I didn’t know about a couple of these 10 time-saving tech tips

I have been using personal computers for over 30 years, so I figured that I knew most of the time saver tips. For whatever reason, I was drawn to watch this Ted Talk “David Pogue: 10 top time-saving tech tips.” Part of the introduction included:

“And yes, you may know a few of these already — but there’s probably at least one you don’t.”

Well, that was a challenge, and sure enough, they were right. I had totally forgotten about the use of the space bar for web page reading, and had no inkling of double click & drag. What about you? What are some of your favorite tips?

Here is an outline of the tips. He elaborates in the short video.

1. press <space bar> on a web page to page down (<shift>+<space bar> to go up)
2. on fields with a long selection list (like state), press the first letter of the state until the one you want shows up (press M 8 times for Missouri or T 2 times for Texas) 
3. web page text to small or too big? <Ctrl>+<+> or <-> will change it
4. when typing on a mobile device, pressing <space> <space> will add a period & capitalize the first letter of the next word, thereby saving the keyboard layout switch.
5. redial the last number by just pressing <call>
6. frustrated with long voice message announcements? Once you know the carrier, you can bypass it:
   1. Verizon *
   2. AT&T, T-Mobile #
   3. Sprint 1
7. Other ways to use Google.com; samples include
   1. word definitions; type “define word_to_define”
   2. airline flight information; type “airline flight_number” for instance “southwest airlines 1153” or “swa 1153”
   3. convert units; type “10 inches in cm” or “10 quarts in gallon” or “10 dollars in euro”
   4. most of the time the answer will appear before you finish typing
8. double click to select word; double click and drag to extend selection by word (the video demonstrates this)
9. Blank the display of a slide presentation by pressing B to get the audience to focus on you instead of the slide.

OK. I left one out. Watch the video if, in his words, you want a tip to give your camera a feature only found on models costing $1,000 and up.

Contact me if you would like to learn some tips and shortcuts specifically for what you do.