Cool Hacks To Do On Mac

For most of us Windows users, the computer is a magical device that we use to get a lot done in a short amount of time. However, we hardly know too much about it and we admittedly could use a few hacks to make things a little easier (especially with your keyboard).

Tricks For Macbook Air
Cool Hacks To Do On Mac Go
Macbook Pro Hacked

Hacks, Mods & Circuitry; Mac laptops, especially the older PowerBooks, often can become very hot when doing processor intensive tasks like movie rendering, YouTube videos streaming, database lookups, or just gaming. Often just lifting the machine from the surface is enough to cool it down without the need of expensive hardware or software tuning. Oh, yeah, Windows 10 is awesome. To help you get even more of the awesome out of Windows 10, we’ve scoured the web to provide you with the top 33 Windows 10 tips, tricks, hacks, and tweaks for your computing pleasure. Anyway, check out these cool tips and more to see if you can get some more cool factor out of 10. Enable virtual desktops. Jan 15, 2020 Technology has advanced within the years so as computer tricks. This has led to increase in the usage of computers. If you are like most users, you have been using the computer for many years and it is possible that there still some amazing things you don’t know. Sep 20, 2019 The iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max are now available. And it’s official. This is best camera smartphone you can buy right now. The Night Mode is killer and so is the new screen. Not to mention the fast new processor.

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Here at the essaygeeks.co.uk service, we pride ourselves in productivity. And since we do all of our work on computers, computer keyboard hacks come as a natural way to boost that productivity. Over the years, I have personally learned a whole slew of computer hacks and today I am going to share 20 of the best with you.

Table of Contents

#1 Minimize a Window by shaking it

This is a really cool one that most people do not know about right off the bat. Of course, you know you can click on a window and drag it around using the mouse pointer. But did you know that, while in the position, you can easily minimize it with a little shake? It’s a really cool hack that allows you to clear your desktop quickly.

#2 An Easy Shortcut to delete your Browser History

There is a faster way to delete your browser history than the one you’re used to, which involves going through the settings on your computer. All you have to do is click CTRL+SHIFT+DEL and you get straight to the browser history menu.

#3 Highlight URLs with F6

Do you ever want to highlight a URL on the address bar but it’s so long that it takes a long time to do it manually? Well, highlighting URLs for the purposes of deleting or copying them to the clipboard is as easy as hitting F6 on your keyboard.

#4 The Alternative to CTRL+ALT+DEL

Everyone knows about CTRL+ALT+DEL, which is the layman’s last resort when their computer crashes. When you hit that combo, your task manager opens and you can force close the misbehaving program. However, the process involves going to a different screen and then selecting the task manager from a list of options. You can make your life a lot easier by going directly to the task manager by hitting CTRL+Shift+ESC.

#5 Rule your Computer with God Mode

Have you ever heard of the Windows Master Control Panel? Also known as God Mode, this is a shortcut to all of the control panels on your computer within a single folder.

It’s easy to create this folder, assuming you know the full code. You just have to create a new folder anywhere on your computer and name it:

GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

The part before the full stop (“GodMode”) can be renamed to anything else. However, everything after, including the full stop, has to remain exactly the same.

After creating the above folder (let’s say on your Desktop) you can open it and will display all possible controls that exist on your machine (see above).

#6 Navigating directly to your Desktop

Have you ever wondered how you can navigate directly to your desktop on a Windows 8 or later? Well, it’s as easy as hitting WIN+D on your keyboard and you get directly to it. By the way, “WIN” stands for the Windows button on your keyboard.

#7 Rename multiple Files simultaneously

So you have a whole host of files that you would like to rename and you’re dreading the process of doing it one file at a time. Well, you can select all of them and hit F2. You can then rename them in bulk. The operating system will also append numbers in the format (1), (2), and so on in order to avoid confusion.

Tricks For Macbook Air

#8 Shutting down the Computer

So you want to shut down your computer quickly. The process of going to the start menu and looking for the shutdown button will seem pretty slow once you realize that all you have to do is hit the Windows key followed by U twice. The computer shuts down immediately!

#9 Undoing an Undo

So you just wrote something on your Word document, didn’t like it, and undid it. Great! But what if you want to take back to what it was before because you suddenly changed your mind? Wouldn’t it be great to have a shortcut for undoing an undo? Worry not, there is already one: Simply hit CTRL+Y.

#10 Toggling the Case of Text

Who said you have to rewrite text when you want it in a certain case? You can easily toggle between lower case and upper case in Word processor by hitting Shift+F3. This is guaranteed to work on Microsoft Word. It may or may not work in other word processors.

#11 Permanently delete a File

So you don’t’ like a file and you want to permanently delete it. Usually, you’ll just delete it from the folder containing it and then head on to the recycle bin and delete it again. Easy, right? Well, what if I told you there was a faster way to do it? All you have to do is select it and hit Shift+Delete to permanently delete it from the computer.

#12 Lock your Computer directly

Do you want a convenient way to lock your computer without having to go to the start menu? There is a shortcut for that. All you have to do is hit WIN+L and your computer immediately locks and you have to enter your password to reenter it.

#13 Resync Audio and Video Files on VLC

If you use VLC Media Player on your computer, you will notice that sometimes the audio and video files are not in sync, with one lagging behind the other. The same can happen with subtitles sometimes as well. When that happens, just press ‘J’ to resync the audio forward and ‘K’ to resync it backward. For subtitles, you can press ‘H’ and ‘G’ to delay and speed up the subtitles, respectively.

#14 Spell Check

This one works for both PC and Mac. If you want to do a quick spell check on a word, simply hit F7.

#15 Get the lowest Airfares

Are you looking to get the lowest airfares or hotel prices? Simply clear your cache and cookies. Alternatively, visit the website in Incognito mode and you get to see the real prices!

#16 Preview of Currently Running Windows

Assume that you have 10 different windows open on your computer, such as a browser window, a word document, a text editor, file explorer window etc. If you want to navigate across each open window (application) then press Alt + Tab simultaneously. If you keep pressing the Alt key and toggle the Tab key, you will navigate to all open windows one by one.

#17 Toggle Between Open Browser Tabs

Right now, I have at least 15 open tabs on my browser. If I want to navigate (toggle) across my browser tabs one by one, the keyboard shortcut for this is Ctrl + Tab. Try it now!!

#18 Search and Find (Ctrl + F)

This is another popular keyboard shortcut. Using Ctrl+F you can search and find for any text on the currently open window. Let’s say you have an open word document and want to search inside the document for some text. Press Ctrl+F to search for it. The same works also on browser windows to search inside a webpage etc.

#19 Copy and Paste Shortcuts

Two of the most useful and popular shortcut commands on a keyboard are Ctrl+C (Copy) and Ctrl+V (Paste). For example, if you want to copy some text from a document, first select the text with the mouse and then press Ctrl+C. If you want to paste that text, move your mouse to a new area on the document and press Ctrl+V.

#20 Refresh the currently open webpage

Imagine you have visited a website with your browser and the page does not respond or load slowly. You can use the Ctrl+F5 key on your keyboard to force refresh the website (i.e the browser will try to load the page again).

Final Thoughts

With these shortcuts, you can expect your productivity to skyrocket. Navigating your computer will be a breeze and you will be able to get a lot more done in a lot less time.

Author Bio

Jennifer Sanders has been working as an editor and a copywriter at a journalistic company in London for 3 years. She is also a professional content writer in such topics as inspiration, productivity, education, and technologies.
Feel free to connect with her Twitter or Facebook.

Have you made the switch to Windows 10 on your primary operating system? With it being free, and Microsoft pushing the update to users, most of you probably already have. And if you haven’t, listen. XP is dead. Let it go. ♫ LET IT GO! LET TO GO-OH-OH! ♫ Sorry, where was I?

Oh, yeah, Windows 10 is awesome. To help you get even more of the awesome out of Windows 10, we’ve scoured the web to provide you with the top 33 Windows 10 tips, tricks, hacks, and tweaks for your computing pleasure. Anyway, check out these cool tips and more to see if you can get some more cool factor out of 10.

1. Enable virtual desktops

For starters, yes, Linux has had this for years. I usually have six in my tray in KDE and mouse through them like a boss. But this is Windows, and it’s great to have this finally. To turn on virtual desktops, Win+Tab to get the Aero view, then click “+New Desktop” down in the lower right. You can have as many as you want, and switch between them by clicking the Desktop icon next to the search box.

2. Print to PDF

There is finally a built-in PDF printer in Windows 10. To print anything as PDF file, just pick the “Microsoft Print to PDF” printer.

3. Use Wi-Fi Sense to make getting online easy

Much maligned, and definitely misunderstood, Wi-Fi Sense is actually pretty cool, when you’re not an enterprise security admin. This lets you identify and share Wi-Fi hotspots with your contacts, including the PSK to get onto them, so if you set up a guest network at home, have a guest network at work, or find one at your favourite coffee shop, you can share the details with your contacts, and they can do the same with you. Of course, it requires that the networks are either open or use a pre-shared key. If your “enterprise” Wi-Fi network is using PSK, you’re doing it wrong! Of course, you can turn it off. See http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/wi-fi-sense-faq if this bothers you.

Use Quick Access in Explorer

Favourites in Explorer has replaced the Quick Access menu, and it’s much cooler. With several options you can use to customize your experience, you can make Windows 10 do just what you want. Here’s a rundown.

4. Open File Explorer to:

This lets you choose whether to default to Quick access, or the “This PC” view.

5. Show recently used files in Quick access

Turn it off if you don’t want to see the MRU list of files.

6. Show recently used folders in Quick access

As above. Turn it off if you don’t want to see the MRU list of folders, but odds are good that will prove to be dead useful!

7. Clear

Something in the MRU list you’d rather not have showing? Hit Clear to drop the list like your browser history!

Customize the shell!

There are new and subtle settings in the Command Prompt and/or PowerShell lets you make all kinds of cool customizations above and beyond just tweaking colours. On the Options tab, check out the following.

8. Filter clipboard contents on paste

This is totally awesome, especially when pasting from a browser. It will swap smart quotes to straight quotes, and remove tabs so your pastes are what you want.

9. Enable line wrapping selection

Thank you jeebus! This does exactly what it says.

10. Copy/Paste

Yes, in both PowerShell and the command prompt, your CTRL-C, -X, and –V keys work now.

11. Persistent command history

You know how up and down arrows let you scroll through your command history. Guess what? Your history now persists, so when you open a shell, your commands from last time are available. How cool is that?

12. Extended text selection keys

Let’s you use home, end, shift arrows, CTRL-C, CTRL-X, and CTRL-V just like you are accustomed to in just about every other text program ever. Up and down arrows still scroll through the command buffer, but I don’t think you’d really want to get rid of that.

13. Wrap text output on resize

Okay, this is on the Layout tab, but it’s still new. If you do have to resize a shell window, this will wrap the text to match.

14. Opacity

Sure, we have had this in Linux shells for years. So what? Now we have it in Windows, and it’s just as cool. Practical? Maybe not. But still, cool! I like 90%. It’s dense enough to read, but still lets me see what is behind it.

If you don’t see those options, clear the checkbox next to “Use legacy console (requires relaunch)” and, well, relaunch!

15. Get more fonts

Want to add other fonts to the shell? Me too! Here’s how.

First, you have to use monospaced True type fonts.
Launch regedit and navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionConsoleTrueTypeFont
Create a new REG_SZ and give it a unique number
Enter the name of the True type Font you want to use.
Reboot to make it available.

Note that some TTFs won’t work. Experiment to find the one you like. I use Ubuntu Mono. See http://www.codeproject.com/Articles/30040/Font-Survey-42-of-the-Best-Monospaced-Programming for some other good options for monospaced fonts. Not all are free, but some good ones are at http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/list/classification/monospaced.

16. Shake it off

If you want to disable the Aero shake thing that causes all open windows to minimize, there’s an easy reg-hack to do so.

Launch regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwarePoliciesMicrosoftWindows.
Create a new key called Explorer
Create a new DWORD(32) names NoWindowsMinimizingShortcuts
Set it to 1.

17. Disable the startup delay

If your machine is screaming fast to boot, uses an SSD, and is otherwise a rocket, you can get even more speed by disabling the startup delay that Windows includes by default to keep from overtaxing your hardware.

Launch regedit and navigate to CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerSerialize
Create a new DWORD named StartupDelayInMSec
Set it to 0.

18. Background scrolling

Check it out. You can mouse over another windows and scroll it without clicking on it first, stealing focus from your active window. That’s dead useful when one window is instructions, and the other is the shell you are trying to enter command within!

Check out all these keyboard shortcuts

Some of these are tried and true, but some may be new to you, and all work great in Windows 10.

19. Windows Key-A launches the Action Center

20. Windows Key-I launches the Settings App

21. Windows Key-X launches the Power User Menu

22. Windows Key-R launches the Run dialog

23. Windows Key-Tab brings up the task view

24. Windows Key-Right-Up moves the active app to top right quadrant

25. Windows Key-Ctrl-Left or Right navigates across your virtual desktops

26. Windows Key-Ctrl-D creates a new virtual desktop

27. Windows Key-S brings up the Daily Glance for weather, news, sports, etc.

28. Windows Key-Ctrl-F4 closes the active virtual desktop

29. Windows Key-Up and Down snaps the active app to top or bottom of screen or maximizes it.

30. Get back more taskbar by losing the Search bar

Cortana is cool and all that, but if you don’t use the “Ask me anything” box, you can buy back a lot of taskbar real estate by turning that off. Here’s how.

Right-click the task bar.
Choose Cortana options
Remove the checkbox next to “Show search box.”

31. LastActiveClick

My favourite hack in this list is this one. I may have a dozen tabs open in IE at any point in time. If I click on another app, then have to get back to the tab I was on and click on the E icon, it pops up all the open tabs and even the windows so I have to figure out which one I was on. With this hack, if I just click, it takes me back to exactly the tab I was on. This works the same on other apps too, so if I had seventeen Word docs open, it would just take me right back to the last one I was active in when I click the icon.

Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USERSOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionExplorerAdvanced
Create a new 32bit Dword called LastActiveClick.
Set it to 1.
Profit!

32. Find the hidden images

The lock screen and logon screen have some really cool images, which as it turns out, by default both rotate AND change. Seems Microsoft has a CDN that updates these images based on what you click that like or not. Want to save one or more of those images for future use? Here’s where they are hiding!

Open Explorer and brows to %localappdata%PackagesMicrosoft.ContentDeliveryManager_[custom string of characters]LocalStateAssets
Copy all of the files to a new directory.
Open a command prompt in that directory.
Run this command
ren *.* *.png [enter]
Browse through them and find the ones you like!

33. Battery saver settings let you get every single mA out of your battery

The Battery saver settings can help extend your laptop’s battery life when you’re at 32K feet and not in first class. Go to Settings, Battery saver, and make sure it is set to come on. You can adjust when it does come on based on estimated battery life remaining, and what it does to help extend things, like reducing the screen brightness and limiting the apps that can run in the background and do push notifications. Since those need CPU and Wi-Fi to work, limiting the things running in the background can really make a difference.

With so many cool tweaks and hacks, you should have found something neat and new to help you pimp your desktop, but I am sure we missed some of the best. So if you have a favourite hack or tweak that makes Windows 10 your pawn, leave a comment and let us know what you’ve done. Thanks!

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