Split up your PDF files into separate pages - for free!

I just found something that's pretty life changing (that is, if you consider a simple tech life-hack life changing). So of course I'm going to share it with you, my good readers!

Have you ever found yourself wanting to make a separate PDF file of a larger file, but with only a few of the original pages? I found myself in that situation today with a scholarship form. In order to electronically send the reference letter forms to my references, I wanted to separate out the form from the rest of the application. I researched how to go about doing this by starting with a Google search, and found a brilliant solution: use Google Chrome! Here are the steps:

1. Download the Google Chrome web browser if you haven't already. It's free.
2. Open a new tab in Google Chrome. 
3. From a Windows Explorer window (or your desktop), drag & drop your original PDF file into the Google Chrome window. (You have to do this twice for some reason. The first time you drag & drop it, nothing will happen. Do it again, and it'll open up the PDF file in Chrome.)



Do this twice. The first time you do it, nothing will happen. That doesn't mean it didn't work. Just do it again.

1. If for some reason this doesn't work on the second try, check your settings to be sure Chrome's PDF viewer is enabled. To do this, type “chrome://plugins” in the address bar without the quotes. Ensure that it's enabled, clicking “enable” if not.
4. Now, you have the PDF file open in your Google Chrome browser. 
5. Next, you'll go to Print the file. But don't actually print it. Just open the Print dialogue box.
6. Now, in the Print dialogue box, click on the "Change" button to change your printer type. Select "Save as PDF". 
7. Then, in the "Pages" section of the Print dialogue, only select the pages you wish to include in your new file.

8. Finally, click "Print" and a box will pop up asking you to save your new PDF file. Type the new name, save it, and you're finished!

Thanks to WikiHow for the tip!

toggl.com - Time tracking without taking up time to track it

www.toggl.com

Have you ever looked back on your day, having so many items on your to-do list still not completed, and wondered where all your time went? Or do you feel that you might be giving more time to a project than it needs? Or do you have a job where you want to easily complete your timesheet and export it to your boss or client? Then Toggl might just be the tool you need!

Toggl helps you keep track of your time with a simple click of a button. You can access your account across platforms (e.g., on your computer desktop, on your mobile phone, on your tablet, on any browser with an internet connection). It's available for Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Windows.

You can export your tracked time in a spreadsheet format, or you can have it e-mailed. You can even e-mail it to yourself once a week!

How much does this cost? Nothing! You can even make your account via your Google account. There is an option to get more features for $5/month. You can even track your time as "billable" or "non-billable".

Finally, be sure to watch these two videos, which are about 1 minute long each, to get the hang of how to use it.
http://youtu.be/xc_Z19pWllQ
http://youtu.be/8hdCOnW6oH0

Then, download it on your devices, and get ready to open the black box containing the information about where all your time went! For instance, I just spent about 5 minutes researching and downloading Toggl, then about 10 minutes writing this blog post. Easy as pie!

Gradhacker.org - Writing your academic biographical sketch

http://www.gradhacker.org/2011/09/23/narrating-your-professional-life-writing-the-academic-bio/

Hello dear reader(s)! I have written a few biographical sketches for myself, but I decided to find out what Google had to offer for advice on how to write one. I found this lovely article at www.gradhacker.org. It offers advice on:

• The three most important points to consider when writing your bio.
• What to include for a short, medium, and long bio.
• Organizing your bio.

It's a great read for its helpful advice, and might give you some clarity on what should go into your biographical sketch.

Happy sketching!

Google analytics - Stalk in secrecy

http://www.google.com/analytics/

Thanks to the paid subscription provided to me by the VCU library system, I get access to subscription content of The Chronicle of Higher Education, which is an online periodical about topics related to higher education.  I signed up for weekly e-mails that pertain to my interests. One of the recently highlighted articles discussed how an academic job candidate created a website with his contact information, CV, and links to his publications, then started using Google Analytics to gain detailed information about who visited his website (Dunn, 2013).

Google analytics is yet another nifty tool provided by the Google universe that tracks information about visitors to your website. You can find out what seems like an endless amount of data about your site visitors, such as how they found your website, how much time they spent on your website, and what pages within your website they visited. The job candidate used it to track when visitors from a geographic location also matched up with schools at which he applied. So, once he submitted an application to a potential employer, he could watch out for when he got 17 visitors from the same locality, and assume that it was a department or school reviewing his application materials.

I'm not on the job market yet, but I can imagine how stress-inducing the process is when you don't even know if your application has been reviewed. Of course, not every potential employer will look at your website, and also you never know why they might be visiting, but at least you have an idea of what's going on behind the scenes.

So, to test it out for you, my readers, I added Google Analytics tracking to my blog. It's pretty interesting! (Says the quantoid.) One of my posts had visitors from Richmond, Charlotte, and Davidson. I can tell you that it is not extremely user friendly for a novice webmaster. But if you are savvy enough to create a website, you can  figure out how to use this tool. Even if you can't create your own website, you certainly don't need to know HTML or other coding languages in order to use this, but the part that was difficult for me was navigating through the website itself. It was difficult for me to find even the simplest features. But when I did, it was easy to add the tracking code to my blog. But, proceed with caution.

As a note, for those at VCU, if you want to view the original article, you must either access it from a university computer (or your computer that is connected to the VCU wifi), or you  must log in remotely and use the proxy connection from home, because it's subscription-only access.




Dunn, S. (2013, Feb 18). Some job candidates watch a potential employers' every click. The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/article/Some-Job-Candidates-Watch-a/137355/