The art of using software effectively is to know precisely how it works – and moving and clicking the mouse costs you valuable time when composing a document in Word. However, you can speed up your document processing and editing with keyboard shortcuts. With a little practice, you will become much more efficient and productive. Here is a short list of common tasks and their keyboard shortcut commands. A complete list is available on Microsoft’s website, but this is enough to shave hours off your day!

Editing: It is not uncommon to need to remove words while editing. Use Ctrl+Delete or Ctrl+Backspace to speed up this process. Ctrl+Delete will delete the word to the right of your cursor and Ctrl+Backspace will remove the words to the left of your cursor. If you need to delete three words to the right of your cursor, press Ctrl+Delete three times. The same can be applied to Ctrl+Backspace.

Moving Paragraphs: When you want to move a paragraph from its current position to below the following paragraph, insert your cursor into the paragraph that you want to move and, while pressing Alt+Shift, press Down Arrow. Use Alt+Shift and Up Arrow to move the paragraph up.

Repeating Your Most Recent Action: F4 will repeat nearly every action you’ve taken on a document. It will duplicate formatting, deleting and typing.

Find and Replace: Ctrl+H will open the Find and Replace dialog box. If you only need to locate something in the document, Ctrl+F opens the Find tab.

Toggling Between Two Documents: When working on two separate documents, you can to switch to the document not displayed by simply pressing Alt+Tab. This feature will also switch to any other program you have open. Hold the Alt key and press Tab until the program you want is selected.

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Your memory is one of the greatest tools you could possibly have. Indeed, what could be more important than processing and retaining the huge amount of information that you receive every day of your life? It’s good to know then that you can improve your memory, and by doing so you can make those minutes count. If a book, article or report really matters, then being able to hold onto that information is vital. If you can’t remember it, then you wasted your time absorbing it the first time. Here are 20 tricks to help you improve your memory. Continue reading ‘20 Indispensable Tricks to Improve Your Memory’ »

With the advance of technology, we are getting better and better tools with which to work – but they can always be made better! Here are some iPhone accessories that really can help you to save time, allowing you to use your iPhone more effectively and more efficiently.

Apple Remote: This sleek aluminum remote can be used to control your Mac, iPod, or iPhone from a distance. You can use it to adjust volume, forward, rewind and access menus. During presentations or when collaborating via videophone conference you could use it to save time by operating and coordinating all three Apple products with one remote. It also comes standard with the Apple Universal Dock.

Apple World Travel Adapter Kit: This is an obvious time saver. It has a USB power adapter, cable and six interchangeable plugs which give you a wide variety of components. When traveling, save the time spent looking for a compatible power outlet to recharge your iPhone by carrying this handy iPhone accessory everywhere you travel.

Apple Component AV Cable: An excellent accessory to integrate your iPhone with a TV and view media files. It contains component input jacks as well as USB connectors and a power adapter. Save the time it would take to transfer video to USB or DVD format for playback on TV.

Apple Bluetooth Travel Cable: Charge your Bluetooth and iPhone at the same time with this handy accessory. Plug it into a power source and then plug in your iPhone and Bluetooth set at the same time to charge. This allows you to save the time you would have spent charging these components independently or looking for that Bluetooth charger you forgot at home or in the office.

Griffin PowerJolt Car Charger for iPad, iPhone and iPod: The charger comes with a cigarette-lighter adapter with a powerful 2AMP charging circuit. This innovative product comes equipped to charge your iPhone, iPad or iPod, all from the convenience of your car. Easily save time by merging commuting time with charging your gadgets.

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As part of its second anniversary, Google Chrome is celebrating its achievement as the third most popular web browser available. The innovative features of the software have contributed to its success as a competitor to Internet Explorer and Firefox and if used properly it can be a great time saving tool. However, if you’re not using the browser effectively, then you won’t be able to make the most of it. Here’s how you can do better.

i) Basic Calculator Hidden in Omnibox: Instead of opening the calculator on your computer, Chrome allows you to compute simple math calculations in the URL bar. Answers to your mathematical queries are displayed where you would normally see auto-suggestions. This tool can also process unit conversations such as feet to meters.

ii) More Than One Homepage: You can set Chrome to open multiple homepages on start-up to increase your surfing speed. Click on the wrench icon and select “Options”. Under the “Basic” tab, select “Open the Following Pages” button. Next, click “Add”. There you can manually add URLs or select recently visited sites.

iii) Chrome’s AutoFill: You can add your address to the list of items that Chrome will automatically complete for you. Return to the “Options” screen through the wrench icon and click “Personal Stuff”. Once there, choose “AutoFill” options and select add address. Enter your details and you will never have to manually enter your address information on another web form.

iv) Sync Google Account with Chrome: You’ve spent hours setting your options and preferences on your home computer. With Chrome you can access all of those settings through your Google Account on another computer. Select the “Personal Stuff” tab under the Google Chrome Options menu. Sign in to your Google Account and you will instantly have access to your Chrome settings.

v) Shortcut Keys: Lose the mouse and save time with these shortcut keys:

• Open a new window with Ctrl + N
• Open a new tab with Ctrl + T
• Close current tab with Ctrl + F4

Using tricks like these you can boost your productivity and ensure you get the most out of your browsing time.

Spam is one of the great inconveniences of modern life – every day you have to carefully sift out unwanted (and likely offensive) emails from business communications, in order to get your job done. There is then an added level of risk should you open a message containing a virus or accidentally discard important messages along with the garbage. All this means that an anti-spam filter is essential for anybody using email for business.

What qualifications separate a good program from one that is only average? There are a number of factors that have to be looked at in order to narrow down the list of candidates.

1). It has to be able to work by itself, checking each packet header of incoming emails, and deleting those that are inappropriate.

2). It has to kill these spam emails before they reach a user’s inbox. This saves on bandwidth, and reduces the need to sort out the important stuff from the junk.

3). It must be able to effectively analyze both sides of the firewall, checking each part of the message, including the header, body and source. A list of addresses, that is easy to adjust by the administrator of the system, is also of great help in filtering spam out. A Bayesian filter is an important feature for a good anti-spam application.

4). A good program will be able to let a user preview any of the emails that have been marked as spam. Sometimes emails are miss labeled for a variety of reasons and these may need to be retrieved on some occasions.

The spam utility should also allow for flexible filtering and a separate folder should be available for spam emails. The software should also allow a user to recover an accidentally deleted email.

Generally speaking, this type of program has to be able to work by itself, be easy to use and have the best filters, able to be easily adjusted by any user. There are many great options, but three top choices include SpamFighter, ChoiceMail, and SpamEater Pro. By making the right choices you can save yourself a considerable amount of time every day.

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