These techniques should be standard tools for any computer user. However, many computer users find these techniques elusive.
The ability to move (cut) or copy information from one computer program to another sets you free to do so much more with your computer. Cut, Copy and Paste function by temporarily storing the information, cut or copied, into a temporary holding spot of memory known as the clipboard (Click here for the Webopedia definition).
The information held in the clipboard stays there and is available to Paste until either the computer is restarted or another item is cut or copied. Make special note of this fact when using the "Cut" command, because if you cut or copy another item before pasting the first item, the first one is lost.
Before choosing Cut or Copy, the computer needs to know what you want to cut or copy. This is done by using the mouse to
One of the computer’s greatest weaknesses is filling in forms…until now! For a long time, I have recommended using FoxIt Reader as my PDF (Adobe portable document format) reader of choice. On and off, they have offered tools to help you fill in forms or annotate documents, but with their newest version, the form filler or typewriter tool is now… Read More »How to type on a PDF or scanned form – Video Tip
Although we now have 19″ and larger monitors on most new desktop computers, the text seems to shrink. Why is that? It has to do with screen resolution (how much information can be displayed). Screen resolutions on today’s monitors are up to 3X that of monitors we used just 6-8 years ago. We can see a lot more information, but often the text is too small to view for some computer users.
Never fear. Using this week’s tip, you can easily and quickly enlarge the text of any web page using only your keyboard and mouse. This tip will work with any web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc) and any operating system (Windows, Ubuntu, Mac OS X).
All you need is a mouse with a scroll wheel and your keyboard. This tip can be performed without the mouse as well, but I’ll touch on that later. First, when you are reading a web site, particularly news web sites and blog type sites like mine, look for an indication of a printer friendly page. Often designated as Printer Friendly, Print this article, or simply Print, clicking this link brings up a version of the article you are reading that is much less busy and cleaner than how the article presents on the web page itself. This alone may make enough difference for readability.
However, you can quickly increase the size of the text you are reading by holding down the Ctrl key on your keyboard and spinning your mouse scroll wheel away from your body (towards the computer monitor). Amazing, no? Holding down the Ctrl key and spinning towards your body (away from the monitor) will shrink the text again.
The same result can be achieved by holding down the Ctrl key and pressing the “+” or “-” keys as well. I think the mouse method is a little more intuitive and elegant.
Watch the short video below to see this tip in action and see the web as never before!
I created these notes for a client today who visits many sites with text that prints small. She knows how to make the screen text larger, and I referred to the tips (below) about printing from the web, but sometimes good ol’ copy and paste is necessary to truly get the look you want on paper. Learn how to use… Read More »How to print stuff from the web the way YOU want it – Notes
Please DO NOT use the address bar as a repository to return to sites you use all the time…eventually they will get lost. The address bar history maintains a small amount of your recently visited site and can easily be wiped out via an update or disk cleaning and maintenance tools.
Instead, use the Favorites (Internet Explorer) or Bookmarks (Firefox and every other browser). Favorites/Bookmarks are designed to save and give you quick access to your most used sites and sites you just want to keep track of for later use. Also, you can back them up easily.
If you are like me, you visit a handful of web sites every single day and sometimes multiple times per day. Having bookmarks to these sites works fine, but that requires a minimum of three clicks to reach your favorite sites.
In this video, I describe how to get 1-click access to your favorites using the extremely underutilized Links toolbar (Internet Explorer) and the Bookmarks toolbar (Mozilla Firefox).
This tip requires no downloading and no installation of extra software. Everything is built-in to the browser and available to you right now. So watch the video and learn how to take charge of these extremely useful tools you never knew how to use!
One common problem I help solve every day is the recovery of passwords. For some reason, tracking passwords and usernames becomes a daunting task for most computer users. The advice I dispense most often when asked how to track all of the usernames and passwords we accumulate these days is to simply write it down. Not just anywhere, however, but… Read More »Start your password tracking system today!
This tip falls in the category of “wow, that’s easy to do, I wish I would have known about it long ago!”
When you are on a particularly long web page and need to find a term or phrase, click on Edit from your menus, then Find (or Find in page on some browsers). The keyboard shortcut is Ctrl + F. You will be presented with a small window that allows you to enter a word or phrase and then the computer will look for that word on the page and bring you right to it.
As with many other features, Mozilla Firefox’s implementation of this feature is superior to all other browsers, as it gives you helpful extras like find the next or previous occurrence of the word or phrase you are looking for and even has an option to highlight all the occurrences on the page. (See the accompanying picture).
This tip is especially helpful for genealogy researchers. Sometimes your eyes can become crossed looking for a surname in a sea of text. Use the find function instead and cut your work and eye strain in half!
If you need to look for the same term again on the same page, you will notice that the function gives you the option to find again without retyping.
This type of search works best with single words, but you can experiment with phrases as well.
You can also use the Find function in Word Processing documents, email, spreadsheets, and PDF files as well.
Watch the short video below to see this tip in action in both Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Printing labels can save you a lot of time and energy IF you approach the job correctly. Since Microsoft Word is still the leading word processor, I will discuss how to print labels with it. Today's tip will not discuss Mail Merge, as that is another can of worms for another day. For printing mail merge style labels, refer to this tip .
This tip will help you print a single label or a full sheet of labels with the same address or text.
Start Microsoft Word.
Click Tools —> Envelopes and Labels from the menus (in the newest version of Word, you will find it in the Letters and Mailings section of the Tools menu).
Click the Labels tab in the box that pops up.
Type the address you want to print on the label (see #1 in the illustration).
Click the Options button (see #2 in the illustration) to choose the type of label you are printing (try to purchase Avery labels or labels that have Avery compatible numbers on them).
Click whether you want a full sheet of labels or just a single label (see #3 in the illustration).
If you are printing a single label, you can reuse a sheet of labels over and over by choosing the appropriate row and column that is next to print on your sheet.
Before clicking Print, check to see if the address has spilled over onto the next line (in #1). If so, that indicates that the font size is too large for the chose label type. To correct this, highlight the entire address with your mouse, the RIGHT click it and choose font to make adjustments.
Click New Document to see how the labels will look.
Now print the labels on a regular sheet of paper and hold them up to a blank sheet of labels to make sure they will print appropriately. If it does, then load your labels in the printer tray (remember to load them the proper direction).
When finished printing, you can close and save the document if it is a sheet that you will use again in the future. Otherwise, just close and don't save the document.
One of my customers recently asked how to get better battery life with her less than 1 year old iPad. We walked through some of the steps, but there are many, so I decided to just put it into a single tip for anyone who visits the site. Many, many, many articles have been written around the web regarding saving… Read More »How to increase battery life for your iPhone or iPad – Video Tip
