May Contain Peanuts

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When I surf the ol' interwebs, I am at the luxury of using a wireless mouse and keyboard. The keyboard runs off two AA batteries, while the mouse runs off a rechargeable battery that I must dock every night before shutting the computer off. Well, this mouse dock is a bit particular when it comes to placement, and often I don't find out until midday the next day that it hasn't charged properly. At this point, a small red light flickers and a notice comes on screen to say that my battery is low. Quite convenient. This does however pose a problem if I need to continue working, or half-working, or be 'working' (you get the idea). This brings me to today's peanut.

How well can you navigate around your computer without your mouse? I find it is tough, but possible. One of the most important buttons is the Tab button. No, Homers, it does not supply you with a refreshing 'Tab' cola. It does however move you around pages and your desktop. Here's some tips that I know of that may help you if you are ever in this situation. These are all for windows based OSes, so you hip Mac Users will have to find help elsewhere.

Tab: moves from heading to heading, or from icon to icon and along with the Enter button, can be used to select things.

Shift+Tab: moves in the reverse order as using the Tab button.

Alt+Tab: switches between applications open. Hold Alt to keep the new box open and Tab to scroll through. Note: This is an excellent quick press for hiding windows that may be NSFW. Keep a safe full screen window right behind the one you are on, then with a quick alt+tab, the one behind it will pop to the front.

Ctrl+Tab: on internet explorer, this will highlight the address bar so you can quickly type in your next destination.

F5: Refresh. This works well for webpages, but also for explorer windows when you want to realphabetize the listings.

Alt: This is pretty common knowledge, but pressing this and using the arrow keys will help you move around menus.

Trivia bonus: It makes sense the the shortcut for copy is Crtl+C, but why is paste Crtl+V? Well, the shortcuts were meant to be all accessible from just the left hand, as the right hand would be on the mouse. This way, editors could execute commands without taking their hands off the mouse. Save, cut, copy, paste, select all; all on the same hand. Only when you print does your hand have to reach for that 'P'.