Home Opinion Friday Debate – What’s your most useful PC lifehack?

Friday Debate – What’s your most useful PC lifehack?

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Friday-hack

Computers: They’re useful, powerful and often incredibly confusing to use. Easy to learn and challenging to master, a PC in the hands of a master probably looks like witchcraft. Here’s an example for you: I’m helping my father grab some information online, and I’m standing behind him and wishing he’d use more than one tab to do his research.

“Dad, why don’t you just open up another tab?”

“A what now?”

“A tab. Just press CTRL+T DAD I SAID THE CTRL KEY WHHHYYYY”

You’ve probably had a similar conversation with your parents, groaned as they typed in a command using a single finger dragged across the entire keyboard and then felt like a glorious god when they expressed shock and awe at how quickly you could do the same task. All those shortcuts or lifehacks we makeuse of, we most likely also take for granted these days. Alt + TAB to switch between windows, CTRL+C to copy text over and then paste instantly with CTRL+V.

Those are the basics though, the mere tip of the keyburg. There are so many useful functions at our literal fingertips and online, that many people don’t know of. You can copy and paste text without formatting by pressing CTRL+Shift+V, you can quickly grab the pornsite that you hurriedly closed when your mom walked in, by pressing CTRL+Shift+T you pervert.

Did you know that your laptop will charge quicker if you leave it in airplane mode? Maybe there;s a song you just heard that you’re desperate to discover the origins of. Sing or hum the tune into Midomi, and you’ll have an answer. Heck, I’ll even give you an example of just how mentally lazy I am. I was recently tracking a parcel, but the website I was using didn’t commit the tracking number to its cookies or whatever. Point is, I had to enter the tracking number every single time I wanted an update. So I did what any normal person would do:

I made a blank text document on my desktop, named it to the tracking number, pressed F2 on it whenever I needed said number and copied the highlighted text from there. One quick paste in the browser and I had an update. What’s your favourite lifehack though? What’s an example of PC MacGuyvering that you reckon more people should know about? Share the knowledge, and pop a comment below detailing your genius in getting tasks done quicker and easier.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Critical Hit as an organisation.

Last Updated: August 21, 2020

8 Comments

  1. Keyboard for everything, can work with just my keyboard, don’t need a mouse. Learn the shortcut keys, helps greatly. Multiple robocopy’s make you look cool with the ladies☺️?
    I use MobaXterm to manage all my putty sessions.
    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/5aa9782f4166fcf188d1e17cd511b423e59c352f6b37c199810926097838ede9.jpg

    Reply

  2. McGafter

    August 21, 2020 at 14:12

    As I am working in visual studio and SQL alot the following has become very handy:
    Ctrl+Enter – Adds a new line above the current line and moves the cursor to the start of the new line
    Ctrl+Shift+Enter – Adds a new line below the current line and moves the cursor to the start of the new line

    Ctrl+C with nothing selected copies the entire line and if you paste it it creates a new line above the cursor line and pastes the entire copied line, same with Ctrl+X

    Lastly if you press Alt when doing a selection it only selects the parts you drag over end not entire lines, this helps if i need to paste a lot of lines after each other and only need to put a comma in front of each line, Alt+select, then you can type/paste anything and it would only add it at the cursor space,very very handy

    Reply

  3. Caveshen Rajman

    August 21, 2020 at 11:01

    Not a Windows shortcut but I think it’s important to mention that Windows 10 lets you reinstall Windows without losing everything on your drive, and you should try to do it once a year because it’s good for performance.

    Reply

    • Original Heretic

      August 21, 2020 at 11:01

      Same thing applies to humans.

      Reply

  4. Neji

    August 21, 2020 at 11:16

    Not really a hack, but more inspired by the movie… I create a folder called ‘garbage’ on any PC I have to do work on.

    Reply

  5. HairyEwok

    August 21, 2020 at 12:24

    ALT+F4…….. EVERYTHING, don’t like your game ALT+F4…. Hate your chrome tabs ALT+F4….. Need a quick escape from a porn site ALT+F4… Want your computer to switch off ALT+F4… Had enough with life ALT+F4
    https://media.giphy.com/media/RyXVu4ZW454IM/giphy.gif

    Reply

  6. Gavin Mannion

    August 21, 2020 at 13:17

    Ctrl+- to step back to the last place you were looking at in Visual Studio…. small target market but that one is really helpful

    Reply

  7. OddSockZA

    August 21, 2020 at 15:44

    Windows key + V lets you paste from multiples items from a clipboard history. It’s a helluva timesaver,

    Reply

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