Most of these pages began as notes for myself. I realized a few years back that if I made notes on my web pages, others might find them useful, too. So here they are. I hope you find them of some value. — Rick Matthews.
Sections
- Computers and the Web
- Electronics and electricity
- Physics and society (mostly health-related topics)
- Teaching
- Photo editing, digital imaging, and graphics
- Other Science
- Home DIY
- Anything else
Computers and the Web
Web authoring
- WordPress
- Static HTML (non-Wordpress, non-CMS) websites
- Responsive web design: quick tips. A few small tweaks to make your static html sites mobile-friendly.
- Handy online tools for web developers
- Embedding Google Docs in a web page.
- Getting started in Dreamweaver
- Free Flash Video Format Conversion Tools
- See also “Graphics and digital images” below.
Google Apps
- GMail tips for managing your mail more efficiently
- Video tutorial: Keyboard shortcuts in Google Mail.
- Two accounts, one inbox. Manage two Google Mail accounts from a single inbox.
Windows and Office
- What happened to my personal templates in Powerpoint 2016?
- Creating tables of contents (and getting page numbering right) in Microsoft Word.
- Wrapping text in Excel cells.
- Excel displays formula rather than result
- Turn off junk mail filtering in Outlook 2003.
- Typing onto PDFs.
- Web cam not detected? How to repair a corrupt devenum.dll driver.
- Making your mouse pointer more visible.
UNIX systems
Video conferencing
- WebEx audio bug
- How to light your face for a video conference (3 minute video tutorial)
Wake Forest – specific
- The Google Mail and Calendar Pilot. An archive of the adoption process.
- Tutorial on Digital Measures online faculty information form.
Electronics and Electricity
- A cheap, efficient, easy TV antenna
- How to wire multiple light switches
- How to wire 10baseT connectors
Physics and Society
Teaching
- WebEx for snow day classes: getting started
- Why would anyone use Zoom and Google Jamboard together?
- Comparison of streaming server options for lecture videos (out of date)
- Programming Excel to assign letter grades
- Educational resources in the WFU Physics Department
- Making animated tutorials with Paint Shop Pro
- A computer simulation on the difference between the current plus/minus grading system and the previous grading system at Wake Forest University.
- See more on my teaching page.
Graphics and digital images
Taking photographs
Editing photos
- Enhancing photographic images with Paint Shop Pro (principles also apply to Photoshop and GIMP)
- Panoramas
- Using Variations and other plugins in Paint Shop Pro
- Protecting the lens of the Olympus C2020Z.
- Effect of PPI or DPI settings on web images.
Image formats: JPG, TIFF, GIF, etc:
- Image file formats (JPG, TIFF, GIF, etc.) explained. Lossy vs. lossless compression is also discussed.
- Choosing between JPG, GIF, and PNG for web images
- How bad is JPG? (Large file)
- Chroma subsampling in JPG images
- Adobe JPG compression vs. Paint Shop Pro JPG compression
- Should you use JPG or a lossless format for archiving images? (Large file.)
- Is high resolution/high JPG compression better or worse than low resolution/low compression?
- Chroma subsampling in JPG
Other science
Home DIY tips
Program your smart thermostat for time-of-day rates