Your Computer Minute with Peter Kay

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When you’re on the road and you need to make a note of something, do you reach for a pad and pencil? You do? While you’re driving? Really? Hey, look, there’s a much better and safer way! Use your cellphone and leave a message on your own voicemail! Then when you get back into the office its easy to transfer those notes into an action plan. Getting in the habit of leaving voicemails to yourself is super handy because you can do it anytime and anywhere assuming you’ve got a cellphone. You’ll never need to be near pencil and paper again! And if you want to join the Peter Kay master of cool technology club, you’ll take the extra step to program your cellphone with a one touch speedial that lets you record messages with just one button. Now that’s cool (and lets not forget safe!).

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Hey Windows users, have you noticed that your mouse has two buttons? Have you ever used the other one? Do you use it a lot? If you want to increase your productivity with most Windows applications, get in the habit of doing what’s called a “right-click”. By clicking on the right-hand side button on your mouse (lefties, use the left-hand button), you can access a special menu of common operations or shortcuts. Most of the time the menu option you want is easily available on the right-click menu and you can save lots of time instead of using the normal menu bar. You’ll also find that the right-click menu will change based on where your mouse is pointing on the screen, so be sure to try this operation in different areas of your current window. You’ll find that the operation you want to perform is usually right there and much easier and faster for you to use. Happy right-clicking!

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If you use Microsoft Word, I’ve got a quick tip for you. One of the most common, yet tedious operations is capitalizing words. It’s a hassle! You have to delete the character, only to re-type it again in caps. There’s a much better and faster method and here’s how it works. Move your cursor over a word you want to capitalize, then hold down the shift key while pressing F3. We call this a shift-F3. You’ll notice that your word has automagically become capitalized. If you do a shift-F3 again, the entire word turns to all caps. Hit shift-F3 one more time, and the whole word gets changed to all lowercase. Using shift-F3 is a great little tip and if you get in the habit if using it you’ll save lots of time. I’m sure you’ll want to give it a try.

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If you run more than one program at time on your computer, I’ve got a great tip for you. These days people typically run Outlook, Excel, and Word while they are surfing the Web at the same time. But how do you switch between these programs? Some people click on a window. Others might click on the toolbar. The best way to switch is to do an Alt-Tab. Here’s how it works. Hold down the Alt key, then press and let go of the Tab key. A window will pop up showing you a list of all the programs you’re running. Now if you keep hitting the tab key, you’ll see a little box move from program to program. Once you let go of the Alt key, Windows will immediately switch you to the program you’ve selected. Practice this technique and you’ll be switching between programs like a pro.

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If you are involved with your company’s Web site in any way, listen closely. The strategy and thinking behind many corporate Web sites is typically based on what the company wants Web visitors to do or know. Many times I’ll hear people say, “we want users to learn about this”, or “we need to make the user do such and such”. Folks, this does not work and it will never work. Why? Because the Web site is not in control, the user is! Think about how you surf the Web. You go to a certain Web site because you have a job to do and if you can’t get that job done, you are outta there, right? So make your company’s Web site great by understanding what users might want to do and then make it easy and fast for them to get that job done. The better you do that, the more your site’s business will grow.

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