Five Quick Tips To Make Your Computing Life Easier
This week I wanted to give you a few quick basic computing tips to make your life easier. None of these are really fancy, but get the job done with a few less keystrokes.
1. Quick Cut, Copy and Paste – Cut, Copy and Paste are the three most common commands used in creating office type documents. Most users will highlight a word, sentence, paragraph or image, and then they will use these commands to move or copy the item to another location in the document. They often access these commands right clicking with the mouse and selecting the appropriate command from the context menu which appears. A quicker way to access these same commands is through shortcut keys. Ctrl+C for copy, Ctrl+X for Cut and Ctrl+V for paste. In addition, you can use Ctrl+Z for Undo and Ctrl+A to select everything in a document. Other shortcut keys available are usually listed in the menu system next to the command or in the user guide.
2. Quick Calculator – If you are missing your calculator or just cannot remember how many feet are in a mile, just type the equation (example: 1 + 4 =) or your conversion question (example: feet in a mile) into the Google search engine and Google will respond with the answer.
3. Tracking Packages – Don’t you wish there was a more convenient way to track packages then opening UPS or FedEx’s website, entering the tracking number and clicking submit? There is easier way, just copy and paste your tracking number into the Google search engine and no matter if it is a UPS or FedEx tracking number, Google with respond with a link to the tracking information.
4. Finding the right word – Writing articles and documents as often as I do, I often run into words that I just cannot remember how to spell. Not ever knowing where I left my dictionary I rely heavily on the Internet and Microsoft Office to help solve my spelling quandaries. Dictionary.com is a free online dictionary which not only will give you the spelling of a work, but the pronunciation and definition of a word. They also have a partner websites, Thesaurus.com which is an online thesaurus and reference.com which is an online encyclopedia. If you have Microsoft Word or Outlook you can also use their integrated spell checker to find the correct spelling.
5. Locating a picture of an elephant – Creating different media projects with your computer is very enjoyable for many until you are faced with finding a picture of an elephant for your child’s school project, which is due tomorrow. I have a solution for you; http://images.google.com is a complete search engine for images. Just type elephant into the search box, click search and you will soon be presented with 20,500,000 pictures of elephants. A couple of notes on this site, first if you are searching with kid eyes nearby, make sure the “SafeSearch” is turned on, as if it is not you may be shown images little eyes should not be seeing. You can find “SafeSearch” setting right under the search box. Second, many of these images listed are copyrighted, please verify the website you are copying them from allow you to use them for your intended purpose.
There are many tips to help make your computing experience easier and more enjoyable. I hope that one or two of these tips prove useful to you. If you have any questions about these tips, please feel free to contact me at eric@connectutech.com.
1. Quick Cut, Copy and Paste – Cut, Copy and Paste are the three most common commands used in creating office type documents. Most users will highlight a word, sentence, paragraph or image, and then they will use these commands to move or copy the item to another location in the document. They often access these commands right clicking with the mouse and selecting the appropriate command from the context menu which appears. A quicker way to access these same commands is through shortcut keys. Ctrl+C for copy, Ctrl+X for Cut and Ctrl+V for paste. In addition, you can use Ctrl+Z for Undo and Ctrl+A to select everything in a document. Other shortcut keys available are usually listed in the menu system next to the command or in the user guide.
2. Quick Calculator – If you are missing your calculator or just cannot remember how many feet are in a mile, just type the equation (example: 1 + 4 =) or your conversion question (example: feet in a mile) into the Google search engine and Google will respond with the answer.
3. Tracking Packages – Don’t you wish there was a more convenient way to track packages then opening UPS or FedEx’s website, entering the tracking number and clicking submit? There is easier way, just copy and paste your tracking number into the Google search engine and no matter if it is a UPS or FedEx tracking number, Google with respond with a link to the tracking information.
4. Finding the right word – Writing articles and documents as often as I do, I often run into words that I just cannot remember how to spell. Not ever knowing where I left my dictionary I rely heavily on the Internet and Microsoft Office to help solve my spelling quandaries. Dictionary.com is a free online dictionary which not only will give you the spelling of a work, but the pronunciation and definition of a word. They also have a partner websites, Thesaurus.com which is an online thesaurus and reference.com which is an online encyclopedia. If you have Microsoft Word or Outlook you can also use their integrated spell checker to find the correct spelling.
5. Locating a picture of an elephant – Creating different media projects with your computer is very enjoyable for many until you are faced with finding a picture of an elephant for your child’s school project, which is due tomorrow. I have a solution for you; http://images.google.com is a complete search engine for images. Just type elephant into the search box, click search and you will soon be presented with 20,500,000 pictures of elephants. A couple of notes on this site, first if you are searching with kid eyes nearby, make sure the “SafeSearch” is turned on, as if it is not you may be shown images little eyes should not be seeing. You can find “SafeSearch” setting right under the search box. Second, many of these images listed are copyrighted, please verify the website you are copying them from allow you to use them for your intended purpose.
There are many tips to help make your computing experience easier and more enjoyable. I hope that one or two of these tips prove useful to you. If you have any questions about these tips, please feel free to contact me at eric@connectutech.com.
posted by Eric at
9:35 PM
