Some of you may know some of these tips, but if you’re like a lot of people out there, you may not know them all. Today, I present 4 tips that will help speed your life along while working at the computer. If you know some other PC timesaver tips, by all means, don’t hesitate to drop them down in the comments and let us all in on them.
1. No need to type www
That’s right! When typing a URL into a Web browser, there’s no need to waste time typing the www part. Don’t believe me? Go ahead and type mentafloss.com into the browser and watch what happens. [ed. note: As some readers have correctly pointed out, this is only mostly true. Some URLs still require the full www. But that shouldn't stop you from trying it first without!]
2. Alt + Tab (Apple key + Tab)
This is an easy way to toggle between the applications you have open. So let’s say I’m typing a document in MS WORD and want to copy and paste some of the document into a spread sheet open in EXCEL. No need to take your fingers off the keyboard, just hold down the ALT key (for Mac users it’s the Apple key) and TAB through your open applications until the highlighter lands on the EXCEL icon. When you let go, presto! you’re in EXCEL. This trick is also great for switching quickly when your boss comes up behind your cubicle and wants to talk to you. If you happen to have mentalfloss.com loaded on your browser (and why wouldn’t you?), just TAB to that PowerPoint presentation without touching the mouse and he’ll have no idea you were goofing off on company time. (Not that anyone actually goofs off by reading mentalfloss!)
3. Tab through forms
Let’s say you’re in the middle of filling out a profile on our site. You’re confronted with dozens of empty fields that need filling in (First Name, Last Name, Address, blah blah blah, you’ve done it a million times in your life already). What a pain in the neck it is to use the mouse to move through the boxes. You don’t have to, though! Just hit the TAB key and shazam! you’re in the next box. Make a mistake? Hold down the SHIFT key and then TAB back a box. HUGE time saver.
4. No need to go to Google.com to perform Google searches
This is something my wife just can’t get through her (every-once-in-a-while) thick skull. In the upper right-hand corner of every browser, there a search bar that lets you name your default search engine. Plop the cursor in there and search just as you would if you were my wife, typing www.Google.com every time she wants to look up something.
Your turn! Hit us back with some shortcuts of your own.
Comments (38)
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For any website ending in .com, simply type where you want to go in the address bar (ex. mentalfloss) and hit ctrl+enter. Everything else is added for you and off you go!
posted by Kevin on 3-5-2009 at 5:53 am
I’m not sure #1 is absolutely true. It’s possible to have your DNS records with wwww.xyz.com going to one IP and xyz.com going to another IP. That would be non-standard, but there is nothing “wrong” with doing so.
posted by Robert on 3-5-2009 at 6:49 am
#1 certainly isn’t true: it’s only mostly true, and only in the US, because people there routinely buy both the registry with the W’s and without. In the UK it’s quite common to not be able to locate a site without the W’s, because they didn’t register the non-W’d registry.
posted by DaviMack on 3-5-2009 at 6:57 am
tap the space bar to scroll down on a Web. Shift + space bar to scroll up
posted by Nilesh Babu on 3-5-2009 at 7:12 am
Nothing special to contribute. F5 the universal refresh key rather than hitting the refresh icon. Window + e for windows explorer.
posted by Andy on 3-5-2009 at 7:21 am
Alt+forward arrow or Alt+back arrow works for back and forward pages in IE and Firefox
posted by Steve on 3-5-2009 at 8:12 am
I’m a big fan of Alt-F4, which closes whichever active window you have open. Especially helpful when goofing off at work.
posted by Jill on 3-5-2009 at 8:16 am
F11 – removes the header and footer of the browser so you have more screen space. I found this out with my netbook because with the small screen I needed all the real estate I could find. Hit it again to make them re-appear.
posted by KJ on 3-5-2009 at 8:21 am
If you have a mouse with a scroller on it, you can hit Ctrl + roll the scroller up or down to increase or decrease the web page font. I believe this also works on laptops–an upward or downward sweep of your finger on the touch pad in conjunction with Ctrl.
posted by nutmeag on 3-5-2009 at 9:10 am
“windows button”+E in xp opens explorer.
also “WB”+R=run command..
posted by happyjoim on 3-5-2009 at 9:13 am
#1 is incorrect. www part of a URL is the subdomain. You can set up your DNS to point the subdomain to a different IP address (server) than the main domain. As the previous commenter said, that is not standard practice. In addition, some (bad) system administrators may not even set up the domain (sans www part) correctly to point to anything. So you need to enter in the www part.
HOWEVER, if you’ve installed Google Toolbar, Google helps you out. Google Toolbar will try the url you’ve entered, if it doesn’t have a site, it’ll populate your URL with the standard www or .com. In fact, I can type ‘mentalfloss’ into the browser URL and it will automatically take me to http://www.mentalfloss.com. This is feature is called ‘Address Bar Browse By Name’ (Comment won’t allow me to post links .. but google that). This is non-standard approach to this and it would be incorrect to list this under a generic “Computer Timesaver Tips”
DaviMack’s comment is incorrect. When you register a domain, you own the entire domain. There is no extra “registration” for the subdomain. That is just up to the configuration by the system administrator. The administrator could set up “mentalfloss.com” to point to one server and “www.mentalfloss.com” to another server and “iq.mentalfloss.com” to another server. In fact, they don’t even need to be different servers. He could set up *.mentalfloss.com to point to the same server.
posted by Johnie on 3-5-2009 at 9:25 am
this isn’t really a short cut but something cool on a mac. if you press ctrl + alt + apple key and then press 8 your whole screen goes negative. all the display colors are inverted. helpful for some stuff but mostly for funsies!
posted by Becca on 3-5-2009 at 9:45 am
I don’t know how much time this will save anybody, but if you hit “up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start” in just about any program or application, good things are bound to happen.
posted by Admiral Byrd on 3-5-2009 at 10:01 am
An addition to #4, if you’re using Firefox or Opera, just hit Control + K, which will put the cursor in that search field.
posted by Shawn on 3-5-2009 at 10:05 am
F6 will jump you to the address bar in IE and Firefox, and highlights everything, so that you can enter an address without messing about with the mouse.
(captcha – Evanston was!)
posted by SeanK on 3-5-2009 at 10:29 am
“Windows button” + tab in Vista is the newer, cooler version of the alt+tab function.
posted by Scottish on 3-5-2009 at 10:45 am
Not sure how many people know/use this, but if you select one file in a folder (in Windows), you can hold down shift and use the arrows to select others. That way you can select many files at once without having to click and drag a box around them. You can also use ctrl+left click to select other items that are not directly next to the ones you’re using shift and arrow with. I hope that’s not too muddy an explanation :)
posted by Fruppi on 3-5-2009 at 10:52 am
I love alt-tab and use it every day at work. I use it in conjuntion with Ctrl + v (copy) and Ctrl + c (paste). Once you master this, it’s incredible how much time you save.
posted by ABC on 3-5-2009 at 11:19 am
One of my favorite old-school tips is the “invert selection” under “edit” in Explorer. If I’ve got 40 files in a directory and want to select 38 of them, it’s much easier to select the 2 I want to keep and then use “invert” to swap those 2 for the 38 other ones.
posted by Sandy Wood on 3-5-2009 at 11:26 am
One other quick one — in Windows Explorer, clicking on a file or folder name and then clicking F2 allows you to edit the name. (F2 has long been the “edit” key for spreadsheets, so it’s easy to remember for us older folks.)
posted by Sandy Wood on 3-5-2009 at 11:28 am
CTRL+C to copy, CRL+V to paste…
SHIFT+DELETE truly deletes files (instead of sending to the Recycle Bin)
CTRL+T to open a new tab (in IE7 and Firefox), and CTRL+TAB to scroll between the tabs (works in other applications too)
posted by Steve on 3-5-2009 at 11:41 am
While you are tabbing through a form (discussed in the article), hitting the space bar will fill in a check box.
posted by Dave V on 3-5-2009 at 12:16 pm
Ctrl + Page Up allows you to move one spreadsheet left in Microsoft Excel, and Ctrl + Page Down moves you one spreadsheet right.
I don’t have Firefox on this computer, but I believe if you open multiple tabs in one browser window, you can use this shortcut to look at various tabs as well (if memory serves correctly).
posted by Bryan on 3-5-2009 at 12:37 pm
Windows Key + D will minimize all the windows and show you the desktop.
Push it again and it brings them all back.
posted by Troy H. on 3-5-2009 at 1:14 pm
I have a couple:
Shift+Backspace will go forward a page
Windows+L locks the computer
Windows+M will show the desktop
Ctrl+Home in any document will bring you to the very beginning of your document, not just the beginning of a line
posted by Rebecca on 3-5-2009 at 1:17 pm
CRTL + ESC opens the start menu in windows, F1 almost always opnes the help of the program.
ALT + HOME opens the home page defined in IE and Firefox
Windows Key + F opens the search window.
Those are the ones that I remember at the moment.
posted by Roberto on 3-5-2009 at 1:22 pm
When tabbing through a form, Shift + Tab will take you back to the box you just left. Hope that makes sense. :)
posted by Catherine on 3-5-2009 at 1:25 pm
the delete key works as a back button for most internet browers.
posted by Matt on 3-5-2009 at 1:25 pm
Here’s a cool one I accidentally stumbled on last week. When clicking on a hyperlink, hold down the “shift” button while clicking, and the page will automatically open in a new window! Sure beats the whole routine of doing “right click->open in new window”.
posted by Keith on 3-5-2009 at 2:41 pm
OMG! i just tried some of these! too cool!
AAAAAAAA!
posted by the creature on 3-5-2009 at 2:46 pm
Ctrl+Tab will take you to the next tab in your browser. Shift+Ctrl+Tab will take you back a tab
posted by Woad on 3-5-2009 at 3:36 pm
Not much of a timesaver, but it is great for April Fools. Press Ctrl, Alt, and one of the arrow keys at the same time. The entire screen will flip. Press Ctrl. Alt, and the Up Arrow to set it back the normal way. Ah, the things you learn from mistakes made when you’re distracted.
posted by Sam on 3-5-2009 at 3:43 pm
Sam, I really wanted that to work. It didn’t, and now, to be completely honest, I’m a little sad.
Admiral Byrd, that would be equally as fun. I’m sure it is in Mario World, though.
posted by Cassie on 3-5-2009 at 5:13 pm
ctrl+left/right arrow: skips the cursor to the beginning of the next word.
ctrl+shift+left/right arrow: selects a whole word.
ctrl+up/down arrow: skips the cursor to the beginning of the next paragraph.
ctrl+shift+up/down arrow: selects the whole paragraph.
These are huge time savers that help you avoid having to move the cursor along each letter in a word or line in a paragraph, or use the mouse for the same purpose.
also:
ctrl+a: select all
ctrl+e: centers text
ctrl+l: makes text flush left
ctrl+r: makes text flush right
Control (or apple/command on a mac) is the magic key! You can just play around with it and different letter combos in a document and see what happens.
posted by Moira on 3-5-2009 at 6:15 pm
@ Admiral Byrd
“Just because we use cheats doesn’t mean we’re not smart!”
moldy peaches, anyone?
posted by tej on 3-5-2009 at 8:23 pm
@Cassie:
I was disappointed too, until I realized that only the down arrow works to flip the screen, and then the up arrow to fix it again. It’s pretty neat!
captcha: “phase that flickered” — kind of poetic.
posted by CalamityKate on 3-5-2009 at 8:48 pm
@Admiral Byrd
That code unlocks everything from the original NES game “Contra”. Thought I was the only that remembered that 20 yrs later.
posted by ltjones on 3-5-2009 at 9:44 pm
@ Itjones
Actually that code will do somethings in most Konami games from that time.
posted by Luis on 3-6-2009 at 4:19 am