Tips and Tricks

AD-AWARE

Cookies are generally benign and useful little bits of data on our hard drive But they begin to concern us if they monitor and report our surfing activities to third-party advertisers and our email box begins to fill with spam. Lavasoft's Ad-aware at http://www.lavasoftusa.com is a free utility that does a very good job in scanning memory, drives, and Registry for spyware modules. You can then easily remove them or leave them there if you believe they serve a useful purpose. If in doubt, the program provides backup of removed files that can be restored later if you wish.
You can open a menu by holding the Alt key and typing the first letter of the menu title.

For example, pressing Alt + E opens the Edit menu. You can also press either Alt or F10 to activate the menu bar, then use the right and left arrow keys to highlight a menu name, and press Enter to open the highlighted menu.
Shift while inserting CD - bypasses auto-run

Check your C:\Windows\Temp folder periodically for the remnants of any crashed windows programs.

Close all open applications before deleting any ~xyz.tmp files.
To select more than one file or folder, hold down CTRL while you click each item.
Selecting Multiple Files: Selecting multiple files in large icon view works differently from list view.

To extend a selection, click the first icon, and then hold down the Shift key while you click the last icon to be selected. To change an icon from selected to unselected, hold down the Ctrl key while you select the icon.

Copying and Moving Files:
Click with right mouse button on the file and choose Copy
or Cut. Move to the destination location and click right mouse button on selected folder and choose Paste.

Print Screen Function when the Print Screen key is press in Windows, the information is copied to your clipboard.

To print the information you must open Paint (or a similar program), paste the clipboard information and print the image.

If in doubt Right-Click.
If you drag a file and drop it onto the Start button, Win98 adds a shortcut to the top of the Start menu. But if you drag the file over the Start button and *don't* drop it, the Start menu will open and you can position the new shortcut exactly where you want it.

QUICK ROUTE TO ROOT DIRECTORY.

A fast way to display the root directory is: click on Start, Run, and type "\" without quotes in the Run line. Click OK.
WinFiles.com Tips and Tricks Windows Magazine Tips

CLEAN UP THE STARTUP
To keep programs to a minimum in your startup group:
Start > Run, typing "msconfig" (without the quotes) and clicking on the Startup tab. Then, uncheck everything you can spare except for Explorer and Systray, click ApplyOK and reboot. This should free up some valuable resources.

SYSTEM SETTINGS PRINT
Holding the ALT key, double clicking on the My Computer icon. Click the Device Manager tab in the Systems Properties box, then the print button and select either a report on the system summary or a longer report on all devices and the system summary, then OK to print.
SHORTCUT TO SHORTCUT. If you have several Windows open and can't quickly locate a shortcut on your desktop, click on START in the lower left corner of your screen, then RUN, and simply type a period in the space and click OK. A display of all your desktop icons is displayed.
A QUICK CHANGE. Without so much as moving your hand from the mouse, you can change the size of an open application with a double click anywhere on the title bar. A second double-click in the same location toggles the screen back to its original size.

PASSWORD PREDICAMENT.

If you assigned a password to access Windows and then you suffer a memory lapse, not to worry. Bypass Windows with F8 during startup and choose the Command Prompt Only option. At the prompt, go to the Windows directory with "cd\windows" (without the quotes)) Delete .pwl files with "del *.pwl" (again, without the quotes) and no password will be required on the next boot. A new password can be set if you wish at the StartSettingsControl PanelPasswords and click on Change Windows Password.

MOUSE LOCATOR.

Windows XP makes it easy to locate your cursor by touching the CTRL key. To enable the feature, go to StartControl Panel and click the Mouse icon. Select the Mouse Properties and Pointer Options tabs and check "Show location of pointer when I press the CTRL key".
KEYBOARD NAVIGATION. Try holding the ALT key down and pressing the left arrow key to go back, or the right arrow key to go forward.
Select Start-Run, type msinfo32, and press .

SLIM DOWN YOUR FONTS

The trick is to move-not remove the fonts, so you can easily get them back.
First, create a folder on your hard drive called Excess Fonts, and open that folder in Windows Explorer. Select Start-Run, and type fonts, and press to bring up your Fonts folder in another Explorer window. Select fonts to remove (double-click a font to see how it looks), but keep Arial, Courier, Courier New, Modern, MS Sans Serif, and MS Serif (these two may appear as “MS Reference”), Symbol, Tahoma, Times New Roman, and Wingdings.
When you move a font, bring along its bold and italic variations. Drag unwanted fonts to Excess Fonts folder. If you ever need one of them, open both folders again and drag the font back to Fonts.

QUICKER SHUTDOWN.

If your Windows XP doesn't shut down as fast as you'd like, one alternative might help. Right click a blank area on your desktop, click NewShortcut and in the Create Shortcut Wizard's Type the Location of the Item box, type the following exactly without quotes: "shutdown -s -t 0". Make sure there is a space before each hyphen and that is a numeric character at the end. Click Next and in the Type a Name for This Shortcut box, enter "shutdown" or some descriptive title and click Finish. You may now use that shortcut on your desktop for a fast shut down, made even faster of course if you don't have any programs running when you click on it.

Tips for your success
Technology Get fast Internet connection (cable or ADSL) and use Internet as a resource library.
Stay on top with new technology: subscribe to PC Magazine, Yahoo and on-line newsletters. Read free Computer Paper.
Keep upgrading your computer hardware and software.

Take a speed reading course: What Speed Reading teaches you to do is to keep going through a text without re-reading words, sentences and sections over and over. It is really a form of self-discipline. You can read fast and still understand and retain information.
Never go anywhere without a book. Time spent waiting in line or in the car or whatever can be study time.

Keep a tape recorder in the car to record ideas that flow when you can't write things down.
Find a quiet place to study and be a little selfish with your time. Learn to say no.
Use post-it notes as bookmarks. Simply put a word or two at the top to create your own reference index.

Kill your TV ! Don't waste time!
Be an active reader. Take notes. In your own books write in the margins. Highlight the most important parts Don't reread irrelevant stuff.
Find time to rest. getting totally exhausted hampers your learning efforts. Get adequate amount of sleep!

Exercise a bit. It stimulates blood flow to the brain and relieves tension.
Read all your work aloud to someone else. It'll save valuable time proof reading, and improve your writing. If it sounds crummy, it is.

Learn to recognize and manage your emotions - Feelings and behavior are just as important as facts and knowledge. It involves
self-awareness and self-control
motivation and persistence
empathy, and the ability to form mutually satisfying relationships - the ability to recognize personal feelings and emotions and those of others
the ability to use that information to resolve conflicts, solve problems, and improve interactions with others.

Strategies include approaching people positively instead of avoiding them, listening without judging, and giving feedback skillfully.