Sometimes I need just a quick glance at a clock or a calendar.
Yes, I have clocks and calendars all over the place, and even on my phone (I have stopped wearing a wristwatch these days). And I have “calendar” apps and programs. I don’t know about you, but I spend enough time in front of a computer that the first place I look for the time is in the lower right corner — the clock in my Taskbar.
This has been true for years.
Should I just need today’s date, I hover the cursor over the Taskbar clock. If that is not showing, I press the Windows key, then “B”, and then the <– left arrow key. Which “unhides” the Taskbar and produces a pop-open window..

Should it be that I need a quick glance at the month’s calendar, I add one more key-press.
Press the Windows key, then “B“, and then the <– left arrow key, and then Enter.

I admit that is kind of a convoluted, and hard to remember keyboard shortcut. (Mainly for use when “Autohide the Taskbar” is enabled) So usually what I do to quickly see a calendar is one mouse click on the Taskbar clock.
Simple enough.
Today’s quote: “Small deeds done are better than great deeds planned.” ~ Peter Marshall
Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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July 5, 2011
Posted by techpaul |
advice, computers, how to, Microsoft, PC, Vista, Windows, Windows 7 | calendar, clock, keyboard, quick, quickly see a calendar, shortcut, show, Taskbar |
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All of us have our favorite, and “most used” programs. And we probably have created Desktop (icon) shortcuts for them, and perhaps, added them to our QuickLaunch area, so we can get right to them. This tutorial shows how there’s an easier and faster way to start them. (Works in all versions of Windows.)
I use Microsoft Word rather frequently (but not frequently enough to put in my crowded QuickLaunch) – so I am going to use it as my example. Normally, to get to Word, I have to:
- Click the Start button
- Click All Programs
- Scroll down to and click Microsoft Office
- And click on Word 2010
That’s too many steps! Let’s fix that.
1) Go to the start menu and right-click on the program for which the keyboard shortcut is to be created. In my case, Word.

2) Click on Properties.
3) Locate the Shortcut key pane, and click once inside it.
4) Press – once – the key you want to become your launcher-shortcut. (In my case, I chose “W”, for “Word”.)

Once the key is selected, ‘Ctrl + Alt’ is automatically added.
5) Click Apply, then OK.
That’s it. From now on, to open Word I simply have to press Ctrl and Alt and the selected key –> W (a modified “three-fingered salute”). You can do this as many times as you like, for as many programs as you like, such as setting Ctrl+Alt+E to open Excel.. but you cannot use the same letter/key (duplication) more than once.
I think you’ll agree, Ctrl+Alt+W is slightly faster and easier than
- Click the Start button
- Click All Programs
- Scroll down to and click Microsoft Office
- And click on Word 2010
Today’s quotable quote: “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Copyright 2007-2011 © “Tech Paul” (Paul Eckstrom). All Rights Reserved.
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June 6, 2011
Posted by techpaul |
advice, computers, how to, keyboards and mice, Microsoft, PC, performance, tech, tweaks, Vista, Windows, Windows 7 | applications, apps, custom, how to, keyboard, launch, open, programs, quick, shortcut, techpaul |
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This quick and simple trick will produce a list of the files in any folder, which you can then paste into any text editor, then Save and/or print. (Possibly a handy way to keep track of your music/videos collection.)
1) Open the folder you would like to list.
2) Click on one of the files to “select” it (turn it blue), and then hit Ctrl+A (the keyboard shortcut for “Select all”) to highlight all the files in the folder.
3) Right-click on any of the (now highlighted) files, and click on “Send To“, and then “Mail Recipient“.. as shown below. (This right-click menu is called the “Context menu”, btw.)

4) This will open your computer’s default e-mail client (Outlook Express, for example) and the ‘body’ of the e-mail will be your list of files.
5) Highlight (aka “select”) the list, and then press Ctrl+C (or, in the Menu bar: Edit > Copy) to copy the text to the clipboard.
6) Open your text editor (Word, Notepad, etc.) and press Ctrl+V (or, in the Menu bar: Edit > Paste) to ‘paste’ the list into your document.
Now you can Save this text file, or simply print it out.
[note: you can ‘paste’ the list into other programs as well, such as a spreadsheet program – like Excel.]
Copyright 2007-2010 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.
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February 2, 2010
Posted by techpaul |
advice, computers, e-mail, how to, tech | easy, file, folder, how to, list, list of files, quick, simple, techpaul, tip, trick |
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