Essential timesavers
Office time savers In Microsoft Office pressing Shift, F5 takes you to a previous version. Use F7 to launch the spellchecker and Shift, F7 to bring up the thesaurus. In Word, hit Ctrl, Space to apply default (Normal) formatting for a selection or anything you subsequently type. Date or time-stamp your document with auto updating details using Alt, Shift, D and Alt, Shift, T respectively.
Add your own shortcuts Windows lets you create keyboard shortcuts for launching applications. Right-click the program's icon on the Start menu, choose Properties, then enter your keys of choice in the Shortcut Key box under the Shortcut tab.
Spin cycle You can Alt-Tab between open applications and web pages on your desktop if you find this easier than trawling through a stacked list of Firefox windows and Word documents collapsed on your taskbar. XP provides a brief description under each item as you cycle through them all.
Advanced shortcut techniques For real control over shortcuts, try Active Keys. It assigns keyboard shortcuts to actions such as repositioning a window to a specific corner of the screen, pasting the date and time, emptying the Recycle Bin, or changing your media player's volume. It costs $20, but there's an Active Keys trial here.
Type to find Refreshingly, Microsoft has finally made desktop search work, so you can now just type in a filename or subject and have related documents and other items brought forth in an instant.
Seeing is believing Not sure which document you want to open? Live previews and huge thumbnail previews mean you can get the gist just by hovering over an item in Aero view or holding your cursor over it – a bit like Ask.com's binoculars feature, in fact.
Get Aerated Aero is the name for the Vista interface that lets you cycle through windows and see what's hidden by the translucent edges of onscreen panes. It isn't supported in Vista Home Basic but for such users as well as XP fans wondering what they're missing, try AbsoluteWay's TweakWindow (www.absoluteway.com).
Aero-dynamic To invoke the Aero desktop and flick through onscreen items at will, click on Windows, tab.
Get organised Use the web to make computing easier. Google Calendar (calendar.google.com) allows you to create schedules that you can share with your family and friends, but if you want more efficient ways to organise yourself then try Remember The Milk or 30 Boxes (30boxes.com). With these apps you can set up to-do lists, which can then be accessed anywhere. You can even receive reminders via email, SMS or instant message.
Faster file access with NTFS
NTFS makes Windows XP both more secure and faster. You need to have your PC formatted for NTFS if you want to be able to take advantage of the disk compression and encryption functions in Windows. To change to it from a FAT32 system, go to Start, Run, type cmd.exe and press Enter. When the Command Prompt window opens, type convert, leave a space then type in the hard drive letter followed by colon, space. Then type in /fs:ntfs.
Speak and spell: speech-recognition tools
If you like to chat you may well have a microphone (or a USB headset and VoIP handset) attached to your Vista PC. You can also use this with Vista's native speech commands to dictate text and other data into applications. Choose Start, All Programs, Accessories, Ease of Access, Windows Speech Recognition. Unlike third-party speech tools such as NaturallySpeaking or Nuance, Vista uses a single sample sentence for training and recognition, so don't expect miracles.
The accompanying tutorials are easy and are optimised for use with Outlook, Word and straightforward word processors but work less well with many other programs. It also hogs system resources, so use it only when it's going to boost productivity in other ways.
And finally...
Ensure you keep Windows up to date. The same goes for other essentials such as your antivirus and antispyware applications. Java and other web-based tools are often subject to web-borne attacks. Updates help keep these at bay. Most essential applications will update at least once each month, but you can put them on a schedule to suit you.
Schedule Windows Update You can dictate whether Windows Updates happen automatically under Control Panel, Automatic Updates, but why not schedule the most convenient time for them to happen. If you routinely shut down your PC, you can have Windows Update install updates and shut down your PC afterwards.
Update Windows now Head to windowsupdate.microsoft.com to grab any updates you've missed – you can choose what to install on a case-by-case basis. This can be a useful exercise as most users don't have Windows set to automatically install each and every update, but if you want things such as viewers and language packs, it can be worthwhile.