I already shared a few weeks ago a short list of shortcuts that are useful in getting the most out of Windows. Before I share more, let me list some of the reasons I am a proponent of keyboard shortcuts:

1. It’s quicker.

That’s all.

Quite simply, you can work quicker as you learn and remember more and more keyboard shortcuts and as you work to make them a part of how you work. Think about this, how long would it take you to minimize every window you had open right now? I have 7 windows open right now, for me to go and hit the “minimize” bar on the top of each window would take about 6 seconds total, for me to hit the Windows key and the letter D together (Win+D) takes about 1/2 a second – tops. (I know that Macs have a Mouse Shortcut for this, which works very well indeed.)

Most people already know some keyboard shortcuts and they don’t even realize it, for example Ctrl+C for Copy, Ctrl+V for Paste, Ctrl+X for Cut, Ctrl+P for Print and Ctrl+S for Save. I’ve even mentioned F1 for the Help menu a couple of times.

Take a few minutes and peruse your menus in the programs that you have open. For example, under the File menu you’ll find options that look like the image to the left. Here you can see that Ctrl+T opens a new tab while Ctrl+W closes a tab.

One shortcut that is common to just about every Windows program is Alt+F4 which closes the program down. It works the same as hitting the button at the top right of the window.

Also, to switch programs you can hold down Alt and hit Tab (Alt+Tab) to file through the windows you have open rather than clicking the items on your taskbar. Ctrl+Tab works within a single program – say to switch between documents you have open in Word or tabs in Firefox.

I’ve found a number of lists of shortcuts that I want to list here. Check some of them out and take advantage as you gain more of your time to work (and a better control over your computer use).

• Common Windows Shortcuts
• Mac OS X Shortcuts
• 230+ Keyboard Shortcuts for Top Web Services
• Gmail Shortcuts – there is an option in Gmail to turn these on and off.
• Microsoft Word Shortcuts
• Microsoft Excel Shortcuts
• Microsoft Powerpoint Shortcuts

Links via [Lifehacker & Mashable]

We’re all familiar with PDFs, those documents that you get that you can always read but you can never edit. They have been pretty standard for a number of years now (they’ve existed since 1993), but they’re on the brink of becoming the standard for documents on the internet (there are actual standards for content on the Web).

They are convenient because you don’t have to worry about whether or not your friend has Word, Publisher or whatever other program you’ve created your document in – they can still read it. It’s also great for sending out prayer letters by email so that you’re sure that all of your supporters can read it – I mean the program to read them is even free!

For a long time I was confused about how many people seemed to be able to create PDFs yet I was completely not able to make them… then I found out how.

Now, from what I understand, the ability to save a document to a PDF is native to OS X so those of you who are Mac users have this pretty easy. We’re going to walk through how to install a PDF Converter as a printer on your system. The program that I use is CutePDF.

CutePDF allows you to create a PDF document in any program that you can print from. When I need to print off a Bible study to send to a student – “print” it as a PDF and email it. When I have a receipt online that I want to save – “print” it as PDF and save it on my hard drive. When I want to save a webpage complete with all of the content as a single file – “print” it as a PDF and I can open it quickly whenever I want.

First, go ahead and download it from here (Windows required), you’ll also need to download a converter called Ghostscript that is also linked on the page (you can get it here). On the CutePDF page they’ll look like this image to the left.

Now all you have to do is run the CuteWriter.exe and converter.exe files that you’ve just downloaded and you’ll have CutePDF installed in your options whenever you want to print something. When you “print” with it, it will give you an opportunity to save it as a PDF where ever you want.

Now you can create PDFs!