Shortcut Keys Rhymes with ABCs
Time Squeeze? Oh, Yes Please.
A is for Apple. B is for Ball. C is for Car.
Yawn.
We learn these simple phonetic tools early in life. The idea is the first letter helps a developing brain associate the sound with the noun; person, place or thing. Adding to the learning a picture or drawing helps further reinforce the letter shape to the sound to the picture. It is typical to not use verbs in most cases because they are harder to visualize.
Double Yawn.
“Did I just walk back into Early Childhood Development? I thought Techlife writes about, well, Tech.” Ahh, young grasshopper this is a good time to remind you of our mission, “Techlife, where the crossroads of Technology and Life intersect.”
“Well if you don’t get to the point soon I am going elsewhere.”
For years computers have had a way to speed up the way you work. Since the early days there always were a series of key combinations allowing users to perform many tasks and navigate their computer even without a mouse. The earliest two I used were CTRL+ALT+DEL and CONTROL + Open Apple + RESET.
Remember those? The first one was used for the PC and the second used on early Apple machines (pre-Mac) to reboot them. How many people remember jamming those three down hard when the computer got you upset? C’mon raise your hand. It was the ultimate power, forcing the computer to your whim. Reboot now! I command you.
Another fond memory was the first time you showed a friend or family member how to reboot the computer and them hitting each key in order and complaining because nothing happened. The magic was the combination, pressing all the keys simultaneously. Presto!
Reading a recent article about keystroke shortcuts, I thought how few of the more than 200 combinations I actually used. The problem is quantity; with so many options being able to use them regularly enough to remember them all is arduous. But then — I started to realize I am a power user, and I bet you are too.
Cat on a Keyboard by Anelis
Let’s go over some basic useful time saving keystrokes combinations everyone should be using to help speed along their work. In the spirit of debate I have ranked them in order of importance.
KEY: Windows = normal / Mac = italics
- TAB — CTRL+TAB/ALT+TAB/CMD+TAB — In Windows/Mac the TAB key combo is powerful. It does a ton to speed up access.
- ALT+TAB/CMD+TAB in the operating system cycles through open windows.In a tabbed browser or program, CTRL+TAB /CMD+TAB cycles through tabs.In online forms, spreadsheets and more TAB/TAB advances to the next field.
- F — Find everything. Search on a single web page, document, pdf, spreadsheet. Hit CTRL+F/CMD+F if you like search already. You will love what you find.
- C, V and sometimes X — Cut, Copy and Paste are built for speed. Mostly Copy CTRL+C/CMD+C and Paste CTRL+V/CMD+V in my case. These are used many times a day. Big time saver.
- A — Before you copy, cut, bold, italic or underline you need to select the text. If you need it All, then CTRL+A/CMD+A is the fastest command of the bunch. Boom, you’re done!
- B, I, U — Style is everything. This entire column has been styled with Bold, Italic and Underline. CTRL+B/CMD+B for Bold and CTRL+I/CMD+I for Italics are used quite a lot in writing. CTRL+U/CMD+U is used to Underline text.
Is there a command you use for a repetitive task? Every pull down and right click menu offers up the short cut keys for each command, sometimes the letter is underlined as well. Got a quick key combination you can’t live without or disagree with the order of these short cut key combinations? Please CTRL+V/CMD+V them here.
