Time for What Matters: Essential Windows Shortcuts

The average person spends 90,000 hours at work. These hours can cost us sleep, affect our mood, and cause us to gain weight. Oh, and work can cause stress, too. We can’t give you a “get out of work free” card, but these essential Windows keyboard shortcuts will help you save time. Some of us LOVE the keyboard shortcuts, while others use the right-mouse button click for these functions.  We’ll focus on the keyboard shortcuts in this month’s TechTalk.

By gaining efficiency at your computer, you may find you have more time for what matters. At work, this may be devising new innovations or getting out in the field to visit a customer or vendor. At home, these shortcuts can free up time to play a board game with the kids or do some serious NetFlix bingwatching!

So, try these out and see if they make sense and save you time also.  We know they will, so try them out!

Ctrl + C to Copy

Use your mouse cursor to highlight the particular text/table/image/file that you want to copy. Once you highlight the area you want, press the Ctrl and the letter C to perform the “copy” function.  See Ctrl + V to Paste below for the next step.

Ctrl + X to Cut

Think about X marking the spot in the text where you want to cut words, an image, or a website address. Drag your cursor over the selection to highlight the particular text/table/image/file (or a part of it). Once you highlight the area you want, press the Ctrl and the letter X to perform the “cut” function.  The highlighted area will disappear or “cut” from the page.  If you don’t want it at all, the cut function is another version of delete. Therefore, you do nothing more.  But if you want to move or paste the selection elsewhere, this is your first step.  See Ctrl + V to Paste below for the next step.

Ctrl + V to Paste

With this simple shortcut you can place the information you just copied (Ctrl + C) or cut (Ctrl + X) anywhere you want. The important thing to remember is that the paste function only holds one selection in memory. So, if you cut a phrase from one place, don’t get distracted by an image you want to copy or other text to cut. You want to paste what you have first, then go back and copy or cut the next thing so as not to risk risking losing anything.

Ctrl + Z to Undo

If only this shortcut was available in real life. We could retract that thing we inadvertently said to Uncle Steve, or take out the salt we put in a recipe instead of sugar, or avoid leaving the house for the gym without our running shoes.  This would truly be amazing!

Still, Windows users are able to undo their most recent action with this key combination. Whichever Windows program you’re in, you can use Ctrl + Z to reverse your last action. So if you deleted something by accident…inserted something by accident…or just decided that the colors you just picked or the font change you just made in your resume don’t look good, then just Ctrl+Z to “undo” it.  In fact, you can keep hitting Ctrl+Z and undo the last bunch of changes you made.

Alt + Tab to Switch Screens

There are many things you can do with Windows. Perhaps you’re multitasking and you have a PowerPoint open, as well as an Excel spreadsheet, and Internet Explorer, too. By pressing Alt and then the Tab key, you can switch between tabs or screens. If you hold down the Alt button while tapping Tab, you’ll scroll through all screens.  I will press and hold the Alt key and tap TAB without letting go of Alt.  All the open windows appear in a nice grid.  Keep holding Alt and then tap TAB to move the highlighted box to the program you want to switch to and release the keys to open it!  This is my favorite and I use it all the time.  Perfect for going back and forth between 2 programs.

Ctrl + F to Find

This is another one we’d love to see in the real world. Using the find shortcut calls up a pop-up box where you can enter text or numbers. You can use this shortcut to find what you’re looking for on a Web page, in a PDF document, or in your rough draft of a speech. In fact, you’ll be able to see how many times your search text appears and easily toggle from one selection to the next.

Ctrl + Mouse to Zoom

Forget your reading glasses? Having a tough time locating the right tiny file on your desktop? You can zoom in with this shortcut. Using this shortcut on your desktop makes files and folders larger. In your internet browser, this function zooms in on the page. You can leave it zoomed in or zoom back out when you’re done.  So, press Ctrl key and hold it while you scroll the mouse wheel, but move slowly or things will shrink or expand too quickly on you!

 

Want to know more about Windows and technology to streamline processes? Our experts can help you find the right computer solutions for your home or office. Contact us at (732) 747-0020 today!

Your old computer is beginning to slow down. So, you invest in a shiny new laptop. The clouds part and the sun shines down on this bright and lovely new device. Everything will be faster and easier. Only, from the first day you got it, the new laptop is really lagging behind. Why is it running so slow? One of these might be the reason.

 

#1 Not enough computing power. 

In many cases, the laptop doesn’t have enough RAM (Random Access Memory). RAM is the computer’s main memory. This helps your computer do more at once. Information from the operating system, application programs and data are kept here, when in use, for quicker processing.  In this case, more is always better, but never the total answer to why things are slow.

RAM is like the computer’s short-term memory, while the hard drive is the long-term memory. Just as the human brain can’t hold everything in short-term memory, RAM can get overloaded too. When this happens on your laptop, the computer processor needs to go to the hard drive. This slows things down because hard drives are slower than RAM.

Resolution: You might see 4GB, 8GB, 16GB or more of RAM available. How much you need is going to depend on what you plan on doing with the computer. For a laptop with Windows 10, we recommend at least 8GB of RAM, but 16GB is more comfortable for a better experience.  Not all laptops will let you access the RAM to make an upgrade…they may solder it directly to the main circuit board. When you can, though, upgrading memory can be a quick and affordable way to get a boost in performance.

Another reason the laptop might be slow is the processor installed inside.  That’s the computer chip that completes all the instructions you give it.  Intel and AMD are the manufacturers we see the most of.  The more you spend, the better the processor will be and that equates directly to MORE POWER.  Think of it like an engine in a car.  A car or truck with a V8 engine is the most powerful (and most expensive), then the V6 (more middle of the road) and the V4 (for economy).  Then there’s variations like turbo and hybrids, but the brute force of a fast processor will always win the day!

Resolution: None.  These chips installed are determined when the laptop is purchased and CANNOT be upgraded.

 

#2 Mechanical hard drive. 

Often it’s a single part that is letting you down. With a less expensive computer, manufacturers skimp. While it’s less common these days, some laptops will come with a mechanical hard drive. Especially those under $500.  You might think of this like a record player with a needle reading the vinyl album. Since something is moving to find data, the laptop runs slower than it would with a Solid State Drive (SSD), which has no moving parts.  Think of the difference between and old floppy disk drive and the new USB flash drives.  The floppy disk required a mechanical “heads” to read and write the data onto the magnetic media inside the plastic case.  A USB flash drive, or thumb drive, uses solid state storage that’s super-fast and has no moving parts to slow you down.

Resolution: In many cases, a mechanical hard drive can be easily upgraded to an SSD. However, some super slim laptops have limited upgradability.  The cost to value ratio is very high with this kind of upgrade and you won’t be unhappy if you do this.  Whether it’s a new laptop or one you’ve had for a while, an SSD upgrade makes it 8-10 times faster right away!

 

#3 Bloatware. 

Retailers like to tout all the bells and whistles that come with their laptops, especially those units bought from the big box stores or from TV shopping networks. So, when you turn on your laptop for the first time, you may notice there’s already a lot of software preloaded. Much of it you’ll probably never use. Maybe there are toolbars you don’t need, games you’ll never use, or stock widgets that you couldn’t care less about. These examples of bloatware slow down your computer.

The third-party applications are a revenue source for the manufacturer, but don’t always help you. Microsoft, for instance, sells a line of computers that come without any pre-installed third-party software. Computerworld reported those PCs “start up 104% faster, shut down 35% faster and have 28 minutes more battery life.”

Resolution: When you get a new laptop, check out the pre-installed software before you add your own. Determine what the existing software will do and uninstall anything that you won’t want.

 

If your laptop is slow on the first startup, this may be due to system updates finishing up. For instance, a Windows 10 automatic update to bolster the security of the computer. You can’t do much about these, but look on the bright side, your laptop security is current! Be patient and allow the updates to finish.  That may be all you need to make your new laptop run as it should.

 

Improved speed is a main reason to invest in a new laptop. Don’t let a lagging laptop disrupt your productivity. We can help with a slow running laptop.

Instead of wasting valuable time waiting on a slow computer, give us a call at (732) 747-0020!