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Following are 3 of the most valuable computer tips you may ever use.
- They’ll save you time.
- They’ll prevent future headaches.
- They’ll put you in touch with things you never even knew existed!
(…No, those are not the 3 tips. See below!)
3 Time-Saving Computer Tips
#1 I’m always amazed when I come across another person who isn’t aware of the fact that you can search for an individual word on any page on the Internet (or in any Windows document) that you have open.
Whenever you’re reading something and want to know if a particular word has been mentioned in that article, simply click CTRL+F and type in that word. Your cursor will then jump to every instance on the page that word is used.
Again. This works in almost EVERY Windows-based product out there! So if you’re using Microsoft Windows… give it a try! Any time. Any document. Any page. Any website. Any article. CTRL+F… to FIND any word.
#2 Let’s say you’re you’re cutting and pasting chunks of data from one document into another, and you accidentally hit the wrong key… like the letter “C” instead of CTRL+C (keyboard shortcut for “Copy”). Oh no, now there’s just a letter “C” in place of what you had intended to COPY into another document!…
No fear… Just click CTRL+Z to UNDO your little mess-up. And it’s back the way it was before you typed the “C”.
In other words: CTRL+Z can save your butt ANY time you’ve hit the wrong key and want to get back what you’ve just deleted.
Along those same lines, you can also use CTRL+Z to un-Bold something you’ve just made Bold. Or, to un-Center something you’ve just Centered. Etc. Etc. In short, you can use CTRL+Z to back yourself out of virtually anything you’ve done up to the last time you SAVED your document. A time-saver… AND a life-saver!
#3 It seems my personal advice to friends in recent months has become: “Just GOOGLE it!”
Seriously. Whenever you’re in doubt about something, just GOOGLE it! No matter the topic. It doesn’t even have to be something that’s computer related. If you want to see if other people have had similar problems as you, have voiced their opinions about a specific product or service, or you just want to know how something works… GOOGLE it.
I’ve found the most beneficial times that GOOGLE has come to my rescue is also the least-often used times that others use GOOGLE. What I mean is this:
I’m working on the computer. I get an error message. I have no idea what that message means, so I GOOGLE it.
First, you should try to input the entire phrase — then sit back and see what you get. Scan the results QUICKLY for something that seems to be written for your level of understanding, and click on the article to take a peek. If it answers your question. Great. If not, then GOOGLE just a few of the keywords together, rather than the whole phrase this time.
Every time you GOOGLE it a different way, you’ll get a whole new set of search results. ONE of them will point you in the right direction.
Check out 12 Quick Tips To Search With Google!
I got my first computer in 1986 and immediately started writing, saving documents, and organizing my entire life on it. Thus began my love affair with gadgets and all things tech. I built my first website in 1998 in old-school HTML code — before websites were "a thing". Blogs weren't invented yet. It was the same year that Google was born. My husband and I created TheFunTimesGuide.com in 2004 — before YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, and Mashable were launched. That was the year Facebook started and 'blog' was the Word of the Year according Merriam-Webster. Ever since then, anytime a new electronic gadget hits the market… I have to have it. (My husband's impulsive nature to try out every new tech gadget invented is even worse than mine!) When I'm not trying out fun new tech gadgets, you'll find me at the corner of Good News & Fun Times as publisher of The Fun Times Guide (32 fun & helpful websites).
