Welcome to our Tips Page!
How did they do that?
Maybe you've been watching someone else working on their computer, or you saw something on TV, or maybe you are just wondering if there is an easier way. Microsoft understands that eveyone is different and they've built their operating system and programs understanding these differences. To accomodate for these differences, they've made many different ways to do things on a computer. Some of these methods are listed below. Many of these are simply just time-savers designed to save you time while working on a computer. Enjoy these tips and if you have ideas or requests for other tips, please visit our Contact Us page and submit your idea.
Tip #1 - Right - Clicking
Right-Click Y'all. Try this for fun. If you don't use the
right-click button on your mouse very often, try it. You'll
usually notice a menu open with more options. You can right-click
to copy something, paste something, and much more. You can
do this when you highlight text, you can right-click on buttons,
pictures, etc. Also, try holding down the "Shift"
key when you right-click. You'll see a few more options that
aren't normally there. Have fun and right-click!!
Tip #2 - Forwarding Email Properly
1. Highlight the important text in the source email (usually done with clicking and dragging over the important text)
2. Choose "Edit" from the menubar at the top of the window
3. Choose "Copy" to copy the text to an invisible clipboard.
4. Open a new email and click in the body area of the email (where the bulk of the message usually goes)
5. Choose "Edit" and then "Paste"
6. Your text should be in this area now (put in a subject in the subject line and address the email to all of your friends)
(Special Note: if you don't want everyone else in the world to get your address book, send the mail to yourself and "bcc" or blind carbon copy everyone in your address book. This way, nobody else can see who you sent this to as I have done in this memo)
Tip #3 - Blocking email messages (Outlook Express)
If you constantly get email advertisements in your email inbox, you're not alone. Some of these messages can be blocked either by blocking the sender, or blocking certain text in the body of the message. To block the sender in Outlook Express, click on "Message" at the top in the menubar, then click on "Block Sender" and this should block any further emails from that same person. You've probably seen that some of these messages are the same, but from different people each day. This is the spammer's way to "unblock" themselves from your list. So you might want to find some keywords and block those as well. To do that you must first recognize if the words in the email are text or a picture. Your email cannot block text within a picture and this is another way spammers are getting around these means of blocking them. To check if it is a picture or text, open the email and try to right-click on an area of the advertisement. If it is a picture, you'll have the option to "copy picture", however, if it is actually text, you should be able to highlight some of the text. If you can highlight any of the keywords, like viagra, or refinance, you can block these types of messages by following these steps:
1. Click "Tools" from the menubar at the top of the Outlook Express inbox
2. Move your mouse down to "Message Rules" and then click on "Mail"
3. Make sure you are on the "Mail" tab and select "New"
4. In the top box "1." check the box "where the message body contains specific words.
5. In the second box "2." check the box next to "Delete it"
6. In the third box "3." click on the blue text "Contains specifi words" and in the new dialog box, type those keywords like "viagra" or "mortgage" and select "add" each time you add a word. You can add as many words as you want, but use caution so you don't start deleting emails from your friends or family. ALSO NOTE: USING THIS FEATURE CAN CAUSE GOOD EMAILS TO BE DELETED IF THESE EMAILS CONTAIN THE SAME WORDS YOU ADDED TO THAT LIST. IF YOU KNOW HOW TO CREATE A NEW FOLDER IN OUTLOOK EXPRESS, YOU CAN CREATE ONE AND CALL IT "SPAM" AND SEND YOUR EMAIL TO THIS FOLDER RATHER THAN DELETE IT. YOU CAN ALSO ALWAYS GO IN AND MODIFY THIS RULE.
Tip #4 - Saving Energy
Have you ever wondered, should I leave my computer on, or turn it off when I'm done using it? Well, there are several options to save energy with your computer. The first and easiest is to turn off your monitor when you walk away. Your computer may keep running but the monitor will be off saving you energy. This is most effective on the older non-flatpanel monitors. The next step is to set your computer to "go to sleep" or "hibernate" after a short period of time. Depending upon which version of Windows you are running, this feature could be located in different areas. Call us to help you find this. Using Sleep, hibernate or standby mode on your computer is a way to use only a slight amount of electricity without completely shutting your computer down.
Tip #5 - Keyboard Shortcuts
You may or may not know that there are dozens of keyboard shortcuts to make things easier. First, what is a keyboard shortcut? A keyboard shortcut is a set of keystrokes that is designed to perform a task. For example, if you have some text highlighted on your computer, you can press and hold the CTRL key and then press the "C" key on your keyboard to perform the "copy" function. This will copy the text to an invisible place on your computer called your clipboard. It is stored on your clipboard until something else takes its place. You can then paste this text to a different place on your computer, like into an email or document. CTRL+C is just one shortcut and there are so many more that will save you time. Here's a short list:
| Keystroke Combination | The function this performs: |
| CTRL + C | Copies what is selected |
| CTRL + V | Pastes what is selected |
| CTRL + P | Prints current item (document, picture, etc) |
| CTRL + O | Opens item within a program (open document) |
| CTRL + A | Selects ALL items within an area |
| CTRL + F | Opens the "Find" feature to search for something |
| CTRL + B | Makes text BOLD within a document or other. |
| CTRL + I | Italicizes the highlighted text |
| CTRL + U | Underlines the highlighted text |
| CTRL + N | Opens a new item (document, spreadsheet, etc) |
| CTRL + S | Saves the current document, spreadsheet, etc) |
| CTRL + Z | Peforms the UNDO task |
| CTRL + Y | Peforms the REDO task |
| ALT + TAB | Switches between open programs (tab many times if more than 2 programs are open) |
Let us know if you have any other ideas for our "Tips" page.