Tech Tips & Tricks

Keyboard Shortcuts

• Test and practice your typing (Typing Bolt)
• List of websites to practice your typing (thank you, Rochester Institute of Technology)
  
• Text editor shortcuts
  (for Word, Wordpad, and Notepad, Outlook, Outlook Web Access (pretty much every text editing context in Windows), and even editors such as those found in SQL Server Management Studio)
  
• Lists (multiple) of Windows OS shortcuts
  
• 39 Shortcuts for File Explorer on Windows 10 from TenComputer
  
• List of web browser shortcuts (Edge, Chrome, Firefox, and IE)
  
• Master list of SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) Shortcuts, Tricks and Tips
  
• Microsoft Office shortcuts
  • Master list of keyboard shortcuts in Microsoft 365 (link to each app’s shortcut list)
    
    • Keyboard shortcuts in Access
      • Keyboard shortcuts for Access (or this resource from AllHotkeys)
        
    • Keyboard shortcuts in Excel
      
    • Keyboard shortcuts Outlook
      
    • Keyboard shortcuts in PowerPoint
      • Presentation creation shortcuts
      • Presentation delivery shortcuts
        
    • Keyboard shortcuts in OneNote
      
    • Keyboard shortcuts in Word
      
    • Use the Keyboard to Work with the Ribbon
    • Using Keyboard Only Navigation in Word, Excel and PowerPoint (Part 1: The Ribbon)
      
• Microsoft Power BI and Power Query
  
  • Power BI keyboard shortcuts (on my Power BI page)
    
• Microsoft Teams shortcuts
  
• 38 + Advanced Editor Keyboard Shortcuts in Power Query by Rick de Groot at BI Gorilla (who knew that many existed in the PQE?)
  
• Draw.io keyboard shortcuts
  
• Visual Studio shortcut keys
  
  • Here’s a listing of Visual Studio shortcuts from the “Data & Object Factory“, or dofactory.com
     
  • And a PDF shortcut listing related to VS 2003 & 2005 from “Philosophical Geeks”
     
  • And from “Dev102”, “Ten Visual Studio Shortcuts You Must Know” 
    
• Microsoft Flight Simulator shortcuts, multiple sites (I’ll tidy these up later) (thanks, TomHansen_22)
  • Prodigy Gamers
  • PC Gamer
  • Games Radar
  • Shack News
  • Flayaway Simulation
  • Windows Central

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Microsoft Sysinternals, originally created by Mark Russinovich to “host his advanced system utilities and technical information”

Microsoft PowerToys: Utilities to customize aspects of Windows (multiple languages supported, and a video walk-through)

• Always on Top
• PowerToys Awake
• Color Picker
• FancyZones
• File Explorer add-ons
• File Locksmith
• Hosts file editor
• Image Resizer
• Keyboard Manager
• Mouse Utilities
• Paste as Plain Text
• PowerRename
• Quick Accent
• Registry Preview
• PowerToys Run
• Shortcut Guide
• Text Extractor
• Video Conference Mute

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• Thanks to student Tony Pierce, who showed me the following…
  When you’re in an MMC Management Console, or Windows Explorer, that has columns in the details pane you can hit CTRL + + (hold CTRL, then hit “+” twice in a row) and it will magically expand every column in the details pane to fit the maximum value in any column. This was one of the few remaining reasons which required a “rodent” (mouse). Thanks, TonyP!
   
• Your RDP/Terminal Services client has several valuable shortcuts…within the TermServices client window click on the Help button to do a search for the string “shortcut”.
   
• Customize your Windows XP “Start” button (from Annoyances.org)
   
• List of all Windows MMC Console Files (.MSC files) (For the purpose of making shortcuts and launching tools from the Start Menu)
   
• List of Windows Control Panels (.CPL files). Launch any Control Panel from the “Run…” command using its file name, such as “ncpa.cpl” to launch the Network Connections Control Panel
   
• List of popular executable names to easily launch from the “Run…” command
  
• Are you new to the command prompt environment. Download and walk through the exercises in this file to gain proficiency.
  
• Want to learn more about cryptography? Download all the chapters from this excellent book (referenced elsewhere on this site), “Cryptography Decrypted” by H.X. Mel
  

Wallpaper Tricks and Fun

• How to Use Virtual Backgrounds in Microsoft Teams by Rob Woodgate at How-To Geek
  • Backgrounds by IKEA (for video calls)
  • Custom Backgrounds for Microsoft Teams by Microsoft Adoption

• Is there a way to get Bing’s Photo of the Day? (when there is no download link)
  • Archive of Bing wallpapers
  • Here’s another BING wallpaper archive…also searchable

• How to Find Windows Spotlight / Lock Screen Images in Windows by Robert Hayes at Alphr
  (OK, grabbing these is a bit of an obsession)

Microsoft Teams

• How to forward an email to a channel in Microsoft Teams from LiveTiles
  
• Two easy ways to share an email from Outlook to Teams by Matt Wade at Jumpto365

Miscellaneous Tips

Lorem Ipsum generator – use this when you’re evaluating the layout of something and want text to fill part of the layout. Good generating options.