Do you ever ask yourself, “If I’ve got iTunes set to shuffle all songs, why do I keep hearing these same songs over and over again?!?” For some reason, the loop of tunes you’re hearing doesn’t really feel shuffled – much less random – at all. Wouldn’t it be nice if your iTunes played only the songs that you haven’t heard in a long time? Oh wait, it CAN! … Who knew?
Apple developed this tool called the Smart Playlist that allows you to set certain parameters to generate a playlist populated by only the tunes that you’ve got an inkling to hear. Like Christmas music, Songs about Love, or comedy bits by Adam Sandler that are more than 4 minutes long.
The Smart Playlist gives you ultimate control: letting you be as specific as you want to be, and then paring down your lists by more than a dozen variables. And, as a matter of fact, when I’m finished writing this post, I’m going to create a playlist Hip Hop, R&B and Rap songs with the word “Girl” in the title… just to find out how many I’ve got in my library 🙂
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Everyone knows that keyboard shortcuts can help you to get the most out of your software programs. They can speed up your work by letting you perform functions without searching for them on the menus and dialog boxes. If you can memorize these commands, your fingers will literally NEVER have to leave your keyboard.
Here’s the great part! The shortcut keys in Word 2007 are pretty much same as the shortcut keys in earlier versions of Word. But, there is one main difference: if there isn’t a command that works for you, you can customize shortcuts that are easier for you to remember! Maybe you may want to create a key command for a shortcut doesn’t exist, you can do that too.
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Wouldn’t it be nice if you could activate Excel 2007’s Formula bar without using the mouse? You can… try this!
Press the F2 key. This will let Excel know that you want to edit the contents of a cell. The first time you do this, Excel will probably expand the information in the cell and let you to edit the information inside that cell… but you can tell Excel you want F2 to open your formula bar by doing this:
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Last week I rattled off a handful of the TopTech Toys of 2008… rated, of course, by none other than me. The second installment, (we could call this the “bottom half,” I suppose) will consist of tech toys that are probably equally as desirable as the those atop the list, but with slightly lower price tags.
So, without further adieu… the rest of my list:
#6 The Flip Mino HD: This is the fourth version of the hip little video camera that first came out in 2007. It looks, feels and works exactly like the previous version, except it shoots high-definition video. It holds 60 minutes of video and comes with software to let you edit your videos and upload them directly to sites including YouTube.
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It’s just over a week away now. The day you’re either waiting in anticipation for; or are planning to spend cloistered at home, sheltered from the madding crowds at the mall and everywhere else.
If you’re one of the courageous (or crazy) people who will settle for no less than the best deal available on the worst day of the year to shop, here is my first installation of Top 10 Tech Toys for 2008, arranged in order of my favorites:
#1 Apple iPhone 3G: For most people, an iPod Touch would do just as well, but not for me. Because it’s a phone, a PDA, a music player with visual voice mail and an amazing web browser, I’ve decided that the iPhone is simply the best tech gift that could possibly be given. (If you’re reading this and want to make me the happiest person in the known universe, send that sleek, beautiful toy to our State St. address!) 🙂
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In my nearly 6 months of working for Dynamic Edge, I’ve learned that there literally is an application and several hundred plugins for just about every function you use on your computer. For those who don’t live, breathe and speak computers, these can be either huge programs, or tiny little bits of code that make life easier for the average computer user.
Some applications you’re probably already using are word processors like Microsoft Word or Word Perfect, spreadsheets like Excel, and media players like iTunes, Windows Media Player or RockBox. But there are countless other applications you probably use on a regular basis and don’t even realize it.
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