When it comes to purchasing things, I will admit that I tend to be a tad on the anal side. I always spend a ton of time researching the available options. This has been a lifelong issue for me.
In the old days (read pre-Internet), one of my favourite sources of information and reviews was Consumer Reports Magazine. It is still a go to resource for me and now also has extensive online information (mostly behind a subscriber wall), and there are now many more online sources of similar information. The trick now is finding information you can rely …

When you create a cell reference in an Excel formula that refers to another cell, that cell reference can be relative (the default) or absolute. A relative cell reference adjusts to its new location when the formula is copied or moved. An absolute cell reference does not change when the formula is moved.

Consider this example: Starting in A1 you have a 3×3 table with some figures in it. Cell D1 contains this formula: =A1+(B1*C1). If copy this formula to cell D2, the cell references will change relative to the new location and the formula will automatically change to …

Most of you will say that typing 140 characters isn’t a big deal. But typing the same thing over and over again can be taxing, even if it is only 140 characters. And why type things unnecessarily if you can avoid doing so?
Hootsuite has a really neat feature that lets you save templates of tweets that you can drop into the Compose Tweet window with just a few clicks. This is how it works.
Type the text you want make into a template in the Compose Tweet window. Look for the Save Message as Template button towards the bottom …

All of us have experienced the frustration of a dying smartphone battery. While battery life has greatly improved over the years, a dead smartphone is something most of us see more often than we would like.
Of course, turning of Bluetooth and WiFi when you aren’t using them will help extend your battery life, but dimming the brightness of screen can really help too, especially if you have a smartphone with a larger screen. Big screens look great, but they are a huge drain on your phone’s battery. Dimming the screen, even just a bit, will help you extend your …

Occasionally you may find yourself wanting to type superscript (see the adjacent graphic) or subscript (10₂). You can do this through the Font dialog box, but there is a much faster way.
For superscript, simply press Ctrl + Shift + + (press and hold Ctrl and Shift, then press +). For subscript, press CTRL + = (press and hold Ctrl, then press =). Pressing the respective shortcut again will get you back to normal text.…

Every so often you will accidently close a browser window tab that you wanted to keep open. Hate when that happens!
And after doing so, you want to get it back. Typically, most of us will open Google Search in a new tab and try to reconstruct the search terms that got us to the tab in the first place. Sometimes you might open a new tab and go into your browsing history. And while doing either these things will probably get you back, there is a must easier and faster way to get that tab back.
Pressing Ctrl+Shift+T instantly …

Most of you will be used to going into the Control Panel to tweak or change your Windows settings. In the Control Panel, related types of settings are grouped under different icons to help you find the setting you are looking for. But finding a particular setting can sometimes be a challenge as you need to dig down two or more levels to get to the appropriate dialog box.
There is another way to easily access and change Windows settings: “God Mode” gives you single list of every single Windows setting that you can configure (assuming your IS department hasn’t …

When it comes to deleting text we have just typed, most of us will hit the Backspace (PC) or Delete (Mac) key.

This works, but deleting text one letter at a time is not the most efficient way to correct your mistakes.
Deleting an entire word instead of deleting a single letter is much faster. You can use the Ctrl+Backspace (PC) or Option+Delete keyboard shortcuts to delete the entire word behind the cursor. Remember these shortcuts for faster editing next time you are composing something on your computer.…

In just the last few weeks, I have talked to two lawyers dealing with hacked email accounts. In the past year or so, I have seen frauds perpetrated where a hacker hacked into a client’s email account and waited until the opportune time (just as a real estate deal closed) to send instructions to the lawyer (pretending to be the client) on where to disburse funds; and a situation where a lawyer’s email account was hacked and the hacker, pretending to be a lawyer, sent instructions to a client on where to send funds. In both cases the funds went …

If you frequently dial someone who as at extension, it can be frustrating to wait for the main phone number to connect before you can to enter the extension number, if you can even remember it. As Canadians, we frequently have to enter a number to select English or French before we can dial the extension. What a pain!
You can easily avoid this frustration can with a comma or two. Simply enter the main contact number as you normally would, but then add a comma followed by the extension number (e.g., 4165551234,567). The comma causes a pause of about …