Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Computer On or Off?

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As there have been numerous thunderstorms in the last few days, here in South Florida, the question has again been posed:

Should I leave my computer on and hooked up all the time or turn it off and unplug everything?

This is really a matter of personal preference and ability to accept the risk of frying your system.

Personally, when I am not actually using my PC for any length of time, regardless of the presence of thunderstorms, everything is turned off and unplugged, including any network cables and phone lines. I can not accept the risk of losing my equipment and my data.

Furthermore, if there are thunderstorms in the area after I start using my PC, I promptly shut everything down and unplug everything also.

I back up my data quite frequently but, even so I don’t want to take a chance and have to rebuild everything with a new set up. It is a lot of work to get things working the way I like them to and I am not willing to risk the lost time.

Display Properties Shortcut

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Those who regularly attend the BPCA SIG and General meeting, know that I am always changing something in the display properties to get the monitor and projector playing nicely with each other.

I have finally gotten smart and made a shortcut directly to the Display Properties of my various Windows based computers, instead of continually navigating from Start to Contol Panel, etc.

I created the shortcut by following these steps:

  • Left click the Start Button
  • Left click Control Panel
  • Right click Display
  • Select Create Shortcut
  • Click on Yes, when a dialog box comes up asking if you want the shortcut to be placed on the desktop

For even easier access, move the shortcut to the Quick Launch toolbar, if you are using that.

Now I have easy access to my display settings.

Manual Line Breaks

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This tip applies to MS Word 97 and above, it is possible it works in earlier editions but, I have no experience with them. This should also work in just about any word processor, but you will have to check for yourself.

When you get to the end of a line of text, you can start a new paragraph by pressing the Shift and Enter keys simultaneously. This will insert a manual line break.

The use of a manual line break comes in very handy when dealing with numbered lists. When you want to start a new paragraph in a numbered list without getting a new line number, use the manual break.

Another place to use the manual break, rather than start a new paragraph, is in any place set up as a “hanging” paragraph, such as cc: lines and references.

Try using the manual line break. Once you get used to it, you will find yourself using it frequently.

Let me know if there are any more applications of the manual break that help you in your word processing.