25 Cool Windows 7 Keyboard Tricks That Will Impress Your Friends

Anyone working professionally with a computer has their hands on the keyboard most of the time. Reaching for the mouse can be an annoying disturbance and personally I often turn over my mouse in such situations. An easy solution is to simply keep the hands on the keyboard and complete as many tasks as possible with keyboard shortcuts only.

Apart from making you work more efficiently and faster, you can also impress your friends or colleagues by being able to work without a mouse. This article describes some cool Windows 7 keyboard tricks to get you started. In the end you might never want to take your hands off the keyboard again.

For your convenience, more keyboard shortcut resources are attached at the bottom.

Note that some of these shortcuts will only work if Windows Aero is enabled. If Aero effects are disabled on your computer, it might not be powerful enough to support resource intensive graphical features.

Aero Shortcuts

• [Windows] + [Spacebar] (Aero Peek)
Make all open windows transparent to view gadgets and icons on desktop.

• [Windows] + [D] (Aero Peek)
Show or hide the desktop.
• [Windows] + [Home] (Aero Shake)
Minimize all but selected window. Reverse by clicking the key combination again.
• [Windows] + left arrow OR [Windows] + right arrow (Aero Snap)
Dock selected window to the left or right half of your screen.
• [Windows] + up arrow OR [Windows] + down arrow (Aero Snap)
Maximized and restores the selected window.
• [Windows] + [SHIFT] + up arrow OR [Windows] + [SHIFT] + down arrow (Aero Snap)
Maximizes and restores selected window in vertical dimension only.
• [Windows] + [Tab] (Aero Flip)
Launch 3D representation of open windows and click [Tab] key again to flip through them.

Windows & Taskbar

• [Alt] + [Ctrl] + [Tag] + left/right/up/down arrow
Flip window.
• [Alt] + [Tab]
Cycle through open windows.

• [Windows] + [T] OR [Windows] + [SHIFT] + [T]
Move focus to front or back of taskbar. Press [T] again while holding the [Windows] key to cycle through items in the taskbar from left to right or, with [SHIFT] button held too, from right to left.
• [Windows] + [B]
Puts focus on the ‘show hidden icons’ button on the system tray.
• [Windows] + [1] THROUGH [Windows] + [9]
Launch first through ninth icon on taskbar, including items pinned to taskbar.
• [Windows] + [SHIFT] + [1] THROUGH [Windows] + [SHIFT] + [9]
Starts new instance of respective taskbar icon.
• [Windows] + [Ctrl] + [1] THROUGH [Windows] + [Ctrl] + [9]
Cycles through multiple instances of the respective icon.
• [Windows] + [Alt] + [1] THROUGH [Windows] + [Alt] + [9]
Opens jump list for respective icon.

Multiple Monitors

• [Windows] + [SHIFT] + right arrow OR [Windows] + [SHIFT] + left arrow
Move selected window from one monitor to another. They will remain in the same relative location.
• [Windows] + [P]
Select presentation display mode.

Magnifier

• [Windows] + [+] OR [Windows] + [-]
Activates Windows Magnifier to zoom in or out of screen.
• [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [D]
Switch to docked mode.
• [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [L]
Switch to lense mode.

• [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [F]
Switch from docked or lens mode back to full screen mode.
• [Ctrl] + [Alt] + [I]
Invert colors.
• [Windows] + [Esc]
Exist magnifier views.

Other

• [Windows] + [G]
Cycle through desktop gadgets.
• [Windows] + [X]
Launches Windows Mobility Center. Especially useful if you’re working on a laptop.

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Sneaker Lamp

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Memento Lamp

Rocknrolla LampSneaker Lamp

How to Backup Facebook : 3 Free and Useful Tools

What if one day, Facebook accidently deleted or banned your account for some reason or another? What if a new social network comes along, and Facebook got shut down? What if you decided to close your Facebook account, but don’t want to lose all the data you’ve placed there? These scenarios may be highly unlikely, but they are very possible indeed.

Everything you put on Facebook resides there. All your status updates, links, photos, notes – everything. So, just like it’s good practice to backup your hard disk, it’s also good practice to have a plan ready to backup Facebook in case something bad goes down. Here are 3 free tools you can take a look at to ensure your data stays safe.

1. How to backup Facebook to your hard disk

Fancy recreating Facebook on your laotop? ArchiveFacebook is a Firefox addon which allows you to save content from Facebook directly to your hard drive and view them exactly the same way you currently view them on Facebook. It does take some time to process though, because it will try to do a full-backup everytime – but it’s still very comprehensive, and extremely useful.

2. How to backup Facebook photo albums

Whether you’re trying to backup your own albums, or trying to easily grab a friend’s album for offline viewing, FacePAD is a Firefox addon which allows you to download entire Facebook albums with a click of a button. You can also do this for fan pages and event pages as well.

3. How to backup Facebook to the cloud

Backupify is an amazing service which caters to backing up multiple services – Facebook being one of them. Using Facebook connect, Backupify will regularly save all your photos, friends lists, events, links, notes, and statuses to the cloud. The free version of Backupify can handle up to 2GB of storage.

Everything is stored on an S3 Amazon server and their privacy policy clearly states that any data you store on Backupify is yours, and they claim no right to it, nor do they look, sell, nor analyze it. Also, if you’re extra paranoid conscious about safety, it can allow you to hook up your own S3 Amazon server instead of using theirs

Chillin’ with Obama and Osama

Brazilian Obama impersonator, Ananias Rodrigues da Silva, posed for some photos with a local São Paulo man named Francisco Helder Braga Fernandes who looks eerily like Osama bin Laden. Apparently folks who live in São Paulo have been begging Frenandes for years to cut his beard because of his striking resemblance to bin Laden.

It’s probably a good thing he resisted, because this amusing photo-shoot would not have taken place. Check out 4 more images

 after the jump.

 

Everyday Art -12 images

(Everyday Art -12 images)

Kevin Van Aelst, an artist and photographer, pieces together brilliant art sculptures out of everyday objects he finds lying around the house! Kevin's photos could be seen weekly illustrating The Medium in the New York Times Magazine from 2007 - 2011, and are often featured amongst the pages of such publications as Scientific American, Men's Health, Money Magazine, Wired, and Time.

He is a recipient of a 2008 fellowship grant from the Connecticut Commission on Culture and

 Tourism. Check out 11 more images after the jump.

 

Credits: kevinvanaelst