R&D
EXAMINING TECHNOLOGY AND PUTTING IT TO USE
HOW TOGuides to Step-by-Step Improving Your PC THIS MONTH
WINDOWS TIP OF THE MONTH
69 DOWNLOAD, SAVE, AND CONVERT FLASH VIDEO 70 CLEAN UP YOUR PC’S BOOT
THE POWER USER’S DESKTOP SEARCH
F
or a long time, I resisted the allure of desktop search. I wondered why I needed it, since my hard drive was exquisitely organized, with layer after layer WILL SMITH of nested folders, cate- EDITOR-IN-CHIEF gorized by topic, time, and relative priority. Then, I installed Google Desktop Search, and I realized that I’d been wasting my time. Want to be a desktop search power user? It’s easy. First, make sure all the folders where your content lives are indexed. This can be tricky if you store your data on the network. However, even if your desktop search app won’t let you index UNC network paths, it will usually index mapped folders. We also love to pull reference documents into our indexed files. For example, we keep all the PDF Archives of Maximum PC (http:// tinyurl.com/5qhn2d) on our desktop. You can also download the entire Wikipedia (http:// tinyurl.com/6pnp4r). Add the contents of the folder to your index, and you’ve got a massive index of everything you need to know about… well… pretty much everything. –WS
Keyboard Shortcuts Rule You can save loads of time using these six common keyboard shortcuts in Windows: ctrl+c: copy to clipboard, ctrl+x: cut to clipboard, ctrl+v: paste from clipboard, ctrl+s: save your file, ctrl+p: print your file, alt+tab: switch between applications. Got more? Send your favorite keyboard shortcut to comments@maximumpc.com.
SUBMIT YOUR IDEA Have a great idea for a How To project? Tell us about it by writing to comments@maximumpc.com.
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