Save your bookmarks and favourites: When your Internet Explorer list of favourites gets too long and unwieldy even though you’ve carefully organised it into folders and sub-folders (click Favourites / Organise Favourites to do this) try this: click File / Import and Export / Next, select Export favourites and click Next twice more, choose a destination and file name bookmarks.htm on your Desktop, for example click Next and Finish. Now click File / Open and navigate to your saved file and you’ll see all your bookmarks neatly organised on to one page. You can search this page by holding down Ctrl and hitting F or clicking Edit / Find (on this page). It also makes a good home page. Open it and click Tools / Internet Options and click the Use Current button under the Home Page section.
It can be useful in Lotus Notes to make your comments and replies in a different font and/or colour to the original to make them easier to see. You can use the Permanent Pen to set a different font which you can toggle on and off as needed. To set it in Notes 5, set a document in Edit mode and click Text, choose a font / colour, click Text again and then Permanent Pen / Use Permanent Pen if you have your icons turned on you can turn Permanent Pen on and off by clicking the felt-tip pen icon.
Sometimes it is quicker and easier to click a program icon on your Desktop than navigate through the Start / Programs menu. In Windows 98 and later, you can copy items from Start / Programs by just navigating to it, right-clicking and dragging it to your desktop, then left-clicking Create shortcut here.
The Search dialogue box in Microsoft Word will work across several documents, although not at the same time. Search through one document, switch to another without closing it and you can conduct the same search in the second document, and it floats over your documents until you tell it to go away.
A quick way to rename a document, folder or shortcut: with object selected, hit F2 on the keyboard, type the new name and hit Enter.
If you frequently find yourself having to pick up and move your mouse on your desk as you run out of space, try turning on mouse acceleration. Double-click Mouse in Control Panel and on the Motion tab you will find the acceleration and speed options. Experiment to find the most comfortable ones for you.
The standard Windows calculator doesn’t look like much, but it has hidden talents. Open it and click View / Scientific to make it look much more impressive. Especially if you understand what all those buttons do.
Sign your mail: An e-mail signature can give recipients useful information about you and give you a chance to promote your business or other interests. Netiquette – the online equivalent of etiquette – requires that signatures aren’t too large (four or five lines of text is considered polite; anything with pictures, animations and videos is very impolite), but essentially you can say what you want. If you use Microsoft Outlook Express you can also decide whether or not to include them in all messages or to exclude them from Replies and Forwards. In OE, click Tools / Options / Signatures, check "Add signatures to all outgoing messages" and, if you wish, the option "Don’t add signatures to Replies and Forwards". Click "New" and set up your standard signature. You can have as many as you like, and they can be useful for sending standard replies on various topics to e-mailers – you insert the text of a signature in an e-mail by clicking Insert / Signature and choosing the appropriate one.
In Microsoft Word, hold down Ctrl and left-click to select the entire sentence where your mouse cursor is – in fact, you can click as many times as you like with Ctrl held down and you’ll still only select the sentence. Holding down Shift allows some other possibilities. For example, without holding down any keyboard keys double-click a word to select it. Now hold down Shift and left-click once on the word to the left, and both will be selected. Still holding shift, click the word to the right and the original and new will be selected, and the one on the left de-selected. Now left-click once on a word two lines down, and everything between the original and lower word will be selected.
Remember that any actual "text" you need in the middle of a Microsoft Excel formula needs to be within quote marks, otherwise your formula will be mangled. So if you’re checking to see if the word "CompanyName" is in cell B37, you’d need to have the following as your formula:
= If (B7="CompanyName", K3+D4, J42+A55)
It can be useful in Lotus Notes to make your comments and replies in a different font and/or colour to the original to make them easier to see. You can use the Permanent Pen to set a different font which you can toggle on and off as needed. To set it in Notes 5, set a document in Edit mode and click Text, choose a font / colour, click Text again and then Permanent Pen / Use Permanent Pen if you have your icons turned on you can turn Permanent Pen on and off by clicking the felt-tip pen icon.
Sometimes it is quicker and easier to click a program icon on your Desktop than navigate through the Start / Programs menu. In Windows 98 and later, you can copy items from Start / Programs by just navigating to it, right-clicking and dragging it to your desktop, then left-clicking Create shortcut here.
The Search dialogue box in Microsoft Word will work across several documents, although not at the same time. Search through one document, switch to another without closing it and you can conduct the same search in the second document, and it floats over your documents until you tell it to go away.
A quick way to rename a document, folder or shortcut: with object selected, hit F2 on the keyboard, type the new name and hit Enter.
If you frequently find yourself having to pick up and move your mouse on your desk as you run out of space, try turning on mouse acceleration. Double-click Mouse in Control Panel and on the Motion tab you will find the acceleration and speed options. Experiment to find the most comfortable ones for you.
The standard Windows calculator doesn’t look like much, but it has hidden talents. Open it and click View / Scientific to make it look much more impressive. Especially if you understand what all those buttons do.
Sign your mail: An e-mail signature can give recipients useful information about you and give you a chance to promote your business or other interests. Netiquette – the online equivalent of etiquette – requires that signatures aren’t too large (four or five lines of text is considered polite; anything with pictures, animations and videos is very impolite), but essentially you can say what you want. If you use Microsoft Outlook Express you can also decide whether or not to include them in all messages or to exclude them from Replies and Forwards. In OE, click Tools / Options / Signatures, check "Add signatures to all outgoing messages" and, if you wish, the option "Don’t add signatures to Replies and Forwards". Click "New" and set up your standard signature. You can have as many as you like, and they can be useful for sending standard replies on various topics to e-mailers – you insert the text of a signature in an e-mail by clicking Insert / Signature and choosing the appropriate one.
In Microsoft Word, hold down Ctrl and left-click to select the entire sentence where your mouse cursor is – in fact, you can click as many times as you like with Ctrl held down and you’ll still only select the sentence. Holding down Shift allows some other possibilities. For example, without holding down any keyboard keys double-click a word to select it. Now hold down Shift and left-click once on the word to the left, and both will be selected. Still holding shift, click the word to the right and the original and new will be selected, and the one on the left de-selected. Now left-click once on a word two lines down, and everything between the original and lower word will be selected.
Remember that any actual "text" you need in the middle of a Microsoft Excel formula needs to be within quote marks, otherwise your formula will be mangled. So if you’re checking to see if the word "CompanyName" is in cell B37, you’d need to have the following as your formula:
= If (B7="CompanyName", K3+D4, J42+A55)