Likehacker had two articles today that just knocked me on my butt.

• Lifehacker: “Knock down repetitive e-mail with Thunderbird’s QuickText”

This one tickles me to no end. If you are a user of Mozilla’s open-source email client Thunderbird (and if you aren’t, you should be), and if you find yourself having to use templated responses for any length of time, the QuickText extension is the way to go. In Lifehacker’s mucho thorough rundown on the tool, they describe it like this:

Is there an echo in your sent e-mail box? Do you deal with lots of messages that ask the same questions or require the same type of information in response? The QuickText Thunderbird extension saves collections of reusable text snippets that help you whip up personalized replies to repetitive e-mail messages with a few keystrokes.

Unlike other text saver utilities, QuickText is specific to e-mail because it recognizes variables that reference message details - like the recipient’s first or last name, the subject line or attachment file names. QuickText replaces these variables with the right info for speedy yet personalized responses. Easily reply to Lucy Wood’s message with a “Dear Ms. Wood” or Robin Cullen’s e-mail with “Hi Robin” using one keyword or click, no name-typing required.

Great for customer service reps, web site authors with e-mail contact forms, or any cube warrior who has to make sure there’s a cover sheet on her TPS report, Thunderbird’s QuickText reduces the daily tedious time-sink of processing repetitive e-mail. Live in your inbox less and get to the Send button faster. Streamline your e-mail inbox process by putting standard response text ready to go at your fingertips.

I love it!

• Lifehacker: “Compare and merge text with WinMerge”

Unix people will tell you to just use diff, but if you find yourself working in the Windows world a lot, any day where you find a program that compares two files and shows you where they are identical and where they differ is — and does it as prettily WinMerge does — is a special day.

Dare I say… a day to eat cookies?…

Thank you Lifehacker. Thank you for these tools. And thank you for giving me an excuse to eat cookies.

• WikiHow: “How to Do Nothing”

Using my mouse is an annoying waste of time. Moving my hand half a foot from the keyboard is bad enough, but the time it takes to locate the pointer on the screen is what really steams me. Oh yeah, most of the time it’s a split second and there it is, but every now and then the pointer is right at the edge of the screen and my flailing of the mouse just slides it along that edge. Precious seconds are wasted trying to find that stupid thing!

This is why keyboard shortcuts rule like Dr. Doom rules Latveria*.

Some of them everybody knows. They’re fine. Some of them are pretty freaking useless. And some… ahhhh, some are like hidden jewels.

So, in the interest of introducing my favourites in case they are new to you, may I obsequiously present…

Jason’s Jolly Pirate Ship ‘o’ Window-Centric Keyboard Shortcuts

General Windows Shortcuts

These are the ones that everyone should know and if you don’t, what’s your problem, chump? They work in a whole cornucopia of Windows programs.

• CTRL-o — Open
• CTRL-s — Save
• CTRL-a — Select All
• CTRL-x — Cut
• CTRL-c — Copy
• CTRL-v — Paste
• CTRL-f — Find
• CTRL-p — Print
• CTRL-F4 — Close file
• ALT-F4 — Close Program
• ALT-Tab — Cycle through open windows
• WIN-e — Open Windows Explorer
• WIN-d — Minimize everything and reveal the desktop (hit it again and it restores everything)

Microsoft Word

• F4 — Repeat Last Action (This one is so sweet. Select some text. Do something to it. Select some other text. Hit F4. It performs the last action on the new selection. Makes life so much easier, especially when some of those actions involve going through a whole series of menus.)
• F12 — Save As

Thunderbird (and a lot of other email programs)

• CTRL-Enter — Send Email
• CTRL-r — Reply
• SHIFT-CTRL-r — Reply All
• CTRL-l — Forward

Mozilla Firefox

• CTRL-l — Go to the Location bar
• CTRL-k — Go to the Search Bar
• CTRL-n — Open new browser window
• CTRL-t — Open new tab
• CTRL-Tab — Cycle through open tabs
• Keywords — This is not so much a specific keyboard shortcut as a way to create keyboard shortcuts for specific web addresses. Select “Properties” for any specific bookmark and in the keyword field enter whatever keyword you like. I find it easiest to use single-letter keywords for the sites that I visit most often (”j” for this site, “b” for Bloglines, etc.). That way, I just type CTRL-l and then the single letter keyword and then I’m at the page I’m looking for. Easy-peasy.

* Geek quota of the day

UPDATE: Ack! I forgot one of the very most essential of the keyboard shortcuts:

• CTRL-z — Undo!!!!

(Don’t know where I’d be without that one…)

• 43 Folders: “Kick procrastination’s ass: Run a dash”

Ever since I was a kid, the more “undone” projects I had looming over me, whether it be homework, chores, obligations, anything “work-like” that I just plan didn’t want to do, the longer I went without doing it, the greater sense of unease I would feel. It was like a light anxious pressure. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even know what the feeling was. I just knew that something didn’t feel right.

The fastest and easiest way I found to get rid of this feeling was just to do something and do it right away. One of the jobs, some of the jobs, part of a job, all of the jobs, whatever. Just doing an instant burst of activity was the surest method of releasing the pressure that I felt.

And now I have a name for it — the dash.

Wait… I’m feeling it right now…

Damn.

• eHow.com: “How to Spot a Virgo”

Okay. Breathe. Stay calm. Don’t freak out. Breathe.

As a palliative, perhaps rewriting the tip in a more succinct fashion will help.

How to spot a Virgo.

1. Take a large hunk of wood. (Hardwood preferrably, although pine can do in a pinch.)
2. Grasp it firmly with both hands.
3. Drive the hunk of wood briskly and with great force into your forehead.
4. Repeat until you have lost the desire to find out if someone is a Virgo our not.

Yes. That does help.