PCTips Box

If you are a ardent web surfer and you use firefox mostly for web browsing,then this article could be interesting for you.

It is very common for a web surfer to open more than 9 sites in a firefox in the same window, it happens to me as when I browse through large number of blogs and web sites opened in different uncountable tabs.

Switching across these tabs becomes more and more difficult when as number increases, so there a key board shortcut associated with each tab starting from left as ctrl+1 for first tab, ctrl+2 for the second tab and so on..

But these shortcuts are limited up to ctrl+9 to access the opened tab the 9th position but if you want to access the last opened tab with a keyboard shortcut you can’t do this in any version lesser then Firefox 3.0 (more…)

Stop for a minute and take a look at your desktop. How many icons, folders and files do you see? Probably a lot. So what’s the big deal?

It could be causing your Windows Computer to slow down.

Not when your Computer boots, but when you log on or off, right click on folders or icons, even trying to open a folder or file from the desktop. For users with roaming profiles, having a large user profile can degrade system performance. But it can also cause issues even if you do not have a roaming profile.

Storing large folders or file on your desktop is convenient, as long as you keep the size under control. Even if you use tools such as Disk Cleanup or CCleaner, desktop files and folders are not included during cleanup and can get out of control. (more…)

Use these tips to help manage your files.

1. Use My Documents. For many reasons, it’s smart to take advantage of My Documents feature in Microsoft Windows. To open My Documents in Windows, click Start, and then click My Documents. My Documents provides an easy way for you to store your personal documents. By using My Documents, you will be better able to:

2. Find files. Windows provides easy access to the My Documents folder (and its subfolders) in many places: through the Start menu, the task pane in Windows Explorer, common File Open and File Save dialog boxes, and other places. Note Windows Explorer displays the structure of files and folders on your computer. To open Windows Explorer, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Windows Explorer. (more…)

I have become more addictive using gmail these days specially because we have to reply to users who send their computer problems on TroubleFixers

While handling these large number of email, I was just trying to get to know quick and easy to remember shortcuts for gmail. So, I google for gmail keyboard shotcuts and got landed to a page here

But after seeing these shortcuts I was even worried how could any one remember all of them, I filtered out some easy to remember shortcuts.

Quick Easy to Use Shortcuts For Gmail (more…)

If are a frequent firefox user, you must be wondering how you can assign small easy to remember shortcut keywords to your mostly used bookmarks.

But why shortcuts for bookmarks ?

Well assigning shortcuts to your mostly accessed bookmarks could save lot of your time and increase your productivity.

How Productive?

A small keyword could be used to locate the website address, instead of typing full address or clicking the bookmark in the bookmark toolbar.

Lets see how can you set shortcuts for different bookmarks (more…)

You will find that many of the programs you install on your system set portions of themselves to run automatically when you start up your computer. Each program that runs on startup not only consume system resources but also extends the length of time it takes your PC to fully boot.

Since it is generally unnecessary to have any programs running in the background (other than security software like virus-scanners or firewalls) disable your unwanted startup programs to increase your startup speed and conserve system resources.

The easiest way to go about this task is to use the MSCONFIG utility, which may be familiar to users of Windows 9x. This handy program contains a list of software which is set to start when you boot your PC. You can then easily disable and re-enable (if necessary) these items. (more…)

Microangelo, the famous icon tool company, has released an updated version of their On Display application that allows users to easily change and replace the default system icons in Windows Vista. With Microangelo On Display you can:

Customize Windows icons quickly and easily. Just right-click on the icon and select “Appearance” from the popup menu. One elegant dialog allows you to change icons just about anywhere on your computer.

Use On Display to change icons displayed by Windows Vista, XP and Windows 2000. If you can’t change an icon with On Display, it probably can’t be done. Folder, shortcut, shell and system icons, On Display can change icons in more places than any other tool available. (more…)

Why click through a series of locations to find the file you want, when a snappy little shortcut will take you right to it? And on the flip side, why have shortcuts to folders you never use? These questions make the My Places bar the bar at the left of the Open and Save dialog boxes in Microsoft Office programs an area of contention for me. Microsoft’s default shortcuts for Windows XP/Office 2003 users are My Recent Documents, Desktop, My Documents, My Computer, and My Network Places. Do you use any or all of those?

Good news: You are by no means stuck with these idle default locations. You can hide them with a simple Windows Registry edit. And for complete customization, you can also add locations you actually do use (the My Places bar can store up to 256) and rearrange the order of all your shortcuts. Here we’re working in Office 2007 and Windows XP. The steps to edit the Registry are the same no matter which version of Office you’re using just be sure to navigate to the correct Office version in the directory tree. (more…)