Gmail shortcuts - making Gmail soooo much easier

Using shortcuts in Gmail eliminates the biggest problem I have with Gmail, navigation. 

Without using the keyboard shortcuts there is a lot of clicking and I like to keep my mouse movements to a minimum. Thankfully Gmail shortcuts are easy to access and modify. 

To access the keyboard shortcuts go to your Mail Settings. They are in the menu under that gear wheel in the top right corner. 

Once you're there make sure you have Keyboard Shortcuts turned on. Then click on the link to Keyboard Shortcuts. 

There you will see a list of actions and the keyboard shortcuts to activate them. Keep in mind that to use the shortcuts you need to be on the Gmail page but not in a text field. If you are in a text field and want to use the shortcut click on a blank section of the page. 

Some of my favourite shortcuts:

c - open the compose email window
/ - go to the search box
k - move from your current email to a newer one
j - move from your current email to an older one
# - move to trash
r - reply
f - forward
] - archive and go to previous conversation
[ - archive and go to next conversation
z - undo last action
s - star
Shift + c - This is my personal favourite even though it's not listed in the shortcuts section. Open the compose window in a new window. So lets say you are reading your email and don't want to navigate away but you just remember you need to send an email. Hit shift + c and it will open a new window where you can compose your email. 

If you would like to change the shortcut keys then just click on the letter and change it to the key you want to use. Just remember to hit Save Changes once you have modified your shortcuts. 
There is also an option to Reset Defaults in the bottom right if you want to change back. 

You can also set two shortcut keys for the same action by activating "Custom keyboard shortcuts" in the Labs section. That is another of the options under the main settings menu and one I strongly suggest you check out. It includes lots of ways to customize Gmail in ways you have not even though of yet. 

I switched from Outlook to Gmail as my main email station about a year ago. I had used Outlook for years and love many of its features but was tired of jumping through hoops when I traveled and reloading my email accounts when making major changes to my computer. 

With these shortcuts in hand I have never thought of going back. I managed six email accounts from Gmail including several domains. The best part is that no matter what computer I'm on my email info is always up-to-date. 

That is all. 

Tagged Do it faster How-to Learn something

Keep all your wishlists in one place - Amazon's Universal Wishlist Button

I've been using this for a long time and it's one of my favourite internet tools.

Living in the third world means many of the planet's awesome goodies are not available at the store around the corner. As a result I do a lot of internet shopping. 

Before this button when I saw a product I liked i would save it as a bookmark or copy it to one task list or another. Often it ended up lost or forgotten when I actually had the money or opportunity to buy something. 

This little button fixes all that: Add to Wish List 

Try dragging it to your bookmark bar now. This awesome little piece of software is called a bookmarklet. I'll say some more about them at the end of the post.

Now, when I find something I like I just click on the button. A little window pops up (see photo below) that automatically pulls the product name, price and photo. Sometimes there are lots of photos on the page and it's not sure which one to grab but you can scroll through the photos by hitting the arrows below the thumbnail. Sometimes you have to enter the price as well. 

Amazon_wish_list

You can also choose which list to add it to if, like me, you have a couple of them. Now, when you login to amazon your item is there on your wishlist. Clicking on the link will take you back to the web page where your item is. 

So all your stuff is in one place and can be organized by category. Plus you can share your Amazon Wishlist with your friends (or enemies but that's less useful). 

Here are the actual Amazon instructions at http://www.amazon.com/wishlist/get-button#

Universal Wish List
View your Wish List
Get the Universal Wish List Button
It's the essential tool for adding items from any website to your Amazon Wish Lists.
Add to Wish List 

Just drag this button to the bookmarks bar in your web browser, then click "OK" when prompted to select a name for the bookmark. 

Don't worry if you see a can't move symbol as you move it across your screen.

 Add to Wish List
Don't see the bookmarks bar in your web browser?
Select View > Show Bookmarks Bar in your web browser menu to see it.

Did you drag the button up there?
Now click the button you just dragged to make sure everything worked.

Ready for the fun part?
Go to any online store. When you see something you want, click the "Add to Wish List" button in your Bookmarks Toolbar. You'll be prompted to log in, if you're not already, and--voila!--you're done.

As promised, more about bookmarklets:

A bookmarklet goes where bookmarks go but instead of taking you to a page when you click on it it does something. There are tons of them and they make websurfing ten times as awesome. I know because I measured with my awesometer (aw-som-iter).

Google bookmarklets or go to my main resource for them, Jesse's Bookmarklets. I don't know if Jesse's the best but it was first set I found and he/she has lots of them. 

I'll do a full post on them some other time but I've included some of my favourite's below. You can drag and drop them to your browser from this post if you want. Just highlight the whole link and drag it to your bookmark's bar.

-google site search - By far my most used bookmarklet. Click on it to search an entire domain for text. Say you remember seeing an article on a website but you can't find it. Click on this bookmarklet and it will open a dialog box where you enter your text. It will search the entire website for the term and spit out a Google search results page with links to every web page where the text appears. You can also highlight text before you click and it will search for that. It's great for searching The Tribune and The Nassau Guardian since their search engines will turn up zero results for the letter e. 

-Pauses and unpauses Flash movies. Details

-Increases the last number in the URL by 1. Details This one I can't drop directly into the post so click details to go get it if you want. It's great for moving through multiple pages but it's most useful for the following scenario: You are on a page that has links to a bunch of something. In this case we'll say photos. When you click on the photo it opens in another page where the photo is the only item on the page. Now you have got to go back to the original page to open the next one. Annoying right? 

No more! Just click this button and it will take you to the next page. It works by increasing the number in the webpage address (url). So you can see if it will work by glancing up at the url. If it ends with a number then it should work. 

That is all. 

Tagged Do it faster How-to Webtools

Photoshop Tip - Switch between tools with a click

This shortcut is the fastest way switch between tools in Photoshop. I'll tell you how to use it and how to make it as fast as possible.

Here's how it works: If you hover over a tool in Photoshop, you will notice that a tooltip appears with the name of the tool and a letter in brackets.

This is what it looks like when you hover over the crop tool:

Media_http3bpblogspot_jufgj

The letter in brackets is the shortcut key associated with that tool by default in Photoshop. In this case, the shortcut key is C.

You can change the letter but I won't describe that here.

The default method to switch between tools is to hold down the shift key and hit the letter associated with that tool. In this case, you would hold down the shift key and hit C. That would make the Crop tool active.

To really appreciate this shortcut, you should turn off the need to hit the shift key. To do this go to the Preferences dialog box. It is under the Edit menu. Click Preferences and then General.

It looks like this:

Media_http2bpblogspot_qsswc

Click to enlarge

Under the Options section in the top left you will see "Use Shift Key for Tool Switch". Make sure the box next to that option is not checked.

Here is a picture of the box with the important option highlighted:

Media_http3bpblogspot_eovpi

Click to enlarge

Once that box is not checked you can just hit the letter of the tool you would like to switch to. You can bounce from one to the other really fast. Try it out.

The ones I hit the most are:

V - MoVe tool
M - Marquee tool
C - Crop Tool
J - healing brush
S - Stamp
O - Burn Tool

It's a simple fix but it's one of those things that speeds up nearly everything you do if you are not already doing it.

Tagged Do it faster How-to