Girl Goes Tech

Here is a list of 20 shortcuts for Windows that can help you work a whole lot faster if you get used to them (sorted by frequency of personal use):

1. ALT+TAB (Switch between open windows)
2. CTRL+C (Copy)
3. CTRL+X (Cut)
4. CTRL+P (Paste)
5. CTRL+Z (Undo)
6. CTRL+F (Search inside programs like Excel or Firefox)
7. CTRL+A (Select all)
8. Windows Logo+D (Display the desktop and minimize all windows)
9. F2 (Rename the selected item)
10. F5 (Refresh current page, e.g. in a browser)
11. CTRL+SHIFT + any of the arrow keys (Highlight a block of text)
12. ALT+F4 (Exit current window or program)
13. SHIFT+DELETE (Delete the selected item permanently without placing it in the Recycle Bin)
14. ALT+ENTER (View properties for selected item)
15. CTRL+ESC or WINDOWS key (Display the “Start” menu)

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When I started using Twitter, I didn’t realize that the network’s potential actually goes far beyond simple micro-blogging. Unfortunately Twitter is often caricatured by quoting the typical “I just ate a burger ‘n twas good” guy. Without a doubt there are many Tweeps using the network to share personal, rather uninteresting information. However the following examples, showing exciting uses for Twitter, do make you think twice about not taking this social network seriously: Read more

1. Upload a picture

There is nothing worse than seeing the generic Twitter bird as a profile picture. Whether it is “fair” or not, pictures are an easy first criterion when deciding if you want to follow someone or not. They attract our eyes as soon as we hit someone’s profile page. It is the most important part of your first impression. If you can – really – add a real picture of yourself. It goes a long way in establishing trust with your follower base. If for some reason you do not want to, there are alternatives. You could also add the logo of your site/blog but even companies should to try to put a face on their Twitter page. After all Twitter is about communicating and generally you do want to feel as if you’re talking to a real person.

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Ben Paar from Mashable has interviewed Adobe’s group product manager for the Flash platform – Aaron Fisher. You can see the full interview here (with an insider opinion on the HTML5 vs. Flash “war”): Read more

Ever since I got started with Girl Goes Tech I’ve always promoted my Twitter account along with my blog and put just as much effort in keeping it active. There are several reasons why I do that but the main reasons is that I see Twitter as the most powerful tool to build a strong community which can be directly attached to your site or your brand. It sort of breathes life into a stiff blog or site and offers a great resource for gathering information, getting feedback from your readers and it simply allows you to show some personality (which is extremely important if you ever want to differentiate yourself from the mass of other bloggers). You get to connect with interesting people from your niche and see which topics are being talked about there the most currently. It goes without saying that this puts you at a big advantage compared to similar blogs and that the network offers a great additional source of traffic. You’ll see that if you use Twitter the right way, it’ll become a secret weapon to help you reach your blog’s full potential. Here is a list of 13 tips to help you with that: Read more

In one way or another we are confronted with Twitter every day, but did you know the following interesting things about the popular social network? Read more

When it comes to games I allow myself to be EXTREMELY picky. I don’t just play anything for hours, just to see what reaching the ultimate goal of the game I play is like. I’ve had plenty of that in the past. Back in the days when I got my first computer (was a really slow Packard Bell I remember) I played every kind of available game on it; from Diablo over Pacman and Broken Sword, right to some gloomy German RPG called “Das Schwarze Auge” (“The Dark Eye” – adaption of a well known German pen & paper RPG). Did I mention that The Dark Eye was probably the best game I EVER played? Read more

Once you start having fun on Twitter and building a real community there are several things you’ll want to analyze on a regular basis to track your success and develop a tweeting strategy. The following free tools will help you with that: Read more

This little guide should help tweak your system so it runs faster and doesn’t use up as much resources as before. Of course you can boost your system’s performance with hardware upgrades too (e.g. adding RAM) but that will be covered in another guide. So here are ten tips to speed up your computer (Windows XP and above): Read more

Since the popularity of social networks has grown in the past years, more and more sites launch that claim to be the next revolutionary/unique social networking service you simply NEED to subscribe to. Some of them stick to certain niches, some of them are positioned as broad as FB or Twitter (click here for a full list; I was quite surprised just how many sites there really are that fit the description of a “social network”). Read more