What are the most useful findings which made your life easier with computers?

Question

Here are some examples from my experience:

• Authotkey to automate anything and everything
• using multiple clipboards (e.g clipx)
• using copy on select to avoid thousands of unnecessary ctrl+c presses

There are surely others which don't occur to me right now, but even the ones above spared me an immense amount of tiresomeness. Do you have similar useful tips for everyday computer usage?

Answer 1

Two or three monitors. I know I am talking about hardware and not software, but having a second screen greatly improves my productivity. At the moment the laptop I am using is limited to two screens, but I have used systems with three and that is even better then two. I am not sure more than three would be better, larger screens maybe, but three seems to be enough to keep track of.

Answer 2

The concept of a home directory. Keep everything you can't re-install (i.e. all your "data") in one place. Organize it, back it up, etc. etc.

Makes hardware/OS upgrades a breeze. Makes multi-user systems easy. Helps the "where did I put that" problem.

Answer 3

For Windows users who always prefer keyboard to mouse, the Windows Key plus knowing some of the executable names of applications is very useful:

• Press Windows+R, input "calc" and Enter: opens Calculator
• Press Windows+R, input "notepad" and Enter: opens Notepad
• Press Windows+R, input "iexplore" and Enter: opens Internet Explorer
• Press Windows+R, input "winword" and Enter: opens Word
• Press Windows+R, input "excel" and Enter: opens Excel
• ... and so on and so forth
• Press Windows+E: open file explorer

I recommend reading more about the Windows Key as it contains additional time-saving gems (Windows+D shows the desktop, Windows-M minimizes all "minimizable" windows, and more).

Answer 4

Everything, the stupidly fast and comprehensive file search tool that supports regex, and seriously puts google desktop, windows search, so on, to shame.

Answer 5

I wanted to reply to this comment:

For Windows users who always prefer keyboard to mouse, the Windows Key plus knowing some of the executable names of application is very useful:

* Press Windows+R, input "calc" and Enter: opens the Claculator
* Press Windows+R, input "notepad" and Enter: opens Notepad
* Press Windows+R, input "iexplore" and Enter: opens Internet Explorer
* Press Windows+R, input "winword" and Enter: opens Word
* Press Windows+R, input "excel" and Enter: opens Excel
* ... and so on and so forth
* Press Windows+E: open file explorer

I recommend reading more about the Windows Key as it contains additional time-saving gems (Windows+D shows the desktop, Windows-M minimizes all "minimizable" windows, and more).

With this message:

Try Launchy: http://www.launchy.net/  It will make it even quicker

But apparently I do not have enough karma to do it.

Please upvote my comment so I finally can reply to responses directly. I am tired of posting a new post to respond to individual responses.

Answer 6

Learning to use the command line.

Answer 7

Expose on OSX, and Windows + D on Windows

Answer 8

iswitchw is also pretty useful.

Answer 9

the most useful finding was/is participating in an opensource project to get the little itches and scratches i had with that project fixed when i wanted them to be fixed.

Answer 10

Slackware Linux and vim.

Answer 11

the quick launch bar in vista arrange app acordind to the freq of use and just press Windows + (1-9) key to launch 9 diff priority appns

also u can use the regestered version of tune up utilities 2009 the best in its category to speed up the processes and also reamoval of regestry errors..

Answer 12

The command-line on Linux. I used Ubuntu for months while being scared pantless by the command-line, thinking that every wrong command would somehow destroy my machine. Now I can't live without the command-line, it makes several complicated day-to-day tasks very simple, and almost makes several GUI applications seem outdated (file browsing/copying, for example).

Answer 13

Total Commander, file management (and much more) at its best. just can't do without.

Answer 14

Org-mode to make yourself organized. It's based on Emacs, so YMMV, but otherwise it's astonishingly powerful.

Answer 15

I found that CLI mode need not be intimidating. Back in the days of Windows 3.1, I found the DOS prompt and started to realize that 90% of what can be done in Windows can be done from the CLI. Upon finding Slackware, I found the true power of the CLI. bash, vim, grep and a plethora of other amazing apps were at my fingertips.

Imagine you want to find all files which have the word 'Foo' in it. In Windows:

1. Start Menu
2. Find
3. Files and Folders
4. Type in a directory to search through.
5. Find the option for "Search file contents".
6. Hit search.
7. Open each file to see if it contains what you're looking for.

In the CLI:

1. grep "Foo" /path/to/files/
2. Look at the results and see what you're looking for.

Love it!

Answer 16

Invest the necessary time in learning a multi-purpose editor.

Personally, I invest in Emacs, and I'm very happy with it... but I assume that learning a Vi editor would give you some equal benefit.

There is so much you could do with those kind of tools. Every day, I have at least one opportunity to leverage my knowledge of Emacs to simplify significantly a task I have to do.

Today, it was in-situ editing of a zip archive. Yesterday and extensive multi-file search and replace. The day before, regex renaming a bunch of files, and file comparison at character level...

... Learning Emacs was my best investment in tools.

Answer 17

Virtual desktops, provided e.g. by most Linux window managers, by Spaces on Mac OS X, or by various 3rd party tools on Windows.

When you have lots of programs and windows open simultaneously, grouping them in different virtual desktops by "theme" or context can help tremendously in keeping on top of things.

Answer 18

As Tom (OP) Posted, I would say ClipX has been a great time saver for me.

Answer 19

Bayden System's Slickrun, the fastest way to interact with a Windows computer.

Answer 20

Knowing how transistors work. The how and why of computers running as 1s and 0s has really helped me as a developer.

Answer 21

Learning to use the keyboard properly. That means

1. Touchtyping
2. "search as you type" in firefox
3. keyboard shortcuts

I never use my mouse anymore (except for gaming) and for those few occations where i'm forced to do it the touchpad on my laptop is enough.

Everything goes much much faster, you can use laptops without crying for a real mouse and the risk of mousearm isn't that high.

Answer 22

http://www.voidtools.com/

A little program called "Everything". You can find it at the link above. I found this program on a little forum recommended by someone. When I contracted a very bad nasty that caused me to reformat, that's about the only program that still worked!

Amazing little program...recommend it to everyone.

Answer 23

Desktop toolbars: http://www.5starsupport.com/ipboard/index.php?showtopic=7857

Answer 24

Favourites and Libraries for folders in Windows 7 Explorer.

Answer 25

Launchy, the keystroke launcher, really makes the difference.

In a couple of keystroke you can launch virtually any software installed on your computer. No need to browse the Start menu hierarchy anymore.