Tips and Tricks

Here is a brilliant Web site that allows you to check, quickly and easily, the luggage limits for whatever airline you’re flying on. Simply select the airline, departure and arrival airports you plan on travelling through from your itinerary. A list will be provided including ticket classes available, luggage allowances, and other useful services available at those locations.www.luggagelimits.com Here are a few Windows keyboard shortcuts to increase your everyday productivity:CTRL + Shift + N = Creates a new folderALT + Up (or ALT + Right) = Move up one folder levelCTRL + ALT + Down = flip your screen! (CTRL + ALT + Up to return it to the normal position)WINDOWS LOGO + D = Show desktop (Windows keyboards only)WINDOWS LOGO + F = Find foldersWINDOWS LOGO + TAB = Cycle through taskbar buttonsHaving trouble concentrating? You are not alone. When you’ve got that important paper to write but you just can’t focus, or your report is long overdue but the Internet just keeps calling, it may be time to try OmmWriter. OmmWriter is a simple text processor that allows you to avoid all the distractions and annoyances of your computer desktop – a little Zen to encourage the creative juices.Ommwriter is currently a free download (it’s still in the beta stage) but is currently only available on Mac.www.ommwriter.com/enScribbly is a great little online notetaking program that allows you to email notes to yourself quickly and easily. Simply install the application, enter your email address under the ‘settings’ tab and you’re ready to go. When you have that flash of inspiration, simply click the pen-and-pad icon in your system tray, type your note and click ‘send’. You’ve just sent yourself an email and secured that good idea forever. One of the great elements with Scribbly is that even when you minimise it, the note stays on the pad. This means you can keep adding to your idea all day long, and then just send yourself a single email at closing time.Get it here: tinyurl.com/yjop9soIt’s a free download from Adobe and has a very small footprint.If you’re sick of dealing with Flash elements when you’re surfing the Internet (such as pop-up ads, unnecessary intro pages and animations) try ‘No! Flash’. It’s a great utility for disabling aggressive advertising, tracking components and other annoyances. ‘No! Flash’ can be used to disable more than Flash elements, however. Use it to stop background sounds, disable animations and images, and hide video. Download it here: www.bbshare.com/products/noflashIf you’re interested in hiding personal files on your computer, there are several options you can use. There are ways to encrypt files using various downloads, and there’s always the option of just burying the file in a series of folders, but if you’re looking for a surer way of keeping private files private (not to mention a method that is a lot more elegant), you might like to try hiding your file in a jpeg. See the tutorial here: tinyurl.com/5mgu9hIf you’ve ever used the pre-installed ‘Add or Remove Programs’ function on Windows, you may have realised that it’s slow and often doesn’t work very well. If you’ve got programs installed on your computer that you want to be rid of, but can’t seem to shake them, try Revo Uninstaller. This ‘program remover on steroids’ will remove any program you like without any hassle whatsoever. It’s also got lots of extras, like an auto-run manager (which allows you to control what programs are launched on start-up) and a junk file finder, which will hunt out and delete useless files.tinyurl.com/ybancds