Ever wondered what that key on your keyboard with the Windows logo can do for you? It just sits there unnoticed by so many people, but it can save you so much time and boost your productivity.

Want to navigate to anywhere on your computer?

WINDOWS + E

Opens the Windows Explorer
(Just hold down the windows key with one finger and press the ‘E’ key with another)
Easy to remember E = Explorer

Want to instantly minimize everything and get a clear Desktop?

WINDOWS + D

Easy to remember D = Desktop

Want to get them back open?
Press Windows + D again!

Want to find anything on your computer?

WINDOWS + F
opens the find all files box!

Want to lock your computer quickly when you leave it unattended?

WINDOWS + L
instantaneous protection from prying eyes!

Want to run a program from the Run command?

WINDOWS + R
couldn’t be simpler!

There are quite a number more, but these few should soon get you realizing how useful a key it really is!

Many of us still use Microsoft Outlook 2003 as our standard Email application or client. It works pretty smoothly and does a great job, but I started finding that it was occasionally crashing and generally not behaving in the rock-steady manner I had become used to.

After opening the Task Manager (see other posts) I spotted the problem. Outlook was running in more than one instance! This should not happen and is bound to cause problems and strange behavior. I tried closing Outlook down, but it was still showing as running in the Task Manager!

I closed down the running instances by highlighting them in the Task Manager and shutting them down one by one.

Did it work? For the moment yes, but as the next time I ran Outlook, I looked back in the Task manager, and there was another instance of it running again!

OK, so here’s the fix!

…..Click here to read more

Twitter is an amazing tool. We’ve already discussed why you should be using Twitter in an earlier article. There are a couple of challenges that you’ll encounter as you become a more avid tweeter. One of the most important ones to overcome is that you need to keep your posts to 140 characters at most. This is not as simple as it sounds especially when you are doing something like sharing a link to another site. URLs are not short and you’ll find them taking up a significant number of precious characters.

As you can see from the image above, this can become a serious problem. Fortunately there is a very simple solution to this problem. All you have to do is to utilize one of the URL shortening services that are freely available on the Web. There are many to choose from, but the one I recommend is bit.ly which has several other features once you create a free account including the ability to view click statistics over time.

So lets head on over to http://bit.ly and create an account. Once you’ve done that, log in to your account and paste in the long URL you want to share. This site is also useful for sharing links in other forms as well, for example link sharing in your e-mails and blogs. It’s especially useful for Twitter though because of the above-mentioned character count limitations.

…..Click here to read more

Unless you haven’t turned on a computer for the past year, or you simply don’t visit any sites other than AOL, you will no doubt be familiar with Twitter. It’s been the center of all the buzz around the web for a while now and people are throwing out all sorts of terms such as “Micro blogging”. If you’re wondering what all the fuss is about and what Twitter can do for you, keep reading.

The concept is simple: you get a maximum of 140 characters to get your message across. You can post as many messages (called tweets in Twitter lingo) as you want and people can read your tweets and even “follow” you on Twitter so they get all of your tweets conveniently displayed for them. The point is to get the message across in a short and simple manner. Efficient and unobtrusive.

Tweets can be grouped into lists so that you can aggregate messages of a similar nature into groups. Tweets and profiles can be viewed directly on the Twitter website, but you can also use one of any number of applications (installed on your computer or mobile device) to enjoy the Twitter experience.

…..Click here to read more

There’s an ongoing debate between iPhone users and Blackberry users (Android and other smartphones are jumping on board too) about which mobile device is the best. I am not here to try and convince you one way or the other; I am simply typing this blog post on my iPhone to let you know that if you do end up buying an iPhone, it will be one of the smartest moves you ever make in your life. Simply put, the iPhone is the coolest and most practical device I have ever used in my life.

No matter what your needs are, the iPhone will satisfy them. It will also do so very, very well.

Let’s start with the basic necessities: phone: check, good speakerphone: check, email: check, browsing: check. Great, we’ve got all the basics covered, and to be honest with you each of them will exceed your expectations. The speakerphone is crisp, the email is excellent and supports Microsoft Exchange server e-mail and the version of Safari the phone comes with is very good (you can also install other browsers as well such as the brilliant “Perfect Browser” app).

…..Click here to read more