Big PC Geek Tech Blog

Sometimes you have your hands on the keyboard and it takes extra time to grab the mouse and move to the address bar to type a web site while using Internet explorer. If you are looking for a way to speed up the process, try typing Alt+d. This means hold down the alt key and then press the d key. This will move you to the address bar and you are free to type hopefully making your browsing experience quicker and better.

Windows Tip:

If the title did not explain it, if you need to save a document and have having to stop what you are doing, grab the mouse, save, and then find your place on the keyboard to continue typing. Try hitting Ctrl+S that means hit the "Ctrl" and the "S" key at the same time. You may find you will save some time with keyboard shortcuts. This is especially useful if you type and are in a good habit of saving frequently.

Ever received a zipped file or needed to send a zipped file in your PC or Mac and been told you need to buy a compressing program like Winzip? In most cases, you don’t need to buy any program. In most cases, when you receive a zipped file on a PC or Mac you can double click or click respectively and follow the instructions to get the compressed files.

If someone has requested you send them a zipped file in email or something, you don’t need to buy any software. Here is what you do:

On a PC, create a folder and put the files needed in it, then right click, select "send to," and finally "compresses (zipped) folder." This creates a zipped file you can use to send as an email attachment. If you need to add a password in order to open the zipped file you need to buy software and if you receive a file compressed by a proprietary program you may need to buy software.

In a Mac, the process is almost the same although the version of OSX might make the wording different. Ok… Create a file folder, then put the files in it. Then you need to do the same as a right click in Windows. Either hit "ctrl" and then click the mighty mouse on the folder or ditch the dumb Apple mouse and get a good windows mouse so you can right click. If you are using Leopard, then after right clicking you want to select "compress." Older versions of Mac OS’s may call this archive etc.

If you ever needed to restore a Mac with your recovery OSX CD you will find it will be faster to reboot and boot from the CD. To do this, reboot and hold down the "C" key.

Also, if you have partitioned your drive for Windows using BootCamp on your Intel Mac or have multiple bootable volumes, you can hold down the "Option" key when booting the computer. When booting, and holding down the option key, you will get all available boot options.

Most people know that tapping the Tab key will move you between active fields on a program, window, or from; but did you know you can move back a field by holding down "Shift" and pressing the "Tab" key?

For example, if you are filling out a form on a web site you can hit the tab key to move from one field to the next instead of using your mouse. If you need to backward, instead of using your mouse, use Shift+Tab.

Most may know how to click the Switch between Windows button on the task bar in Vista to get the new amazing way to switch windows but what is not commonly known is that there is a keyboard shortcut for it.

This new way of switching Windows is the Alt+Tab replacement. All you have to do is hold down the "Windows" key (the key with the Windows logo on it) and just tap the "tab" key.

Happy Window switching!

So my mom just asked how I magically pasted text with the keyboard. The answer is a keyboard shortcut.

If you want to copy or cut something and then paste, it is quickly with your keyboard. The + (plus) does not mean hold the plus key, it simply means to hold both the key on the left and the right of the plus at the same time.

This is how:

CUT: ctrl+x This will cut the selected text. (you wont see it on the screen anymore)

COPY: ctrl+c This will copy the selected text. The highlighted text will still remain.

PASTE: ctrl+v This will paste the text wherever the mouse curser is.

You can highlight text with the mouse or by holding the shift key and moving the arrows. The best technique I have found when pasting text is to hold down the ctrl key with my pinky finger and then hit the other key with whichever finger is convenient. You can copy text from just about anything on your computer but you can only paste text in certain areas. For example, text can be pasted to a word document or email. All of this can be achieved by right clicking on a mouse but when you get used to using keyboard shortcuts you will find they are much quicker. All of this applies to the Mac, even the same alphanumeric keys but instead of ctrl you hold down the Apple key. I think this explains everything a little better than the previous post about copying and pasting.