Impress people with Tech Savvy Knowledge

Diy-Computer-Repairs shows you some of the special tech tips that you may not know off.  This post is about how you can get the most out of the devices and add more fun on how to use the computer.  The vast amount of IT related knowledge is never ever going to be depleted.

1) Special Desktop icons

If you are bored to death by looking at the same icons all the time and wanted to be unique amongst millions of computers around you.  Download custom animations to replace the default windows icons from tons of sites that create icons.

Here’s some recommendations

i) www.iconshock.com

ii)www.freeiconsweb.com

2) Browsing with keyboard shortcuts

There are a couple of short cuts that can be used in Internet Explorer and Firefox browsers.  For example pressing CTRL T opens up a new tab.  CTRL W closes a tab, Shift CTRL T to reopen the closed tab.

CTRL L will jump to the address bar so that you do not have to move the mouse to click on it.  CTRL K will allow you to go to the search box in firefox.  This shortcut happens to work for chrome browser as well.

3) Set your personal letter head.

You can make winword start a blank document with your custom letterhead.  This can come in handy if you are doing official documents for your company and requires a standard letter head in every letter.  Microsoft Office suite actually has a template folder created in your computer.  It is usually under the ” documents and settings\username ” folder.  You can open up the templates in there and add in the header or signatures you want in that template.  From then on, every new document that you create will have that pre-created letter head ready.

4) Forgetful? Make use of sticky

We tend to forget the things we need to accomplish daily.  Forgetting a certain task is not uncommon.  Plastering stickies all over the table is one way to aid with a hectic work schedule.  Here’s the neater and more impressive version.  www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/ .  This program allows you to create up to 32 stickies.   You can easily refer to them and set different fonts or sizes.

5) Shut Down quickly

You can create a shortcut of a shut down button and put it anywhere so that you can access it without clicking on the start menu.  This is especially true if your vista machine will not turn off unless you specify shut down.  It only goes into sleep mode.

Right click anywhere on the desktop and click on new, shortcut.  When the create shortcut windows comes up, type in shutdown -s -t 00 . Click on next.  A box will come up for you to type a name for this shortcut.  Type something or just use the default.

Now right click on the icon and select properties.  Choose the shortcut tab and click on change icon.  Browse through the selections and choose the red shutdown button.  Now you can double click to perform a shutdown more quickly.

6) Slow and unbearable internet

Before you complain that the internet is slow, ask yourself if you have been using bittorrent programs.  Such programs will force the network to a crawl.  This is because the upload is usually a fraction of the download of a broadband plan.  If the total upload speed has been maxed out.  There is no way you can surf fast as the browser needs to send request out as well before the page can start to come in.  Limit your upload speed to a minimum.

7) Switching between programs

You can alternate between programs that are opened with short cut keys like Alt Tab or Shift Alt Tab.  This is particularly useful if you are using a laptop.  In situations where you are unable to use a mouse or when you are on a train and struggling to control with a touch pad.  Holding the ALT key while doing the two shortcuts holds the choices up and lets you select through them.

8 )Wired internet or Wireless internet

Wired internet will allow a faster internet surfing experience as compared to a wireless hook up.  Wireless internet have to travel pass walls or doors in order to reach the user.  Depending on how tricky the path might be, it is barely noticeable if you are just checking email or surfing.  But it becomes obvious if you are downloading huge files when you think that you are cheated off your broadband plan.  It is just because the wireless is unable to handle the data transfer.

9) Limiting your kids to too much chatting online.

You can limit and control your children’s online access using the router.  Simply key in the router’s config page in any browser’s address bar.  Refer to the router’s user manual or google search for the instructions to enter the router’s config page.  Inside that page, you can find settings that allow you to set the length on how long your kids can surf and cut off the internet at specific times.

The router also has an entry that allows setting of a black list of sites that you wish to block off.  Remember to password lock the router in case your kids are smart enough to remove the curbs.

10) Search with precision

With trillions of data online for you to search, it is easy to get the wrong outcome from a search.  Search with excluded results will allow you to remove searches that you totally do not want

In order to do a exclusive search, include a minus sign together with the words you do not want to appear in your search.  For example, diy repairs -plumping.  This will show diy repairs without listing all the plumping results.