Sometimes, particularly with plain text files, you want to save a file as a certain extension. For example, you might want to save a text file with an INI or an XYZ extension.

One option you have for doing this in the Save As dialog box is changing the option in the “Files of type” drop down appropriately and then typing the filename. However if you simply put the full name of the file – including the extension – in quotes, this forces the specified filename regardless of what the “Files of type” drop down says.

For example in Notepad, if you type some text and then go to Save As, you will see the default extension is text files (TXT). If you type “myfile.zyx” (including the quotes) into the file name field, the file will save with the extension you specified instead of the default extension.

While this may not be a huge time saver, it definitely can save you some clicks when you need to use it.

For those of you who have upgraded to Windows 7 and are looking for some shortcuts which were not previously available in Windows XP, check out this quick post: The Best Windows 7 Shortcuts. These shortcuts were derived from a huge list of shortcuts available in Windows.

I do not yet have Windows 7 so I cannot test them, however I can see the quick closing of programs from the dock window and new folder creation shortcut being very useful.

If you do a task which requires you to have several programs open, a time saving thing you can do is create a batch script to open these programs and/or files at once. This is accomplished by using the START command. Using the syntax:

START /D “path_to_program” program_name

For example, to open both Firefox and IE, the batch file would look like this:

START /D “C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer” iexplore.exe
START /D “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox” firefox.exe

Just save the above text into a batch file named Browsers.bat and then run it. You will see both Firefox and IE are launched. This is just a simple example, so you would want to configure the programs to be what you need.

In the past, I have written about how the copy-paste function works in a lot of places even though it may not be ‘advertised’ as a function. The same can be said about the undo function (Ctrl + Z).

For example, you can use this function:

• in just about any application text box
• in browser text boxes
• in find and replace dialogs
• lots of other places… try it

Unfortunately, many times the remembered undo level is only one deep (this is not always the case though) but this is still better than nothing.

So give the undo function (again, Ctrl + Z ) a try and it may come in handy.

As I say in the video below, it does amaze me how many people are not aware of the simple shortcuts one can use to navigate though text quickly – and in many cases faster than you would with a mouse.

For some of you, what’s listed here will make you say to yourself, "Okay, who doesn’t know these keyboard shortcuts?" Quite a few, actually. You’d be surprised.

I label these as keyboard shortcuts everybody should know because if you rely too much on your mouse, it can prove to be a huge time waster. It can mean the difference between taking five minutes to type up something and thirty.

Using myself as an example, what I used to do to save time was memorize the keyboard shortcuts from the context menus in Windows applications. Using something like Notepad, what I used to do for copying years ago was – and I kid you not – ALT+E, C. For cut I used to do ALT+E, T. (These commands do in fact still work, even in Windows 7.) I wasn’t stuck on the mouse. I was stuck on context menus, as odd as that sounds. Fortunately I got out of that nasty habit and started copy/cut/pasting the proper way.

Here are the shortcuts mentioned in the video below. Some of these are very obvious, but bear in mind what’s obvious to you may not be to another.

HOME

Go to beginning of line.

END

Go to end of line (insert lame TRON reference here).

Left/Right Arrow

Move left or right, character by character.

SHIFT + Left/Right Arrow

Move left or right, character by character, highlighting text as you move.

CTRL + Left/Right Arrow

Move left or right, word by word.

CTRL + SHIFT + Left/Right Arrow

Move left or right, word by word, highlighting text as you move.

SHIFT + CTRL + HOME/END

Selects all text before (HOME) or after (END) the current position of the cursor.

CTRL + A

Select all text

CTRL + X

Cut text

CTRL + Z

Undo a cut

CTRL + C

Copy text

CTRL + V

Paste text

On a day to day basis, I probably use copy-pasting of text at least a couple of dozen times. While selecting/highlighting text using the mouse is quick in most cases, if you have to be precise or need bulk selection, nothing beats keyboard shortcuts. For a handy list of universal shortcuts, check out this article.

I use the combinations listed quite a bit and once you are accustomed to them, you will find it is much faster than using the mouse. After all, you are going to (probably) use the keyboard for Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V anyway, so your hands are already on the keyboard.

One of the really nice improvements Windows Vista makes is the addition of the Search Bar to the Start Menu. This allows you to easily locate any program installed on your system by simply typing a few letters. A tool which enhances this functionality which you might find useful is Start++.

There is a nice page here which gives a description of what Start++ does as well as shows some screenshots of it in action. Basically, you can define your own shortcuts in the Search Bar which are interpreted by Start++ to perform a certain action.

For example, you could [...] type “g Stuff” to search for the work “Stuff” on Google. You could also launch programs, run scripts with parameters, and more.

This appears to be a pretty nifty utility for those of your who are into keyboard controls.

By default whenever you create a shortcut in Windows, a small arrow is placed on the shortcut icon to indicate this is indeed a shortcut. If you would like to remove this arrow, you can do so easily by following the applicable instructions for your OS:

• Windows XP
• Windows Vista / 7

Both articles show you how to make a registry change and offer a utility which will do this for you. Just go with whatever you are more comfortable with.

Two of the most common dialog boxes you use are the save and open file prompts. As you probably know, there are shortcuts to common locations available along the left side which allow you to quickly jump to specific folders. If you would like to customize these locations, a simple way to do so is with the freeware utility PlacesBar Tweaker.

With this utility you can add or remove locations in addition to rearranging the existing order. This before and after screenshot should illustrate exactly what the tool does. Pretty simple, yet very useful.

Did you know you can access just about any configuration dialog box via a simple Start > Run command? When you think about it, knowing these commands is significantly faster than than trying to navigate to them through the graphical interface and also is a great way to send instructions to people with much fewer steps.

If you don’t have all the commands memorized (yet), a great list to check out is: 156 Useful Run Commands. This list has just about any configuration dialog you can think of. You can easily find the entry you are looking for by using your browser’s search function which makes this an ideal quick reference.

One of the first thing Windows Vista users will probably notice is there is a pretty signficant change to the way navigation works in Windows Explorer. One notable change is how you go ‘up’ a level, that is easily get to the parent folder of the folder you are currently in.

There are several ways to do this, such as:

• In the address navigation bar, click the folder representing the parent folder.
• Manually change the address location by editing the text (bah).
• Use the shortcut key Alt+Up Arrow.

My favorite and the fastest way I have found is by using the Alt+Up Arrow shortcut. This works exactly as you would expect. Additionally, you can use Alt+Left and Alt+Right to navigate back and forward, respectively.

One really nice feature which was added in Office 2007 is the ability to make certain files in your recently opened document list ’sticky’ so that they always appear in the list. This is really easy to do:

1. In the respective application (Word, Excel, etc.), click on the Office icon in the upper left.
2. In the ‘Recent Documents’ listing, note the push pin next to each item.
3. Click the push pin for each item you want to make stick on the list. When you select the item to be sticky, the icon will change to indicate this.
4. Now whenever you open the Recent Documents list, the sticky files will always be there. The order will shuffle according to other documents you may have opened, but the sticky files will not be removed.
5. To unstick a file, simply click the push pin again.

This feature is great for making sure you have easy access to the files you use most often and can help you avoid cluttering up your desktop with shortcuts. Office 2007 users definitely should take advantage of this.

Perhaps the most well known keyboard shortcuts in the computer universe are the commands to copy (Ctrl+C) and paste (Ctrl+V). An average computer user probably utilizes these shortcuts dozens of times a day without even thinking. In fact, this shortcut is so ubiquitous that it most likely works in places you haven’t tried.

For example, the other day I discovered (in a particular program I use) that I could click on a chart object, press Ctrl+C and then go to Excel and paste the source data of the grid there. No fuss, the raw data is now available in Excel so I can do any manipulations I need.

The moral of this story is to just try the Ctrl+C shortcut everywhere, even if it doesn’t look like the application supports it. You never know where it may work.

A really nifty time saver when using a web browser is to control it by using simple mouse gestures. For example, whenever you need to go back to the previous page, instead of going to the back button at the top of the screen simply hold down the right mouse button and drag it to the left. Much quicker.

• To activate mouse gestures in Internet Explorer 7, use IE7 Pro. Here is a listing of mouse gestures IE7 Pro supports.
• To activate mouse gestures in Firefox, you can use the Mouse Gestures Redox extension.

I have recently started taking advantage of this ingenious shortcut and I find it is quickly becoming a ‘must have’ feature.

The Windows command line offers access to many useful tools ranging from file system control to networking. A switch you might not know about the cmd.exe tool is /k which keeps the command line window open after the command is run instead of closing it. This is useful for creating shortcuts to run command line tools.

For example, if you want to create a shortcut to ping a particular computer (such as your mail server) you would create a shortcut like so:

1. Right click on the desktop and select New > Shortcut.
2. For the location of the item, enter the command. In this case: cmd /k ping my.mailserver.com
3. Save your changes.

Now you just have to double-click on the shortcut to run a ping test on your server and the results window will stay open to allow you to review the results and/or run additional commands without having to open another command line window.