"Control Key" shortcuts

The "Control" keys are located at the bottom left and right corners of the main portion of your keyboard and can perform many functions once you know how. Here are some "shortcuts" to get you on your way!

Control + Esc: Displays the Start menu.
Control + Z: Undoes last command.
Control + B: Bolds highlighted text.
Control + U: Underlines highlighted text.
Control + I: Italicizes highlighted text.
Control + A: Selects all items in current window.
Control + Tab: Moves through Property tabs.
Control + F: Opens the Find window. Type in what you're searching for.
Control + F4: Closes current window in multiple document interface (MDI) programs such as MS Word and Excel

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Change The Desktop Theme

Did you know that you can use a desktop theme to personalize the appearance of windows? Each desktop theme contains several coordinated items, including a desktop background, screen saver, colors, sounds, mouse pointers, icons and fonts. Here's the way to spice up your desktop!

Right-click a blank area on your desktop and a menu appears. Click "Properties" and the "Display Properties" dialog box appears. Click the "Themes" tab, and click in the search box under the word "Theme" to display a list of the available desktop themes and click the desktop theme you want to use. The center display area will now show you a preview of the desktop theme you selected. Click "OK" to confirm your change and windows will apply the theme you selected. To return to the original theme proceed as above but select the theme you were originally using.

Themes available are usually shown with names such as "My Current Theme", "Windows Classic" and "More themes online". You can use this last option to find additional themes on the Internet. The Microsoft Internet Explorer window will display a web page that allows you to obtain additional themes, or you can find themes using a traditional web search engine like Google, for instance. If you make any changes to any theme, such as changing the desktop background, a new theme appears with the word "Modified" in it's name. You can rename this "Modified" theme to any name of your choosing.

Have some fun with this one and see what you can come up with!

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Remove The Animated Dog From Your Search! (Windows XP)

When you search for an item in Windows XP, an animated dog automatically appears in the Search Companion to work as your search assistant. If you find the animated dog annoying or distracting, you can remove it from the Search Companion. To remove the screen character from your search, you need to change your search preferences. The other available search options will not be affected by this removal. Here's how you do it!

Click "Start", then "Search" and the Search Results window appears. Now scroll down and click "Change Preferences" and a list appears displaying the various ways you can customize the Search Companion. Click "Without an animated screen character" to remove the animated dog from your screen and the animated dog will leave your search window.

If you decide to keep an animated character in the Search Companion, but don't want the dog, you can choose from several other search characters. To display a different animated character, perform the first few steps but click on "With a different character". Use the "Back" and "Next" buttons to scroll through the available characters, then click "OK" to select the one you want to use.

You can bring back an animated character at any time by clicking "With an animated screen character". The last screen character that you used will reappear and you will have to change to another if this is not the character you want to use.

Now you can perform a search or simply close the search window. Now, wasn't that easy?

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Delete Temporary Files Automatically

You can make Internet Explorer automatically delete files in the Temporary Internet Files folder by doing the following -

While in Internet Explorer, click on "Tools", then on "Internet Options" in the drop-down menu. Now click on the "Advanced" tab and scroll down to the "Security" section and put a checkmark in the box beside "Empty Temporary Internet Files Folder When Browser Is Closed". That was easy, wasn't it?

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