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The Magical Title Bar – Video Tip


The title bar is the long (usually blue) bar at the top of each program. The title bar contains three familiar buttons on the right; the minimize button (little bar), the maximize or resize button (middle button) and the often used "X" button to close a program.

On the left side of the title bar is a small icon in the far left corner that matches that of the program. The name of the current file (or web page on the web), and the name of the program also reside on the left side of the title bar. And even though one half to two-thirds of the bar is blank, it also has its functions.

Clicking on the little icon in the far left (once) will produce a menu that allows you to minimize, move, resize, maximize or close the window. This comes in handy when a window is shoved to one side and the right hand buttons are not visible. Double-clicking on the little icon closes the window/program.

Use the blank part of the title bar to move and position the window. This only works if the window is in the less than maximum position. Just click and drag the title bar and the whole window follows. This technique is helpful if you need to position two windows for dragging and dropping files. Also, double-clicking your title bar will automatically maximize the window.

Remember to use the minimize button to ‘shrink’ the window to an icon on your desktop so that you can access your desktop or a window/program behind the current window. This keeps the program running and to restore it back to the original position, simple click on it one time from the task bar.

The middle button on the right side of a title bar changes between the maximize button (one square) and the restore button (two overlapping squares). The maximize button will fill the entire screen with the program window. The restore button makes the program windows less than maximum.

You many not necessarily use all these techniques every day, but keep them in mind and they will come in handy from time-to-time.

Watch the short 3 minute video below for a good visual tour of how these functions work.

Linux at Lowes

I’m in the middle of a pretty major house refurbishing right now and am making frequent trips to the hardware stores and elsewhere. Today, while asking a Lowes rep a question, I glanced at one of the computer screens and saw Firefox for Lowes on the title bar. I was blown away that a major corporation had the good sense to use Firefox, then as I scanned the monitor, there was no sign of a start button. Instead, I immediately recognized a Linux like Start button that looked similar to the Xfce desktop that Xubuntu uses.

What I like about Windows Vista

Please read the headline of this article correctly – it does not say, "Reasons why you should upgrade to Windows Vista." Windows Vista is still a nasty operating system that hogs resources and hides or eliminates important features, but there are some cool features hidden within and I feel that I must list them here so that I can be fair to Microsoft.

If Microsoft had added any or all of these features to XP, it would have been an upgrade worth the price. Instead they had to add all of the other junk to confuse users too.

Avoid losing precious Quicken information

This quick tip coincides with a tip I wrote last year called the Magical Title Bar (click here to read it…and it is a MUST read tip) . However, since I run into many Quicken users who "lose" data, I thought it was time to give Quicken users a tip of their own to help decrease anxiety and increase productivity with this truly legendary program.

When I get the frantic call or show up and see the disgruntled facial expressions, I smile inside knowing that I will almost always be able able to pull their data from their perceived digital hell. And I don't do anything magic, I simply employ the use of the Title Bar and Quicken's "recently used document list". My first question, is "When did you last backup?", followed by "When did you notice that your data was different?"