What computer life hacks are your most used?
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There's a setting in windows that opens snipping tool when print screen is pressed. This allows to select a screen, window or a rectangle. More than that, it also has screen recording functionality. Very good for quick screen grabs with no additional software required.
Win+Shift+S is the keyboard shortcut. You can even do screen recordings. I use that shit all the time at work, to send bug reports when the useless fucking software we’re forced to use has a repeatable crash that the dev team can’t replicate with text reports alone.
Best keyboard shortcut I know hahaha
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Far from most used, but very handy: ctrl+win+shift+b
It restarts the graphic subsystem, which can help recover from situations where game crashes or similar cause visual issues.
That's handy, my computer is struggling to run crusader kings 3 when I start it up sometimes and I have to restart the whole thing. Next time I'll try this.
Trying to save to buy a new pc but with a baby on the way most of our money is going to baby stuff at the moment
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They tought us on typewriters in the 90s. Wait until you hear about how I changed an ink ribbon, son.
They taught us on ink pens in the 1700s. Wait until you hear about how I etched on slate tablets.
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Yay, nobody said my favorite hack.
While browsing on the web and you want to "open link into a new tab", click using the mouse wheel like it's a regular left or right click.
It's great for researching.
You can also middle click on a tab to close it! Also, middle clicking stuff pinned to your taskbar like the file explorer or your browser opens up a new window of it.
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As a basic Linux user, I have a shell script to do all my updating, upgrading, removing of unneeded packages, etcetera. Under no circumstances is it all that advanced, just a string of simple enough apt and flatpak commands.
I also recently figured out that god knows how long ago that I set an alias to run it that's only 3 keyboard clicks instead of 5, saving basically less than a second. So not that useful, but still good to know... until I inevitably forget about it again.
I've been yum-cronning since 2002. You guys still do it manually?
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They tought us on typewriters in the 90s. Wait until you hear about how I changed an ink ribbon, son.
tought
taught? Is spell-check your next epiphany?
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Yay, nobody said my favorite hack.
While browsing on the web and you want to "open link into a new tab", click using the mouse wheel like it's a regular left or right click.
It's great for researching.
click using the mouse wheel
'middle click'
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Set up three WireGuard network interfaces on a VPS then accept traffic from your end devices to route through the three double hop VPN tunnels to a country with better privacy laws. Install an ad and tracking blocking DNS server to block all nefarious hostnames as well as more granular blockers for your browsers.
What’s the point of the VPS?
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You can also middle click on a tab to close it! Also, middle clicking stuff pinned to your taskbar like the file explorer or your browser opens up a new window of it.
Wow, this I didn't know! Thanks friend!
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Mine is using the arrow keys to navigate typed text while writing and editing. It helps speed things up, versus having to move your hand to the mouse to navigate.
Use the Up and Down Arrows to move/jump vertically.
Left and Right Arrows to move/jump horizontally.
Combine Left or Right Arrow with Shift to be able to select text. Use Up or Down Arrow with Shift to quickly select whole/nearly whole sections of text.
Combine Control with Left/Right Arrow to jump whole words to more quickly move to where you want to type.
I'm a web dev and one "hack" I use all the time is bookmarklets. In Chrome @bookmarks let's you search your bookmarks, so I use this to fire off different scripts to do different things. Most are for debugging and the like. I have my hotkeys setup where ctrl + q puts focus on the omnibar so I can start typing, and then I use @books marks to search for whatever I need. A lot of the bookmarklets just append the current url to some other site like page speed insights or pure.md. I find this saves me a ton of time. Also the duplicate this tab hotkey, I use that all day every day.
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What’s the point of the VPS?
Mainly to keep my end devices appearing to connect to a VPN in the same country. I usually do that especially when I travel to other countries that seem to block WireGuard leaving their borders.
I suppose if I had fiber at home I’d do it all there but cable internet’s slow 30 Mbps upload speed along with constant power outages make it a no-go.
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I've been yum-cronning since 2002. You guys still do it manually?
wrote last edited by [email protected]As someone who has only been using Linux for a few years ( >5 ), yeah I do.
Definitely know what cron/cronning is, but I'll definitely have to look up what yum-cronning is.
Edit:
I'm an idiot and correct in my thinking that yum was referring to the yum package management thing, which I don't use on my system. Sounds cool, though. Might look into automating my setup, but it's become such a routine for me to run the script I'm not sure if I could easily switch.
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Mine is using the arrow keys to navigate typed text while writing and editing. It helps speed things up, versus having to move your hand to the mouse to navigate.
Use the Up and Down Arrows to move/jump vertically.
Left and Right Arrows to move/jump horizontally.
Combine Left or Right Arrow with Shift to be able to select text. Use Up or Down Arrow with Shift to quickly select whole/nearly whole sections of text.
Combine Control with Left/Right Arrow to jump whole words to more quickly move to where you want to type.
With Shift + Pos1 or End you can mark text from cursor until beginning or end of line! I use that often.
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I don't know shit about Linux but I've been using Mint for the last year with no problem. It's pretty idiot-proof and I haven't had any issues with software since gaming is largely solved on Linux and Adobe can eat my ass.
I agree, the hardest thing with linux is learning the alternatives. Thankfully adobe is pretty well covered and you are not missing anything by quitting it.
Wish we got an alternative to fusion 360 that had a good, fast workflow tho.
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Mine is using the arrow keys to navigate typed text while writing and editing. It helps speed things up, versus having to move your hand to the mouse to navigate.
Use the Up and Down Arrows to move/jump vertically.
Left and Right Arrows to move/jump horizontally.
Combine Left or Right Arrow with Shift to be able to select text. Use Up or Down Arrow with Shift to quickly select whole/nearly whole sections of text.
Combine Control with Left/Right Arrow to jump whole words to more quickly move to where you want to type.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I don't consider them hacks. They're tooling and intended use. Even if most people don't know them. They were designed deliberately.
Using keyboard input is not a clever misuse of unintended functionality. It's intended design.
I hack websites through browser extensions. Adblocker, css inject, platform extensions. But even that is only hacking in the context of the original content. As a product it's its intended purpose. So I wouldn't call it life hack.
Mouse gestures, keyboard key combinations, alt access, alt keypad character input, YouTube Sponsorblock, adblock, search bookmarks are - I guess - my most used.
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Mine is using the arrow keys to navigate typed text while writing and editing. It helps speed things up, versus having to move your hand to the mouse to navigate.
Use the Up and Down Arrows to move/jump vertically.
Left and Right Arrows to move/jump horizontally.
Combine Left or Right Arrow with Shift to be able to select text. Use Up or Down Arrow with Shift to quickly select whole/nearly whole sections of text.
Combine Control with Left/Right Arrow to jump whole words to more quickly move to where you want to type.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Yeah I do a lot of keyboard shortcuts. My computer career started before I even had a mouse, it was all keyboard editing. Doesn't bother me a bit to leave the mouse just sitting there. In fact after typing a comment here I just tab to the Post button and hit Enter.
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There's a setting in windows that opens snipping tool when print screen is pressed. This allows to select a screen, window or a rectangle. More than that, it also has screen recording functionality. Very good for quick screen grabs with no additional software required.
Win+Shift+S is the keyboard shortcut. You can even do screen recordings. I use that shit all the time at work, to send bug reports when the useless fucking software we’re forced to use has a repeatable crash that the dev team can’t replicate with text reports alone.
From my experience win+shift+s take a screen shot of all the screens. Print screen opens this small snipping tool widget at the top that gives me more control. Now the behavior might have changed since I've found it, windows 11 wasn't a thing back then and snipping tool got some updates in recent years.
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Mine is using the arrow keys to navigate typed text while writing and editing. It helps speed things up, versus having to move your hand to the mouse to navigate.
Use the Up and Down Arrows to move/jump vertically.
Left and Right Arrows to move/jump horizontally.
Combine Left or Right Arrow with Shift to be able to select text. Use Up or Down Arrow with Shift to quickly select whole/nearly whole sections of text.
Combine Control with Left/Right Arrow to jump whole words to more quickly move to where you want to type.
Expanding on yours, Shift + Home and Shift + End to select from the cursor to the beginning or end of the line.
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Mine is using the arrow keys to navigate typed text while writing and editing. It helps speed things up, versus having to move your hand to the mouse to navigate.
Use the Up and Down Arrows to move/jump vertically.
Left and Right Arrows to move/jump horizontally.
Combine Left or Right Arrow with Shift to be able to select text. Use Up or Down Arrow with Shift to quickly select whole/nearly whole sections of text.
Combine Control with Left/Right Arrow to jump whole words to more quickly move to where you want to type.
To be pedantic, keyboard shortcuts aren't hacks. That's the intended use of the thing, and long lists of keybaord shortcuts exist so that people can find the ones that work for them and use them. Just because most people don't do it doesn't make it a hack.
My favorite keyboard shortcut is Super/Windows key and spacebar switches keyboard languages. That's not a hack, though.
Closer to a "hack" is going into an android phone with ADB and disabling bloatware manually.
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First thing required on every new keyboard
Just remap it to something more useful, Colemak remaps it to backspace.
