IMO there is nothing more impressive than seeing some one who can, in a couple of keystrokes, do what it takes the average user a minute or two to do with a mouse, and yet he/she never touchs one. Its like music.

It’s all a matter of tweaking your system for your needs and knowing how things are arranged.

For instance if you have aol installed then “America online x.0” appears in your start menu.

Now if you notice on your keyboard, next to the control button on the left is a key with the windows logo on it. If you hit it (press and release) the start menu will open.

((There’s another Logo next to the alt button on the right. Next to it is another odd button, this allows the right mouse click functions on whatever has focus.))

If you hit ‘logo’ , pause a split second, then hit the ‘A’ key, AOL will open (given that aol is the only program on the start menu beginning with the letter A.) That’s two keystrokes, less than a second and you’ve opened the program where before you’d still be reaching for the mouse. Once it’s opened just hit ‘enter’ to start the dialing. Three Keystroke to get online.

This is true for any program, hitting logo then “L” will open outlook because its named “Launch Microsoft outlook”.

Logo then “I”, internet explorer

Make shortcuts, on the desktop, to the programs you use most, then drag them over to the start button and drop them in. rename them to make them unique. Change WinZip to zip, Opera to 1Opera, (numbers are cool as long as they’re unique). Etc

If two menu entries begin with the same character, the first one will get focus. Hitting the char again will move you to the next.

(Alt + F4) will close any program

Now for some standard windows ‘tricks’

Logo + R (while holding the logo key down hit ‘r’) will open up the “run“ command box. Not only does this box run commands, it remembers them.
Typing “command” will open a dos prompt ( “cmd” in NT)
Typing notepad will open notepad
Typing winword will open word

Now for some speed, assuming you’ve typed these commands before.
Typing “not” will make the box read “notepad” (auto complete)
So now if you do (logo + R) then enter “com” you’ll have a dos prompt open
Or if “command” was the last command you ran it’ll be there when you open the run box so, (logo + R) [Enter] will open a prompt. Now you can be checking the results of a tracert before others have a prompt opened.

Logo + E open windows explorer

The arrow keys manipulate the directory tree. Right and Left arrows expand and close directories.

(Logo + E) (open windows explorer)

2 clicks on the down arrow (brings you to the c:\ directory)

Right arrow (expands the C directory)

“M” (brings me to the directory 'My Music' )

Tab over to the right side and select the file you want

hitting "enter" will open that file with its associated program

( Ctrl + C ) will copy that file

( Ctrl + V ) will paste

Hitting the right click function key (next to logo on the right) will give you the same menu as if you right clicked on it with the mouse

(Logo + F) will open ‘find files’ with the cursor in the ‘file box’ just check to see where it’s going to search before you type the file name and hit enter.

Almost all programs have their own short cuts and hot keys. These can usually be found in ‘help’

The most common ones use the ‘Alt’ key. If you notice on the tool bars, one letter in each Menu title will be underlined. Doing (Alt + that letter) will open that menu. And hitting the underlined letter of any menu item will open it.

Learn to use these tricks and you may impress your boss not just you friends.