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Probably one of the most baffling things I see today has to be messages sent via Twitter, SMS, or IM. Thanks to people even lazier than myself, there is now an entire generation of people who can confuse even the most skilled Native American code talkers of World War II.
It’s absolutely amazing how being limited to 140 or 160 characters can really change our spelling and sentence structure. For instance, if I wanted to invite my friend out for drinks at the House of Blues in Cleveland, Ohio, I might send a text message like, “U Wan2 meet up @ HOB L8R?” WOW! This reminds me of a game I used to play as a kid on road trips where I would try to figure out what someone’s license plate might mean if it were a sentence or phrase.
Some say people have been forced to adopt this message convention to meet the character limits; others think it is code invented by teens so their parents don’t understand them (so much so you can find all kinds of lists on the Internet for translation). Heck, when we were kids we just used double-talk or really poor pig Latin. Whatever happened to the need to actually learn useful foreign languages? I can see it now, next year’s high school language offerings; Spanish, French, Esperanto, German, BFF Jill.
Well, we geeks were the original speakers of language very few understood. We spoke of “If this, Else that,” Goto, Megabyte, Terabyte, etc… In fact, if you listen closely enough, you can find the Geek in his native habitat, WoW (or, to average mortals, the World of Warcraft), speaking Geekinese.
Listen closely to the male Geek attempting to attract a mate…
“Since these are not the droids you are looking for, how about we blow this place together and battle the Sith?”
“Are you also in search of the Allspark? If you want, I can give you a lift… Autobots Transform!”
As it turns out, Microsoft has a long-forgotten language, too. It’s called keyboard shortcuts. With the invention of the mouse and a more visual interface, these shortcuts are usually overlooked by most. I have found that getting to know these can considerably speed up your workday. Here are a few of my favorites. If you learn the pattern, it is easy to remember them.
Let’s start off with controlling windows. Since I am controlling Windows itself with my shortcuts, these all use the Windows Key (usually located between the Ctrl and Alt keys on the left side of most keyboards) in conjunction with another.
- Windows Key = When pressed by itself, opens the Start menu.
- Windows Key + D = Think D for Desktop. Pressing this combination takes me directly to the Desktop, minimizing all my applications.
- Windows Key + M = Similar to the D, minimizes all open applications. If you add the Shift key to the mix (Windows Key + Shift + M), you are doing the reverse and restoring all your Windows that were minimized.
- Windows Key + F = Think F for Find. This pair activates the Find All Files window, useful for searching.
- Window Key + E = E for Explorer, meaning it opens a Windows Explorer window.
- This last one for me is a real time saver.
- Windows Key + R = This activates the Windows Run command.
In order to get the most out of it, you need to know the following words:
- EXCEL is for Microsoft Excel
- OUTLOOK is for Microsoft Outlook
- WINWORD is for Microsoft Word
- POWERPNT is for Microsoft PowerPoint
- and MSPUB is for Microsoft Publisher
So to quickly start Microsoft Excel, you simply press Windows Key + R, then type EXCEL, press the ENTER KEY, and Excel fires up like magic.
These are only a few of my favorites, but I posted some links to more useful shortcuts that work in almost any application in the blog posting for this edition of the podcast at www.productiveUpodcast.com.
This week’s tips include:
Save Your Fingers By Letting Your Fingers Save Your Work
If you have not learned the hard way already, save yourself the heartburn by heeding this bit of advice: AutoRecover and AutoSave, while handy for recovering work after crashes and other computer failures, should not be substituted for manually saving your work at frequent intervals.
Cut… Paste… That’s a Wrap!
We usually think of Cut, Copy, and Paste all together, but we usually use them in pairs. Most often, we use Copy and Paste. This tip talks about the lesser-known Cut. For moving text rather than just copying it, the Cut command is a champion when combined with Paste.
Take It Back
Most of us are pretty good friends with the magical Undo button that resides on the toolbar of most Office applications. Have you ever accidentally deleted an entire paragraph from a Word document? Ever hastily made a change to a complex formula that now causes an error in an Excel worksheet? We all have; and the always-forgiving Undo button has been there to comfort us by restoring our lost work. What could be better?
Seek and You Shall Find
We are busy people. We often do not have time to read through entire documents, web pages, or spreadsheets. Sometimes we need to locate just one piece of information so that we can go on our merry way. Perhaps the most time-saving tool that is near-univeral is the magical key combination of Ctrl+F.
The Fast and the Furious
When working in various programs, we often find ourselves doing a lot of repetitive actions. Certain functions in programs are assigned to keyboard combinations called shortcuts. Many programs have similar functions and fortunately, they often assign the same keyboard shortcuts. Using these shortcuts can considerably speed up your daily productivity.
Well, that’s all for this week’s edition. But before we go, I would like to say a special thanks to Doug Mosiondz, my silent grammar guy (I’m a geek, but I never said I had good sentence structure), and David Clayton of Clayton and Fulcrum for the excellent beats behind my podcast.
See you next week for another exciting episode of “Pigs in Space” (just kidding!).
