Reason #1 to Get an eBook Reader

Free Books!  For a limited time, book publisher Night Shade Books is giving away three free eBooks in both ePub (for the Nook) and mobi (for the Kindle) formats.

The only thing you need to is send an email to Happythanksgiving@nightshadebooks.com and Night Shade Books will an automatically send you an email with a username and password that will allow you to access the free eBooks.

You can then download the books that you want (I choose to get all three) and save them to your computer.  ePub is the more common format so if you have a Sony Reader or another device other than a Nook or Kindle you should download the ePub.  If your still not sure, leave a comment and I’ll follow up with conclusive information on which format will work with your device.

I still enjoy a new hardcover book or a paperback but you can’t beat the deals available on eBooks right now.  You will quickly make up for the cost of your device by finding book giveaways and discounts from publishers, authors and book review blogs.

Happy reading!

Keyboard Shortcuts: Saving Keystrokes When Web Browsing

Here's a good tip to get stared with. We’ve been typing www.WebsiteNameHere.com for a while now and there’s got to be a better way.  Good news, there is!  Imagine just typing in the name of the website and a two key combination to complete the address and you’re done.  Here’s how to do it.

In your browser simply type the name of the website that you would like to go to, like CNN, the type Ctrl + Enter at the same time to automatically fill in the www. at the beginning and the .com at the end of the address.

Here’s what it looks like:

1. Type in cnn into the navigation bar

2. Next type Ctrl + Enter for .com addresses

You’ve just saved yourself a bunch of unnecessary keystrokes.  This works in Internet Explorer, Firefox and even Chrome.  Try it out, I’m sure you’ll like it and never want to go back to typing www. and .com again.

Here is a listing of the keystrokes for easy web browsing

Ctrl + Enter for .com addresses
Shift + Enter  for .net addresses
Ctrl + Shift + Enter  for .org addresses

You can also add the Alt key to any of these to open the address in a new tab, which is pretty cool.  Here’s what it looks like.

1. Type in ebay (or any other website) into the navigation bar

2. Next type Ctrl + Enter +Alt to open the site in a new tab

Pretty cool, huh?  Try it out and impress your friends and co-workers.

Unfortunately, I have not found a shortcut for .edu addresses, which is a real shame since I work at a .edu. Please let me know if you're familiar with a .edu or any other keyboard shortcut to make web browsing faster and more efficient.

Technorati Tags: Keyboard shortcuts,web browsing,ctrl +enter,ctrl + enter + alt,shortcuts,saving keystrokes

Master of My Outlook Domain: Delayed Send

The Manager’s Best Friend

You can use Outlook to delay the sending of a message. This is a great tool for people who don’t want to forget to send an email but don’t want the recipients to feel obligated to reply over a holiday, weekends, etc.

These directions are for Outlook 2010. Please leave a comment if you’d like me to post a step by step guide for Outlook 2007.

Here are the steps for delaying delivery of a message in Outlook 2010.

1. Compose your message

2. Click the Options tab

3. Select Delay Delivery from the Options ribbon

4. Set the desired delivery date and time and click Close. You will see the message show up in your Outbox, as shown below.

Important Tip: Outlook must be open in order to send your delayed send messages when the time comes. Outlook is a pretty powerful tool but it’s not magic ;)

Technology Tips & Tricks to Help You Become More Effective and Efficient Using Your Computer (and Sometimes Even Save Money)

I’ll be giving tips on Microsoft Office applications such at Outlook, Word and maybe even some PowerPoint that will help you say keystrokes and time as you work on your everyday tasks.  We’ve become so dependent on the computer mouse that we’ve forgotten that most applications have keyboard shortcuts galore. 

We’ll also cover different technology tips and tricks outside of Office.  For example, there are easy ways to save receipts when you shop online without printing them out on your inkjet printer.  With the cost of ink these days, the less we need to print the better.

Come back often for new and helpful ways to do things with your computer or technology.  Feel free to ask a question if you’d like to know how to do something.  I’ll try to provide clear and concise instructions without all the Geek talk.

Welcome!  I hope that you find this information helpful!