General Household Tips                Credits

You will notice that sometimes when you go to certain sites, the internet provider for that site will throw an advertisement up in another browser window.  This can be frustrating at times.  Yes, you can get programs that will stop this right off the bat but you have another option as well.   Just hit the "esc" key when you see that window start to come up and just close it.

When you are loading new programs, they usually highly recommend that all programs be closed while you do the installation.  Here is a simple thing to do to close all programs and maybe prevent problems.
        1.  Click the Start button.  Click "run" and type "msconfig."
        2.  Click on " Selective Startup"
        3.  Uncheck " Load startup group items."  Click "OK"
        4.  Click " yes " when asked if you want to restart your computer.
At this point you are now free to install a new program.  To get all those programs that run in the background ( your tray items ) do step one again and in step #2 click on " Normal Startup "  Rumor has it that even those experts at Microsoft do these steps.  Please let me know if you use this and how it works for you.

When working with Office 97 files you can speed up your printing jobs if you already know the file that you want to print.  Just go to your Windows Explorer application and select the file as you would to open it but instead of the double click, just click once, go to file and print.  Explorer will then open the file using the appropriate application and automatically print it.  It then closes that application when it is done.  Sometimes this is so fast, you won't even see that application open up..

In Word 97, to show you all kinds of keyboard shortcuts, just follow these steps.

When you are using your Explorer to look at your files, you can go to a folder and hit f3 and the find option will come us with your current directory selected.  This can be a time saver.

A couple Notebook tricks for ya .  To enter the date in a file when using the notebook, go to the place where you want to enter the date and hit F5.  If you are using your notebook for frequent notes you can type .LOG at the beginning of your file and everytime you open up that file, the date and time will be entered automatically.

To minimize all your open windows, hit ctrl-esc (or click on the Start Button), then alt-m.

If you are in a directory and want to pull up a particular file or folder in a flash just start typing the first letters of your desired folder or file and you will see you go there directly.

To change the font type and size for all your shortcut icons  on your desktop and various other places, do a right-click on your desktop.  Now click on the Appearance tab and under the Item selection, select Icon.   Select a new font and size.  Be careful not to change the size to the right of the Item list or you will change the size of your icons.  Click Apply when you have made your changes and you will see the changes.  Just another way to personalize your Windows.  If you need to change your font back to normal, the default is 8-point, MS Sans Serif (Western).

To actually print a snap shot of what is on your screen, hit your "print screen" key.  Now go to your start button, programs, accessories, word pad.  Now click on edit at the top and hit paste and you will see a picture of what is currently on your screen. 

On your desktop, the easiest way to delete shortcuts is do drag them to the recycle bin.

You know that when you are in a directory and you want to delete multiple files you can click on the first file and then hold down the shift key and select the last file in the list that you want to delete.  All the files between those points will be hightlighted and you can delete them.  Another interesting trick here is that you can hold down the ctrl key instead of the shift key and pick various files and then delete or move those selected files.

To open a new window when clicking on a link, just hold down your shift key at the same time you click on the link.

To shut down windows with a simple click and avoid the Windows prompt, create a new shortcut.  To create your new shortcut, go to your desktop and do a right click.   Choose "create shortcut".  At the command line type the following without the quotes.  "C:\WINDOWS\RUNDLL32.EXE User,ExitWindows".  This is a program that is already built into Windows.

FIND YOUR F3 KEY

When you need to find something on your system, do you automatically select Start, Find, Files or Folders, define a folder on the Look In line, and so on? Sure, the Start menu is one way to start this search utility, but depending on where you are at the moment, there may be a faster way to get your search started. Right-click any drive or folder--on the desktop, in an Explorer window, wherever--select Find, and up pops the Find window with that drive or folder already listed on the Look In line. Ever faster, from the desktop or an open Explorer window, press F3 to open the Find: All Files window already focused on the current folder.