Pic of the week
by Greg Frucci
Heron Landing at GTM by Greg Frucci

About

Amy Howard portrait

Amy Howard

Hi. I’m Amy. I’m a local historian and techie. I use this blog to answer many of the computer questions people ask me. I also write about our pretty little beach town, and how to enjoy it more with digital aids. If you want my help with a computer issue, I charge $50/hour. Drop me a note to arrange an in-person or remote session.

Clubs

South Ponte Vedra Civic Association

I am the Treasurer for the South Ponte Vedra Civic Association. We are the modern instance of the South Ponte Vedra Association, which made sure Guana did not get sold for development. Nowadays, we run social and civic activities out of our fire station-turned clubhouse.

Friends of the GTM Reserve

Friends of the GTM Reserve is the nonprofit organization of folks who sacrifice their own time and money to keep Guana a preserved estuary. I participate as a registered member in tandem with my paid job at GTM.

St. Augustine Historical Society

For me as a historian, the Saint Augustine Historical Society is a basic necessity. They are doing a great job with their massive mission to “acquire, preserve, and interpret the historical resources of St. Augustine.”

World Affairs Council of Jacksonville

I maintain my membership with the World Affairs Council of Jacksonville to hear both sides of global issues in a peaceful manner. 

Christ Church Among the Oaks

Christ Church Among the Oaks is a satellite branch of Christ Church of Ponte Vedra. Unlike “the big church”, we are a small group who meet in a quaint community center in Vilano Beach.

Creds

Web Designer

Bachelor of English

Certified English Teacher

Certified Chemistry Teacher

Celebration Care Partner

Google Ads Search
Copyright Specialist
Creative Commons Certification

Software

Words
  • @Voice
  • Abbyy FineReader
  • Adobe Acrobat
  • Amazon Kindle
  • Apple Pages
  • Audible
  • Constant Contact
  • Corel WordPerfect
  • Duolingo
  • Google Docs
  • Google Gmail
  • Google Keep Notes
  • Google Slides
  • Google Translate
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Publisher
  • Microsoft Word
  • Outline 4D
  • PARES
  • Rosetta Stone
  • Thesaurus.com
  • Windows Notepad
  • Windows WordPad
  • WordPress
  • YouVersion
Numbers
  • Cougar Mountain Payroll
  • Google Sheets
  • Lotus 123
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Peachtree Accounting
  • Quickbooks
  • Quicken
Pictures
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Adobe XD
  • AutoCAD
  • Canva
  • Figma
  • Gimp
  • Google Chrome ColorPick Eyedropper
  • Google Earth
  • Google Photos
  • Google Slides
  • Google Street View
  • PastPerfect
  • Pixlr
  • Windows Movie Maker
  • Windows Paint
  • Windows Snipping Tool
Web
  • Adobe Dreamweaver
  • Apple iTunes
  • Big Commerce
  • Blackboard
  • CSS
  • Cyberduck
  • Divi
  • DaVinci Resolve
  • Elementor
  • GoDaddy
  • Google Ads Search
  • Google Adwords
  • Google Calendar
  • Google Chrome
  • Google Chrome Remote Desktop
  • Google DevTools
  • Google Hangouts
  • Google Maps
  • Google Meet
  • Google Play Music (gone like a freight train)
  • Google Sites
  • Google Tasks
  • Google Voice
  • Healthie
  • HTML
  • Javascript
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Microsoft Internet Explorer
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Norton Internet Security
  • Norton Password Manager
  • Notepad
  • Notepad++
  • OBS Studio
  • Pandora
  • PHP
  • PHP myAdmin
  • SiteGround
  • Skype
  • Visual Studio Code
  • Wikipedia
  • WikiSpaces
  • WooCommerce
  • WordPress
  • YouTube
  • YouTube Music
  • XAMPP
  • Zoom
Data
  • Amicus Attorney
  • ArcGIS
  • County Tax Appraiser
  • Google Analytics
  • Google Contacts
  • Google Data Studio
  • Google Drive
  • Google Forms
  • Google My Business
  • Google Search
  • Google Sheets
  • iNaturalist
  • Microsoft Access
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft OneDrive
  • Microsoft Outlook
  • Microsoft SQL Server
  • MySQL
  • PARES
  • PastPerfect
  • pcLaw
  • Salesforce
  • TIDES
  • Windows Explorer
  • WordPress
Social media

Not for me.

Digital Footprints

Marketing

St. Johns County Visitor & Convention Bureau

Designed and produced a walking-tour map of historic African-American heritage sites, which was distributed at city visitor centers. Researched and wrote article on St. Augustine’s art scene for the county’s annual Visitor’s Guide.

Visit St. Augustine

Researched and wrote content for historical and business pages. Edited graphics with Photoshop and web pages with Notepad++. Created a feedback loop where tourists submit questions to the website, which are forwarded to local merchants to reach out and answer. Led...

Inn on Charlotte

Investigated a discrepancy in web-ad referrals reported by our website and received by the inn. Implemented Google Analytics, which confirmed the shortage. Used GA, Excel, and competitors’ ad prices to calculate the value of actual referrals. Credited the inn with...

MGT Information

Typed and edited interviews with executives from chemical companies. Compiled data with Lotus 123 and Excel. Produced reports for interested vendors using Freelance Graphics and Microsoft Word. Implemented digital merging of report elements, eliminating an entire...

House of Sea and Sun

Analyzed current market standing by downloading reviews from various websites. Compiled ratings and comments in Excel to reveal trends. Produced a report of findings in Word with targeted opportunities for improvement. Produced 12 monthly newsletters in Constant...

Bed and Breakfasts of St. Augustine

Recruited a B&B host and staged a vacation scene to represent the Bed and Breakfasts of St. Augustine in marketing materials.

H&S Consulting

Analyzed market standing of rad-waste service companies. Used the Thomas Register to identify executives in nuclear industries, and interviewed them about their radwaste needs and vendors. Compiled data in Excel and produced reports in Word for sale to vendors.

Management

Electronic Communications, Inc.

Installed QuickBooks and Microsoft Office and trained office manager how to use them for bookkeeping and business correspondence. Bookkeeping, training.

Thomas E. Duke, Architect

AutoCAD and QuickBooks. Measured and sketched existing office spaces with pencil and paper, then drafted them with precise dimensions in AutoCAD. Processed bookkeeping with QuickBooks. Replaced DOS-based AutoCAD with Windows, eliminating the need for a separate...

River Hills Chiropractic Clinic

Converted to digital. Installed medical practice software and initiated electronic claims filing. Entered data from all paper patient files.

Dr. Duke Health

Patient portal, web content, finances. Created online templates in Healthie Patient Portal for patient intake forms and office visit notes.Built a spreadsheet in Excel to show trends in patient body scans, which is automatically updated upon opening by a query that...

Lori Re, Attorney at Law

Set up internal network and installed Amicus Attorney legal software for all staff positions. Integrated PC Law billing software with Amicus for automatic population of invoices from client files. Built templates in Microsoft Word for legal documents. Edited...

Tech Packaging

Converted bookkeeping from DOS-based Peachtree to Windows-based QuickBooks. Modified Cougar Mountain payroll software to electronically retrieve timecard data from remote facilities. Implemented electronic direct deposit. Implemented scanning of personnel records,...

Chase Manhattan Bank

Prepped student loan documents for scanning. Entered account data in computer to identify scanned document images. Recovered misfiled documents using clues in the company database. Calculated department labor costs and found a 70% drop in productivity after a change...

Goodwill Industries of North Florida

Created self-calculating forms in Google Sheets to replace manual calculations of cash register contents. Built a Google Doc that automatically generates employee performance appraisals by pulling data from daily production reports. Used Google Drawings to draw a map...

Amazon

Created a time log in Excel for employees to track TOT “time off task,” with checkboxes for common obstacles to being “on task.” Printed half-sheet copies to share with coworkers. Compiled time logs for several weeks and produced a report for local management to see...

Education

My Spanish Florida

Collected and digitized over 400 primary and secondary sources on colonial Spanish Florida. Segmented each source into datable paragraphs in a spreadsheet. Exported paragraphs to Access and added dates, titles, and citations to each. Built a report in Access which...

African-American Heritage of St. Augustine

Developed an online channel for the Black History of St. Augustine. Researched and wrote articles about historic African-Americans in St. Augustine. Created new articles and links on existing articles in Wikipedia to guide searchers to my channel. Designed a...

Flagler College

Despite being an English major, I entered the “Capital Ideas” contest for the School of Business. I used Photoshop and PowerPoint to design a music chair for deaf people. I linked out to the existing technology that could convert specific components of music to...

University of Florida

Scanned entire card catalogs for colonial Spanish Florida microfilm collections Stetson B. Kennedy (14,000 cards) and Santo Domingo (600 cards). Extracted text from scanned images using Abbyy FineReader and imported them as individual rows in Excel. Used Excel text...

Paxon School for Advanced Studies

Teaching Honors Chemistry, I coordinated the schoolwide science fair through a web portal. I created teacher websites for myself and my colleague. I guided students through building their own websites to display their science fair projects and progress without the...

Northeast Florida Regional Science and Engineering Fair

As a Chemistry teacher at Paxon School for Advanced Studies, I coordinated science fair participation schoolwide by building a website for paperwork submissions, instructions, interactions, and live updates. I volunteered at NEFRSEF by screening student projects for...

Landrum Middle School

Judged science fair which included every student in the school. Deliberated with other judges to determine finalists. Judged projects and recruited other judges in exchange for e-newsletter services.

Nease High School

As an Associate Teacher in Science, I found many ways to maximize time and resources. I compiled individual student test data to target specific student needs. I used Google to translate materials for foreign students. I built a web portal to coordinate science fair...

St. Augustine High School

As an Associate Teacher in History and Science, I found many ways to maximize time and resources. I compiled individual student test data to target specific student needs. I built a web portal to coordinate science fair with students throughout the school. I created...

St. Johns County Science Fair

As an Associate Teacher, I coordinated participation for students from St. Augustine High School by building a free WikiSpaces website for paperwork submissions, instructions, interactions, and live updates. At the time, it was called River Region East Science Fair.

St. Augustine Transfer Co.

As a tour guide licensed by the City of St. Augustine, I built a digital timeline of historical data in the order of heritage sites passed on the carriage route. I shared the timeline with carriage patrons and other tour guides.

Ridgeview High School

As President of the IB Booster Club, I maximized communications and coordination. I built a contact list for students to carpool. I recruited sponsors from local businesses. I organized speakers and activities for socials. I compiled and distributed monthly...

Nonprofit

Celebration Church

Received training to volunteer in the Care Partner program. Downloaded a digital copy of the workbook to my laptop and completed the exercises in Microsoft Word. I then added notes from class lectures in the same document, without printing anything. I was then able to...

South Ponte Vedra Civic Association

As newsletter editor in 2014, I converted the print-and-mail newsletter to a digital e-newsletter. As Treasurer and Historian, I digitized the Association archives. They are now stored in a shared secure folder for any board member to access remotely. I am building an...

St. Augustine Historical Society

As a volunteer, docent, and researcher, I scanned historic photographs and cataloged them in Past Perfect for online display and sale. I presented historical tours at the Oldest House Museum. Meanwhile, I continued adding data to my own historical database, which...

Pie in the Sky

This organization works to get citizen migrant workers into stable lives. To that end, I taught a migrant worker how to read and apply for jobs via an iPad someone had given him. Then I built web pages specifically for him to access through the tablet. I built him an...

Learn to Read

I volunteered as a reading tutor, but the client asked for help with math and money. I downloaded math repetition games on an iPad and walked her through them until she was fast with arithmetic. I also designed personalized math worksheets for her to take home and...

Miss Carrie Foundation for Homeless Students

As publicist, I built a website to display the organization's mission, activity, and link for donations. I built a corresponding Facebook page for regular updates and sharing photos from events. I created rack cards in Photoshop and distributed them at events. I wrote...

Haitian-American Historical Society

As a writer of local history, I published online articles and Wikipedia entries that inspired a visit from the Haitian Ambassador Raymond Joseph, Florida Senator Tony Hill, and Miami Consulate dignitaries. They invited me to join them as a local expert on their...

Church at the Island

I converted the pastor's sermon notes into PowerPoints and bulletins with fill-in-the-blank outlines. Since this was before YouTube, I also created lyric videos for the worship songs.

Ashton-Brighton Homeowners Association

As Vice President, I produced all archival documentation, notices, and newsletters.

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