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If there are apps you use often, you can make sure they’re easily available with a single click.

Microsoft offers step-by-step instructions for pinning apps in Windows 10, and Apple has made it equally easy to add apps to the Dock in macOS. Even Chromebooks give you an easy way to add apps to the ChromeOS shelf.

You can use this for major apps, like a web browser, Google Meet, or word processing software, or even for convenient, quick apps like a notepad app or a calculator. This can save you time digging through menus and folders to get to the apps you use most.

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Before the break, you may have taken steps to establish your “out of the office” status. Here are some pointers for double-checking that you haven’t overlooked anything on your return.

• If you set up a vacation responder in your email, double-check the dates to make sure Gmail isn’t still telling people you’re out of the office.
• Check on how you’re managing voicemail so that you can field calls appropriately.
• If you use a personal device to check email, you may have turned off notifications for your work accounts. Here’s how to turn them back on for Android devices and Chromebooks, iPhone and iPad, Mac, and Windows.
• Make sure that your “Out of Office” events and work hours in Google Calendar reflect your return to a regular work schedule.

The University of Michigan offers some not-so-typical holiday tech tips for your entertainment:

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When you will be away from the office for an extended period of time, there are several steps you can take to help ease the process.

• For instance, you can set up a vacation responder in your email, to let people know that you’re unavailable and what their options are.
• There are various steps you can take for managing voicemail while you’re out.
• If you use a personal device to check email, you can turn off notifications for your work accounts. Here’s how to do that on Android devices and Chromebooks, iPhone and iPad, Mac, and Windows.
• Add “Out of Office” events and set your work hours in Google Calendar to automatically decline calendar invites during your absence.

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Last week’s Tech Tip provided info on taking and editing screenshots in Windows using Snip & Sketch. But what about people using Macs and Chromebooks?

Apple Support offers clear instructions on how to take screenshots in macOS. Macworld also gives you a rundown on how to edit your screenshots on a Mac.

Chromebook users can check out Google’s own guide to screenshots in ChromeOS. Once you’ve taken your screenshot, ChromeOS offers a basic photo editor to make simple edits.

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Today’s tech tip comes courtesy of TechGumbo. Here’s a quick tutorial about using the Snip & Sketch feature to take and edit screenshots in Windows 10.

Next week we’ll cover taking and editing screenshots in macOS and ChromeOS.

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Have you ever been certain you received an email (or sent one), but you aren’t sure how to find it so you can view it again?

Fortunately, your Allegheny account with Gmail offers you a rich variety of ways to search for those, using the search bar at the top of your Gmail inbox page. Here are just a few:

• You can search by date if you know when the email was likely to have been sent. This can be especially useful if you want to delete messages older than a specific date.
• If you use labels in Gmail to organize your messages, you can filter by specific labels.
• You can use the Advanced Search to find email messages that have attachments.
• You can check your spam folder for messages that might have been mislabeled as spam.
• You can use search operators to conduct sharply focused searches.

There are many more ways to conduct a search in Gmail. Visit the Gmail Help Center to learn more about searching in Gmail.

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Many find Google Slides useful for putting together presentations to share with faculty, coworkers, or fellow students.

Today’s tech tip comes from the tutorial website SlidesGo. It gives step-by-step instructions for inserting a video into a Google Slide, whether from YouTube or from a video file saved to your own Google Drive.

Learn more about Google Slides.

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If you use a smartphone or tablet, it’s important to keep the operating system (OS) up to date. Doing so can help avoid security risks, improve performance, and keep everything running smoothly.

Taking the steps outlined on this page from the Federal Communications Commission both for before and after the update will help make the transition to the updated OS as seamless as possible.

Remember that each type of device uses a specific OS, and the update process for each OS is a little different.

The OS used by Apple mobile devices such as iPads and iPhones is known as iOS. Here’s how to update iOS on your mobile device.

Android devices are a little more complex, because different manufacturers may customize the OS in different ways, and the update methods vary a little with each successive version of the OS. Google provides instructions that will work on most devices for updating your Android OS.

Learn more about adopting safer habits with your devices at Allegheny.

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Now you can create a document for your meeting notes right when you schedule an event in Google Calendar, in addition to adding other attachments.

Here’s how:

Learn more about adding attachments to Google Calendar events.

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