Originally published January 24, 2020
Working with computers for over half my life, I have learned quite a bit on how to use them effectively. I am going to list any computer hints, shortcuts, or how-to's below that I think can really be beneficial to anyone that uses a computer. Some of these you might know and some of these might not help you, perhaps because it involves a program you don't use. But I bet if you work on a computer like me, you'll find something in here helpful.
Windows:
Lock computer quickly - Let's say you need to leave your desk in a quick manner, but you don't want to leave everything open and unattended. The shortcut is: Windows Logo Key + L. On my keyboard at least, that's the button between Fn and Alt, to the left of the Space Bar. This shortcut will quickly lock your computer, and anyone attempting to get on it has to type your password first. It's also easier to do that clicking the start menu and going to lock that way.
Bring up task manager quickly - It's annoying to do CTRL - ALT - DELETE every time to bring up task manager in case you need to end the task of an application. Rather than do that, hit CTRL - SHIFT - ESC and that will automatically bring up the task manager.
To select certain things not in a sequence - Sometimes you want to select a few different items or values that are not in a sequence. Not many people know this, but if you hold CTRL and select this way, it will only add each thing you click to the selection and not everything in between. If you use SHIFT, it will select everything in between. This works for not only selecting icons and files in Windows, but word selections in WORD and values/cells in Excel.
Excel:
Scroll down feature - Sometimes you might work on a spreadsheet with a lot of information, which I have. If you have information that takes up a bunch of uninterrupted rows, select the first row (Cell A1, for example) and then press CTRL + ⬇ (Down arrow), and that will send you to the end of your data. Usually when people input data in a spreadsheet, they start from the top and go down, so this is a helpful shortcut to know.
Input today's date - Dates are often inputted into Excel, so the makers of it designed some shortcuts to help people input them. To put in today's current date, select which cell you would like it to be in and then use CTRL + ; (semi-colon). Now, to input a date that will always be the current date, use the formula =TODAY() That will automatically update to the current date every time you open the spreadsheet. If you need just a date stamp, or you need the spreadsheet to automatically have today's date, those shortcuts/formulas are there for you.
Browser:
Clear history quickly - This shortcut works on Chrome and Microsoft Edge, at least. To quickly bring up the window to delete your browsing history, hit CTRL + SHIFT + DELETE. That will bring it up instantly. On Chrome, you're just a "Clear Data" button press away from clearing your browser history, so it would take 2-3 seconds, tops. Why you would need to clear your browsing history and that quickly... well, that's your business. I am now wondering if this shortcut has saved anyone's job.
Bring up tab you just closed - We've all done it. You're in a hurry, or you think you can close a tab, but then you realize you didn't want to close it. Fortunately, the developers of most browsers thought of a solution. The shortcut CTRL + SHIFT + T will bring up the most recently closed tab. It's been very helpful to me, and it can even be used to bring up more than one tab if need be.
That's it for now, but if I think of or see any others, I will be sure to add them here!
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