#keyboards #kerning #typing #mice #speed #hacking #computers #technology
To start, yes that is my desk, yes I am that messy, not exactly sure why I have 3 pairs of headphones on the counter, but I know why I have two keyboards. Shut up don't judge me. I'm trying to point out a very important point, mice suck. Yeah that's right, I said it, and I know a lot of people are right now gasping for their next breath of sweet air after having their reality shattered by such ground breaking words. Its a fact though... well maybe an opinion? Guess it really depends on who you ask. Ask your grandmother and she'll praise it as the most useful part of a computer, ask a techy and he'll tell you its the scourge of his existence. But why?
I'd like to formally introduce everyone on the entire internet to the most important button on a PC's keyboard.
The Windows Button. Situated right between Ctrl and Alt, nestled in a nice little gap of obscurity. This button right here is the gateway to joy, gateway to speed, gateway to happiness and sunshine. Forget that clicky clicky bull crap, I'm giving you the real McCoy of computer envy. Whats so important about this button though? Why am I raving about a single solitary button? To put it short? It starts quite a good bit of your computer. It opens your start menu without your mouse, which doesn't sound to crazy fancy but, it'll actually save you a hell of a lot of time. Lets talk about some quick tips and tricks that this little bugger is capable of doing. Most importantly of course being keyboard shortcuts. Now before I go headlong into what keyboard shortcuts are, because there are far to many to go over in this post, I'm going to focus on just windows button shortcuts.
To start as I've already said it opens the start menu, if you're using windows Vista or newer you'll notice a nice little search bar at the button of your start menu. If you know what you're trying to do, say play solitare, or open your calculator, you can just type those in and hit enter. Literally with your pinky hit a little button, type in "soli" and boom there is solitaire, hit enter, and its opened. No long drawn out, take your mouse, click the start, go to all programs, search for games, find games, click solitaire, just boom boom boom, button, words, enter. Already sounds pretty steller doesn't it? But why stop there? Lets talk about shortcuts.
The windows button holds a treasure trove of pretty neat tricks you can use to speed up your computer experience. In Windows 7 if you hold down the windows button and tap the tab button, you can shuffle through all opened programs. Which this is pretty cool, but for some reason they took the Aero theme out of windows 8, I believe it was a resource hog for no reason. But look at that, its pretty gosh darn cool. For everyone else who isn't using windows 7 though, you can use Alt + Tab to cycle through your windows. All you have to do is hold down the alt key and tap tab for ever program you want to shuffle through. The same way as you would for windows 7, just not as pretty. (Look my post is in this post about this post, inception)
Now in windows 7, and 8, they also have the arrow key based snap, full screen, and minimize buttons. By holding down the windows button and taping right on the number pad, the program you're in will take up half of the screen to the right. Tap to the left, and it goes to the left. Tap up and it goes full screen, or down and it minimizes. This is one of those features that is a complete and total blessing, just reading it makes it sound somewhat stupid, but lets be honest, how many times have we had two things on the screen at the same time and had to do some sort of resizing shenanigans for a minute or two just to click the maximize button and throw a mouse across the screen. Happens quite often.
I can never get tired of Billy Mays memes. Literally there is more, this is just three pretty bad ass level tricks so far... well probably not "bad ass" per-say, but still pretty nifty. I'm on a roll though, I think I should give a few more pretty cool tricks. Why not Windows + L. Sounds innocent enough right? Probably one of the safest, most powerful, and best key combinations out there. Windows + L locks your computer down, so no-one can use it without your password. I know it sounds pretty darn simple right? And really, its one of my most used windows key combinations, whenever I walk away from my desk at work, windows + L and I'm out. Not simply because its secure, but more so as a network admin... there are things I don't want people having access too.
There is also Windows + E, which opens up windows explorer. Not sure if you're noticing a pattern or not yes with windows and the letter doing something that makes sense right? This is another one of those time saving wonder combos. No right click your start menu and scrolling up to explorer, no going searching for the "My Computer" icon on your desktop, no simply Windows + E and ... its opened. Love this combo, makes copying files from a flash drive to a network drive quick and painless.
Last I'm going to drop off Windows + R, which is Run, simple just Run. What is run though? Its the windows command that allows you to run programs if you know what they are called. A few examples would be.- mspaint (microsoft paint)
- cmd (command line, NOT COMMAND PROMPT)
- taskmgr (task manager)\
- eventvwr (event viewer)
- gpupdate /force (force group policy update)
The list goes on, if you know what you're trying to open, you can type it in to open it (assuming the computer knows the command). I'm pretty sure winword opens up word, and excel just opens up excel. I don't have those on this computer so I can't check (I'm a libre office and open office fan).
Look I know what I'm saying here sounds either condescending, boring, dorky, or just stupid. Hell no-one ever told me not to use a mouse, I just noticed people were going quicker who never touched a mouse. As I've said before I like to classify myself as a "hacker", sure I'm not a super wonder wizard like some of the greats out there, but when you're fighting against a clock to get through a firewall and out before a security admin notices you and tracks your IP, that 15 seconds can be a saver. And if you haven't noticed in all realistic hacking shots on any movie (not those crappy swordfish style garbage flicks), the "hacker" is usually in a terminal screen, using root, or in a command prompt. They aren't using a mouse and searching, they are typing and executing. I want to just instill that little bit of experience I've had over the years and let anyone who reads this learn the time saving tricks of the keyboard wonderland.
Next post won't be as boring, and as always, be safe my goblins.
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