Computer Tips

When a tip is too broad to apply to one program, or maybe it’s just a heads up general interest story, it will show up in the Computer Tips section. This is the proverbial kitchen sink.

URL Shorteners

Link Shortener

A great way to make your reader’s lives easier is to use a URL shortener to make long and illegible URLs easier to understand and get to. If you don’t know what a URL is, it is the website/web page address that is used to build a link. Before: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/keyboard-shortcuts-in-word-95ef89dd-7142-4b50-afb2-f762f663ceb2#PickTab=Windows After: https://tinyurl.com/best-word-shortcuts As a reader… Keep Reading

Creating Breakout Sessions in Microsoft Teams and Using Mural

Our assumptions for today’s class are that you: Step 1: Getting Teams Ready The first thing to do is open Microsoft Teams, and then create channels for all of your breakout sessions. The secret to creating primary and breakout sessions in Teams is to hold your meetings inside of the channels. Caution: this does require… Keep Reading

The Grinch is after Google IDs

Beware of Phishers

Got an interesting — and very authentic looking — email this morning that purported to be from Google. All I had to do was click on their link and log-in to “fix” problems with my Google ID. Hah! The funny thing is the email purported to have something to do with the “European Commission’s eID… Keep Reading

Think Before You Click this Holiday Season

Think Before You Click

There’s a lot going on in the holiday season, and thieves and scammers like to take advantage of us when we’re not paying close attention. I received an email the other day that looked like it was from PayPal. Thank goodness I knew better than to click on any link in an email from a… Keep Reading

Getting started with OneNote

Microsoft OneNote

There’s a rush to move everything digital, and that includes that notebook you carry around to all of your meetings. Microsoft’s digital answer is the powerful program OneNote. I’m going to admit up front that there is a learning curve to using OneNote. No, that’s not true–the program is super easy. It’s getting users to… Keep Reading

Control Z: Your new best friend

Control Z: The Keyboard Shortcut that became your best friend

Everybody has them, those one or two shortcuts that they absolutely could not live without. For me, it is the Ctrl + Z keyboard shortcut for “Undo.” It is the magic eraser of the computer, and will allow you to undo up to the last 25 actions you have taken while the document is open.… Keep Reading

When disaster strikes… or it’s a Monday

Backup Plans for when Crashes Happen

I often tell students that there is no greater teacher than experience…. You can learn from mine, or you can go get some of your own. And today’s tip is no exception to that. I came into the office today only to find that my main production computer would not work. It’s Monday morning, so… Keep Reading

The Demise of the Home Button

Do you need a home button

This is a quick one for a Friday afternoon, but have you ever noticed how many websites are doing away with the home button? CDAComputer.Tips is still using a home button as of this writing, but the sister site CDAComputer.Training is not. The fact is that web designers have been making the company logo a… Keep Reading

What’s “the Cloud” and should I be using it?

Cloud Computing

If you own a computer, you’ve probably heard someone talking about “the Cloud.” There are lots of Cloud services out there, including iCloud, DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive and Amazon Cloud. And sales people at the big box electronic stores are pushing them all, plus one they claim can live in your home. The funny thing… Keep Reading

Strange internet addresses… what do they mean?

New gTLDs

You may have noticed lately that the internet is humming with all kinds of new internet addresses. For example, this blog’s web address ends in .tips instead of .com. (Don’t worry, if you’ve been going to cdacomputertips.com I set things up so that it would forward you to the right place.) These new address endings… Keep Reading