Posts

We’ve previously shown you how to add keyboard shortcuts to symbols in Word 2013 to make it easier to insert them into your documents. Keyboard shortcuts can be added to symbols in Excel as well, but there’s no direct method. We’ll show you a workaround using the AutoCorrect feature in Excel to create an easy-to-remember keyboard shortcut for a symbol. When you click Symbol in the Symbols section of the Insert tab, you’ll notice that there’s no down arrow indicating a drop-down menu like there is in Word....

So, you want to head to bed… time to power down the PC and call it a night. But wait… that download hasn’t finished yet. You could stay up and wait for it to finish, but then you will miss out on sleep. You could leave it running, but that’s a waste of electricity. Or you could do is turn to Shutter, which gives you a couple of alternative options....

Any time you make a change to the Windows Registry, any responsible article will probably tell you to backup the registry first. But how do you do that? It’s not quite as simple as you might think. You can’t just backup and restore the registry like any other file — much of it can’t be modified by hand, and the files themselves can’t be replaced or copied over, at least not while Windows is running....

Everybody knows about how smartphones auto-correct your text in funny and unintended ways, but in the latest versions, iOS added a predictive word suggestions bar that helps to guess what you’re typing. The problem is that it’s often wrong, and it takes up screen space. So if you want to disable it we’ve got you covered. It’s worth noting that most geeky people probably already know how to disable this, so avoid complaining too much in the comments....

In this guide we will show you how to enable programs or custom scripts to run when Windows boots up. You may prefer that your Outlook opens up every time you log in to your computer in the morning at work, or you may want a custom batch file to run every time the desktop loads. Whatever your needs, this guide will show several convenient ways for configuring this behavior....

Live hyperlinks in Outlook are opened in the default browser by pressing and holding the “Ctrl” button and clicking the link. This is the default setting, but it can be changed if you would rather single click on a hyperlink to follow it. To access this setting, click the “File” tab on a “Message” window. NOTE: You can also click the “File” tab on the ribbon on the main Outlook window....

GameLift is a platform built by AWS specifically created for running video game servers. It is built to save costs by automatically scaling the number of instances based on the fluctuating demand, and it can also handle matchmaking for you. What Is GameLift? Every match played online must have a server running to host it, which can get expensive very quickly. To make matters worse, the demand for game servers usually scales drastically throughout the day, making the peak hours’ demand much greater than what is required overnight....

A hidden file or folder is just a normal file or folder with a “hidden” option set. Operating systems hide these files by default, so you can use this trick to hide some files if you share a computer with someone else. This trick is far from foolproof. It’s trivial to enable the “show hidden files” option and find a hidden file. Operating systems hide many system files by default — just to get them out of your way....

Wireshark is the Swiss Army knife of network analysis tools. Whether you’re looking for peer-to-peer traffic on your network or just want to see what websites a specific IP address is accessing, Wireshark can work for you. We’ve previously given an introduction to Wireshark. and this post builds on our previous posts. Bear in mind that you must be capturing at a location on the network where you can see enough network traffic....

Google Forms is a great way to collate responses from others online, whether it’s for a job or a research project. Limiting the responses manually is possible, but you’ll need to install add-ons to limit them automatically. Here’s how. Limit Google Forms Responses by Google Account If you want to limit the responses you recieve on Google Forms, you could start by limiting responses by Google account. Users responding to your form will need to sign in with a Google account to respond, with each account limited to a single response....

Have you created a long table in Word only to discover that the rows need to be rearranged? Luckily, it’s very easy to move rows up and down within a table using an easy keystroke combination. Put the cursor in any cell in the row you want to move and press Shift + Alt + Up arrow or Shift + Alt + Down arrow to move the row up or down....

It was only a matter of time before somebody figured out how to use Metro / Modern apps in a regular desktop window, and naturally it was Stardock who came up with the solution. It’ll cost you a couple of bucks, but you can use the trial mode for free. ModernMix isn’t free, but it’s probably the most useful Windows 8 tool that we’ve come across, especially if you use Windows 8 on your regular laptop or desktop....

Most of us have more than one email address these days – it makes it easier to keep different areas of life separate. But having to switch between email accounts can be a pain. With Gmail, you can set things up so you can send from multiple accounts without the need to keep switching. Head over to Gmail, click the cog icon beneath your user image, and select Settings from the menu that appears....

Microsoft wants your feedback about Windows 10 — really, they need it. This is the most important feature in the Windows 10 Technical Preview — not a Start menu, virtual desktops, or windowed “universal apps.” Your feedback will be particularly crucial as Microsoft begins using A/B testing, rolling out different versions of features to different users and seeing who’s the happiest. The feedback from Windows 8 testers was spot-on, so Microsoft is now listening....

You can keep a lot of music and videos on your Mac because it likely has a larger storage capacity than your iPhone or iPad. Fortunately, you can still easily share your entire iTunes library with all your Apple devices without physically transferring a single media file. Normally it can be fairly difficult to reliably share media between several devices in your house but with iTunes Home Sharing, it’s easy....

When you paste data you’ve copied in Microsoft Excel, content in the destination cells is automatically overwritten. This may be the intent in many cases, but probably not if the copied cells include blanks. With a couple of extra clicks, you can skip blanks when you paste in Microsoft Excel. By pasting everything except cells that are empty, you can keep the data that’s already there and simply replace the rest....

When working on a long document or a book in Word, it’s common to divide the document into sections or chapters. A common practice is to start each new section or chapter on an odd page. This is easily accomplished using sections in Word. We’ll show you how to add a new section break for a new odd page at the start of a section. If you already have sections in your document, don’t worry....

The overwhelming majority of audio you listen to uses stereophonic (or stereo) sound. This means there are at least two separate audio channels: one for the right speaker, and one for the left. Each channel may play something slightly different, giving the illusion of directional sound like you experience in everyday life. While you can hear the difference in a stereo track from almost any speaker, the simplest way to do it is with a pair of headphones....

Most of you probably never even think about the Windows build number — after all, it’s not something you see very often, and it doesn’t matter. But it does hold an interesting secret since Windows Vista. You can see the build number by opening up a command prompt, which will display the build number right at the top of the window. You can also see it in a couple of dialog windows throughout the Control Panel, but the command prompt is the easiest way to get to it....

Many Android phones have an integrated notification LED. With Light Flow, you can have your phone’s LED notification flash different colors depending on the types of notifications you have waiting for you – your phone can communicate notifications even with its screen off. Light Flow requires a notification LED that can display different colors, so this will depend on your phone’s hardware. The Nexus 4, Galaxy S III, and a variety of Motorola and HTC phones all have the required hardware....