Everyday Computer Tips & Tricks

Library In-Service Day:January 4, 2010

Michael Bond

Topics

• Web Browsing

• File Organization

• E-Mail and Data Management

Web Browsing

• Using Tabs

• Control how web pages open windows

• Firefox Add-Ons/Extensions

• Organizing Bookmarks

• Address Bar usage

• Setting a useful Homepage(s)

Using Tabs in your Web Browser

• Using Tabs

• Organize projects into multiple tabs and windows

• Use the Bookmark bar to organize tasks, open them all at once into tabs

• Firefox Only: Open recently closed Tabs or Windows

Creating New Tabs

• Windows: Ctrl+T

• Mac: Cmd+T

• Use the “New Tab” Buttons

• Middle Click on a Link

Moving Tabs Around

• To move a tab, Click with the left mouse button, hold the button down, and drag the tab to a new location on the tab bar. In Firefox a blue arrow will indicated where it moved too. In Internet Explorer you will see a black arrow.

• Move Tabs around to group similar “ideas” together.

• This is especially useful when searching for multiple topics at once.

• Move tabs that you will need later to the beginning of the tab bar.

Moving Tabs Around

• Firefox Only: Drag a Tab out to create a new window

• Firefox Only: Drag Tabs Between Windows

Organize your Tabs/Windows into Projects

• Use a different web browser window for each project you are working on.

• Don’t be afraid to have multiple web browser windows open at once!

• Don’t close tabs or windows until you know you are done with them.

• Bookmarking isn’t always the answer if you want to look at something later. Open it in tabs or new windows.

Open Recently Closed Tabs or Windows

• Firefox Only

• From the Menu Bar Select History

• Recently Closed Tabs

• Opens in a new tab

• Recently Closed Windows

• Opens in a new window

Control How Webpages Open new Windows

A web page is a dynamic way to present content to a wide ranging audience. The audience will use the content in both intended and unintended ways.

Open the content in a way that suits how you are browsing the web.

Control How Webpages Open new Windows

• Open Content in the background for reading later

• Make use of Tabs

• Middle click on a link

• Open in a new window

• Right click on a link and select “Open in New Window”

• Do NOT maximize windows.

• Open in the current tab

Firefox Add-ons & Extensions

• Extend Firefox’s functionality

• Users can install without calling systems

• Extensions that I use:

• Grease Monkey:

• Remove Google Ads

• Remove Facebook Ads

• Download from Youtube

• http://userscripts.org/

• Linkification : Makes plain text links into clickable links

• xMarks : Sync your bookmarks between platforms and browsers and multiple computers

Organizing Bookmarks

• Don’t stockpile bookmarks without organizing them. That makes it very difficult to find them later.

• Replace page titles with more meaningful titles.

• Firefox Only: Add meaningful tags to bookmarks to help searching

Using the Address Bar

• Don’t type out whole URLs

• ctrl+enter automatically adds “http://www.” and “.com” to your url.

• Don’t google for a website that you know the address too.

• Firefox Only: Make use of the “Awesome Bar”

• Search for page titles, Bookmarks, tags right from the address bar

Set a useful Homepage

• Don’t use a useless homepage.

• If you always have multiple pages open (google, department wiki, databases page) set them all as your homepage.

• iGoogle

Organizing Files

• How to store files for easy retrieval

• How to name files for easy sorting and searching

• How to search for files

Storing Files

• Don’t store files on your desktop

• Unorganized, cluttered, and hard to find as more files accumulate

• Desktop is a good place to store temporary files for a current project

Storing Files

• Do store files in “My Documents”

• Backed up nightly, You do NOT need to make another backup of the files

• Available on Multiple Computers

• “Universal” place to store files

• Create a shortcut to “My Documents” in your quick launch for easy and quick access.

Storing Files

• Create multiple levels of folders

• Each project should get its own folder

• Each “Topic” should get its own folder

• Committees, Purchasing, Projects, etc ...

Naming Files

• If the name will contain a date (such as for meeting minutes) name the file as:

• Filename.yyyy.mm.dd.ext

• 4 digit year, 2 digit month & day allow for proper sorting

• Putting the year first ensures that the same year is sorted together correctly

Naming Files

• Name files similarly. Once you have a naming convention in place, use it consistently. Changing it will cause sorting and searching problems.

• Documents, such as meeting minutes, that will eventually be published to the web should use underscores or camelCase instead of spaces. The titles should also be short and to the point.

• Future Proof your filenames. Like folders, names can be nested using camelCase or periods.

Storing/Naming Examples

• committeeName

• Agenda

• 2009.01.15.doc

• 2009.02.15.doc

• ...

• Minutes

• 2009.01.15.doc

• 2009.02.15.doc

• ...

Storing/Naming Examples

• committeeName

• Agenda.2009.01.15.doc

• Agenda.2009.02.15.doc

• ...

• Minutes.2009.01.15.doc

• Minutes.2009.02.15.doc

• ...

Searching for Files

• Right click on the folder you want to search

• Windows Key+F to bring up search

• Part or all of the file name (* for wildcards is allowed)

• Date range if you know it to narrow down the returned files

E-Mail & Data Management

•Email is NOT a database.

• If data is worth keeping, it is worth storing properly

• Email is NOT secure or safe or everlasting, its like a postcard

E-Mail & Data Management

• Dates go into a calendar application

• Action Items go into a todo list application

• If an email has multiple steps, keep it until you perform the steps, then delete it. If the steps are worth keeping, they are worth printing to PDF and storing properly on the file system.

• Addresses, Phone Numbers, and other contact information go into an Address Book application

• Documents, Images, and other attachments get saved to the file system (Be sure to store the files correctly, so they are easy to find)

• Print receipts as PDFs, and name them appropriately so they are easy to find later

• Emails that need to be saved verbatim, should be printed as PDFs and saved to the file system (threads should be stored in their own folders!).

E-Mail & Data Management

• Don’t send 1 word emails. Don’t keep 1 word emails.

• Don’t write your email in the subject line.

• Your goal should be to have as few email in your inbox as possible.

• Create folders and move mail to those folders.

• Create mail rules to automatically sort out list serves into their own folders.

Short Cut KeysWindows

• Windows Explorer : Windows + E

• Windows Search : Windows + F

• Copy : Ctrl+C

• Paste : Ctrl+V

• Cut : Ctrl+X

• Undo : Ctrl+Z

• New Window (Most Applications): Ctrl + N

• Close Application: Alt+F4

Short Cut KeysWeb Browsing

• Address Bar: Ctrl+L

• Google Search :

• Firefox : Ctrl+K

• Internet Explorer : Ctrl+E

• New Window : Ctrl + N

• New Tab : Ctrl + T

• Close Current Tab : Ctrl+W