi!

ITS invites all faculty and staff to a Mitel phone training session on Thursday, February 19. These interactive sessions led by a Mitel trainer will feature demonstrations of advanced phone functions like programmable buttons, personalized menus, and voicemail distribution lists. We can even show you how to turn on “Do Not Disturb” with one button. Your office phone may not have a touch screen, but it’s still pretty smart!We will hold four, 50-minute sessions from 8am to noon in Ames 129. Use this Google form to RSVP for the session of your choice: http://goo.gl/h10JFu

Strong passwords are important to keep your digital information secure. Generally, a strong password is made up of lowercase & uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols, and does not contain dictionary words. This Google video has some great ideas on how to generate a strong password.

If you have a hard time remembering all those letters, numbers, and symbols, try a password template. To make a template, come up with a phrase you can easily remember and pull the first letter of each word. “today will be the best day” becomes the password phrase “twbtbd.” Add a capital letter that corresponds to the service you’re logging in to and a symbol. Your banking password can be “twbtbdB!” and your Facebook password can be “twbtbdF!” and your Google password can be “twbtbdG!” and so on.

For services you don’t log in to very often, a password template can help you remember without being locked out for multiple incorrect attempts. Bonus: when it’s time to change your passwords (every three months or so!), you can change your passwords easily by changing the symbol.To create completely unique passwords without a template, try a password generator like this one from LastPass!