Power Users Tips

Hi all,
Just thought I'd share my 'power' tips for browing teh interweb in the hope that others will do the same.

-Open links in new windows (shift+click) or pages in new windows (ctrl + n) and let them load while I read/view what I've already got
-Multitask - do heaps of things at once. While waiting for AF to load, check email, chat whatever
-Schedule ANY downloads larger than about 5-10mb for when I'm sleeping.


Well, most of these are assuming a windows+IE combo, but work with other browsers (eg. Opera). If anyone wants to do a thread for other OSs, feel free.

good and simple tips, only I wouldn't recommend multitasking with internet programs (examles: Webbrowsing, Email checking) on a 56k or lower. Also for opening multiple browser windows, try a tabbed base browser.

You can multitask much more than that on any modern system. Hell on my system which is over two years old I can burn a CD, watch a DVD, have 20 IE windows open, listen to mp3s, play some MPEGs, play Unreal Tournament, be rendering in Bryce 5, have a few pictures open in Photoshop while adding effects, and there was some other things. It took it over an hour of constantly doing this before it crashed.

My power tip, get used to Alt+Tab, great for multi-taskers like me.
Also in Mozzila you can push Ctrl+T to open tabs rather than new browser windows, I love it.

I'll make a list of some more of my tips.

Originally posted by Oz
Hi all,
-Schedule ANY downloads larger than about 5-10mb for when I'm sleeping.



Not it you download over 1MB/sec:biggrin:

Originally posted by Neutrino



Not it you download over 1MB/sec:biggrin:

Or just get a download accelerator.

Originally posted by Midnight Racer
Or just get a download accelerator. Those things aren't too good. I've tried a lot of them and they sometimes slow down my connection from a normal 6kb/s to 4kb/s. But they are good for long downloads you need to resume. But my computer sucks anyways :comprage1

Originally posted by Midnight Racer


Or just get a download accelerator.

They work by breaking up a file, and sending multiple HTTP gets, it will only work well (I said work well, not ONLY WORK) with broadband with a fast connection, as u may have a bandwitdh of say 1Mb per second, but the server is only dishing out 300Kb per second per connection. The solution is to send multiple gets requests to the server so your actually creating multiple connecting to the server.

anyway back on topic:

Windows Key + D - minimize all windows
Windows Key + E - opens File Explorer
Windows Key + Pause/break button - opens up system
Windows Key + Tab - scroll programs in task bar (not same as alt tab as that scrolls for programs even not in taskbar but remain active in the desktop)

That's all I can think of off the top of my head.

Not it you download over 1MB/sec:biggrin:
Not if you download at over 50MB/sec :biggrin:

as far as the download accelerators go, the best i've used so far in windows is freshdownload. you can get a free demo at download.com. no spyware or any crap like that. But it's only about a month long trial. The FTP acceleration is great. I can pull a divx movie from my website to where I work at over 2.5MBps sustained for over 5 minutes (that's all it takes for about 700MB). Download accelerators will most likely flood your dial up ifthey are not set up for your connection speed. you can change the settings so that it only makes one or two connections at the same time. "so what's the point?" well.... if the server supports it, you can resume your downloads if they fail, or... if the phone rings :-)

As far as some really good computer advice, check out this page I made on my website. Almost everyone I know has learned SOMETHING from my little page:

http://blacklinux.com/pages/public/computers/cleaninstall/

It's geared towards windows 2000 but most of the information you can get the relative concept of what I am getting at reguardless of the OS.


While we are at it, does anyone want to learn how to make the worlds most stable and easy to use web server????
Here's what you do...

Build a linux box.
Put some big hard drives in there and format them with your favorite filesystem.
Mount them and edit your /etc/fstab so that they mount if you happen to need to reboot.
Configure SaMBa (this BASICLY can make a linux box into a SMB read: server message block, a microsoft proprietary protocol. file server)
Configure Apache or your favorite http daemon.
Share your web directory (in most versions of xHat Linux it's /var/www/html) in SaMBa by editing your /etc/samba/smb.conf file.
start samba and apache:
(redhat commands:)
#/etc/rc.d/init.d/samba start
#/etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start
now make sure they start by themselves even if we restart our computer
#chkconfig samba on
#chkconfig httpd on

Now here's what you did (if it's working):
you can go to your windows box and look in your network ghetto and see your linux box.
Go in the linux box and you should see the share you made for your web directory, now go in there and make a webpage.

Now you have the stability of a linux web server and you can use your bloated windows webpage editing tools to work on your site!!!

You will of course want to install a firewall on the local machine and also put it behind another firewall if you are actually using it as a public webserver.

Some more advice from me to you: on your firewall, dont respond to pings from your external interface. Most of the viruses spread my initially using malformed (nonstandard) ICMP (read:ping) packets to discover new yummy hosts to infect.

Other than that... uhhh. In linux, if you can help it, don't use a GUI. and NEVER EVER EVER EVER trust a program or a configuration editor to do your configuration edits. ie: don't open up the "firewall" program and click on this or that and think you are safe. If you want to see if you are safe, scan yourself with another box to see what ports are open, don't take a crappy half assed written applet to tell you these things.

If anyone has any questions (specific, educated questions that pertain to a topic and can be read, understood and answered by someone) about anything at all about computers... feel free to PM me.

BTW, my profession is to provide network security (more specifically boundary protection) to your united states air force computer systems. I specialize in UNIX firewalls, linux webservers, file servers, DNS servers, time, mail, RAS, VPN and many other fun things. And in about a year and a half I will be looking for a job where I can take my wife and my skyline with me... so if any of you have anything that might lead to me getting that PLEASE let me know! thanks!

Here are some of my fav's

windows + r - brings up run box
CTRL + home/end - goes to top and bottom of page
CTRL + left/right goes to next or previous word
windows + l - locks computer
CTRL + print screen - takes snapshot of window with focus

In IE (i believe in mozilla too), instead of having to type www. and .com before and after the name of the site; you can just press Ctrl+Enter and it will add it for you.

you dont even have to type the www.--- just type in say ebay.com hit enter and it goes. atleast for me, it throws everything in auto.

you dont even have to type the www.--- just type in say ebay.com hit enter and it goes. atleast for me, it throws everything in auto.
This is not true in all cases. Here's why:

let's take my domain as an example.

blacklinux.com

that's the domain name

it is understood by many that www.blacklinux.com is the URL.

what that means is the host www under the domain blacklinux.com

it could also be a subdomain like hostname.subdomain.blacklinux.com

Just a little lesson in DNS:

my webpage is actually blacklinux.com
you try to get to that on port 80 and you get my webpage.
I have also configured my DNS so that if you type in www.blacklinux.com it just redirects you to blacklinux.com

It's a good common practice if you are going to buy a domain and set up a webpage to set up a DNS self entry for www, but there you go. Now you know how it works, or at least how it should work. :-) hope i didn't make you even more confused then you were before.

If you REALLY want to learn about this then check this book out:

O'Reilly DNS and BIND

Has anyone just said switch to FireFox yet?

FireFox!! It's got tabs in it's browser. meaning you can open 50 websites and not have 50 different instances of your browser up and running, like IE.
-Ctrl+T for new tab.

Dood I swear FireFox is a WONDERFUL browser, and really quickly becoming popular.

www.fiefox.com <-yeah, go there!

I usually do not post in 3 month old threads, but that firefox link is wrong, the correct link is http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/)

As for other power users tips (at least for windows), I would suggest to download the Powertoys (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx) off of Microsofts' web site. It offers alot of tweaks that are quite useful. if you have a lcd monitor the cleartype powertoy is a must.

TS out

Yeah i gotta go with the firefox idea. ab browsing, search engine integration into the browser and all the great plug-ins available make it a must have. Except if you are looking at activeX sites - which it doesnt support. :(

Windows key + Pause|Break = Open System Properties
Windows key + L = Lock your computer
Windows key + D = Minimizes all windows and brings up desktop. Another push will bring your windows right back where they were!
Windows key + R = Opens Run command
Windows key + Tab = Cycles through your open start menu items

If you type a word into the address bar at the top of the page such as "google" and then press Ctrl+Enter, it automatically adds the http://www. and .com

Holding the shift key, and roll the scroll button backwards, takes you back through all the pages you just visited.

ctrl key, plus scrolling the mouse scroll forward, everything goes smaller, scroll backwards, it all gets bigger.

Some windows keys that are useful
Ctrl-A - selects everything
Ctrl-C - copy
Ctrl-V- Paste
Ctrl-Z- undo
Ctrl f - find

as far as tab browing, it is very good for multi tasking but becarful on opening too many tabs, itll cause others to run slow.

as far as download managers go. I used Internet Download Manager, you can get a free trial from www.download.com (http://www.download.com) check out the accual software here http://www.internetdownloadmanager.com/

Um what other tips.... Oh yea restart your computer at least once a week. If your like me you never shut it off, but the more you have of an uptime the slower it will run.

Also defragging your computer is a good thing, and making sure that everything stays clean. A good program that aids in this is TuneUp Utility - http://www.tune-up.com/

well i think thats it for now. :)