Timely Tips January 2009 -- Two NEW Killer Keystroke Combos

Over the years, I've found out that my keystroke combo tips have been some of my most popular issues of Timely Tips. Well, I've got two dandies for you this month:

The first keystroke combo I want to share this month is one I actually learned from my wife Jana. I just happened to be watching her surfing the web a couple weeks ago, and she did a quick little keystroke combo that launched a new tab in her Firefox browser. I immediately yelled out, "WHOA -- What did you just do?!?" She said, "I hit CTRL-T in combination with my browser open - that launches a new tab on your browser."

This is a very handy keystroke combo, especially if you are cross-referencing two sites (Expedia vs. Orbitz) and/or if you simply want to keep your individual personal and e-commerce e-mail accounts both open in the background. CTRL-T works to launch a new tab in both Firefox and Internet Explorer, and my bet is that it would also work in many other popular browsers. Try it out and drop me a note.

The other keystroke combo I'm sharing with you I actually learned by accident. I happened to be about to do a "Shift-Delete" to some junk e-mail that had come into my Outlook account, but in a flurry of fast fingers, I instead hit "Shift-Insert" and got a bit of a surprise: the items in my computer's clipboard auto-launched into a brand new e-mail message, in the body copy field. (Yes, that's right - when I hit "Shift-Insert", a new e-mail popped open, and the text in my clipboard populated the body text area.) So, out of curiosity, I then went to the Notes function in Outlook, and tested the same thing - yes, it also auto-launched a new Note, with the clipboard text in the body. In Contacts and Calendar respectively, you have to actually open a new item to use "Shift-Insert", and in MS Word and Excel, "Shift-Insert" actually works just like "CTRL-V" (Paste). So, if you copy something into your clipboard that you want to send by your Outlook e-mail, just open up your e-mail function in Outlook, and hit "Shift-Insert" - it will save you a step or two.

Try both of these handy timesavers and send me a note if you find any additional capabilities with them, or other programs they work on.

Watch for me next week at University of Michigan HRD and Central Michigan HRD (remember you can call CMU HRD to request attendance [with a fee of course] at next week's program even if you are not a CMU employee), and watch for me in coming weeks in Chicago, Phoenix, Tucson, Davis, San Diego, Atlanta, Detroit, and DC (not a bad start of the year, eh?) Hope to see you soon - Stay Timely!

Sincerely,


Randy