Tips & tricks

Alt+; in Excel: Copy Without the Hidden Rows

Alt+;

Copying a table with hidden rows and they paste in too? Alt+; selects only the visible cells — the hidden ones stay home.

Choppy Video Call? A Cable Fixes What Wi-Fi Can't

“You froze” usually doesn't mean slow internet — it means unstable Wi-Fi. An Ethernet cable is the single most reliable upgrade for calls.

The Two-Screen Meeting Rule: One for People, One for Notes

Put the meeting window on the monitor with the camera, notes and materials on the other. You look people in the eye, never share anything private, and minutes write themselves.

In-depth guide · 15 min

What loops are: the agentic cycles said to replace prompting

An explainer with prompts: what it means to let AI run in a loop, what's true in the hype, what's overblown, and how to safely try your first loop.

In-depth guide · 23 min

Beeper as your message hub: Claude pulls promises out of your chats before you forget them

A complete guide with prompts: Beeper unifies WhatsApp, Messenger, and Slack into one app, and Claude pulls promises and deadlines out of them via MCP on a regular schedule and writes them into Notion. Includes a patient introduction to the terminal for anyone who's never opened one.

Ask AI What It Assumed

Gaps in your prompt get silently filled with the model's own assumptions. Have them listed out — see what the answer is standing on before you build work on top of it.

Stop Correcting AI Forever: Edit Your Original Message Instead

Claude, ChatGPT, and Gemini can all edit a message you've already sent and answer again from a clean slate. A lesser-known button that rescues tangled conversations.

A Table Locked Inside a PDF: AI Puts It Back Into Excel

Copying a table out of a PDF turns the columns into one tangled noodle of text. Upload the PDF to AI, ask for CSV — and check the control total.

A Glossary for Your First Meeting: AI Explains the Acronyms in Your Materials

New project, and a document full of acronyms and jargon? AI pulls out every term and explains it in context — flagging what it's only guessing.

Added to a 30-Email Thread? AI Tells You What's Expected of You

A forwarded conversation, “see below,” and thirty emails of history. Drop the thread into AI and ask: who's claiming what, where's the agreement, and what are you supposed to do.

Two Lists Side by Side: AI Finds What's Missing

Attendance against sign-ups, payments against orders: paste two lists and AI lists what's in one and missing from the other — even through typos.

Ten Questions Your Audience Will Ask After Your Presentation

Before you present, have AI generate the audience's questions — curious, skeptical, and the one from your boss about money. You'll find out which ones you can't answer while there's still time.

Mail Merge in Czech: Let AI Get the Vocative Case Right

In Czech, “Dear Mr. Novák” is wrong — it has to be “Dear Mr. Nováku,” the vocative case. AI adds a properly-declined salutation column to your contact table, for hundreds of names at once.

Where's the Setting? Ask AI Instead of Digging Through Menus

Tell AI the app, version, and what you're looking for — you get the exact path in the settings. No more clicking blind or following guides written for a five-year-old version.

Text With Missing Accents? AI Restores Them

An email typed on the wrong keyboard layout or an export from an old system: paste the text into AI and get it back with the accents in the right place. It works in reverse too.

Paste the Error Message Into AI, Not a Search Engine

Instead of trawling ten-year-old forum threads, paste the error message — or a screenshot of it — into AI and ask three things: what it means, what to do, and what not to do.

PDFs opening in the wrong app? Change your default apps once and for all

Every PDF opens in Edge even though you read PDFs elsewhere. Photos open in an app you never chose. Two minutes in Settings → Default apps and files start opening where you actually want them.

Win+Shift+R: screen recording with nothing to install

Win+Shift+R

A short “click here like this” video beats ten screenshots. Newer Windows 11 can record a chosen part of the screen to MP4 with a built-in tool.

Nearby Share: the AirDrop Windows has had all along

Send a file to the computer next to you without a cable, email, or a flash drive: Nearby Share sends it directly, over Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Most people don't know it exists.

Phone Link: photos and texts from your phone, right on your computer

Get a phone photo into a presentation without a cable, no emailing yourself: the Phone Link app shows photos, messages, and notifications right inside Windows.

Speed up Windows startup: turn off apps that launch themselves

Your computer takes minutes to boot because a dozen apps you don't need wake up with it. Turning them off in Settings takes five minutes — and it's permanent.

Do Not Disturb can turn itself on — while presenting and in the evenings

A notification in the middle of a shared screen is a nightmare. Windows can turn on Do Not Disturb automatically while presenting, gaming, or at set hours.

Win+Home: minimize everything except the window you're working in

Win+Home

Ten windows open and you only need one. Win+Home minimizes all the others — press it again and they all come right back.

Black screen? Win+Ctrl+Shift+B restarts graphics without restarting the PC

Win+Ctrl+Shift+B

The display freezes or turns black after connecting a monitor, but the computer is still running. Win+Ctrl+Shift+B restarts the graphics driver — the picture comes back and you lose nothing.

Win+Alt+K: mute your microphone from anywhere

Win+Alt+K

You don't have to hunt down the meeting window to mute yourself. Win+Alt+K in Windows 11 toggles the microphone even while you're working in a completely different app.

Ctrl+Shift+C copies the full path to a file

Ctrl+Shift+C

No need to describe to a colleague where a file lives. Ctrl+Shift+C in File Explorer copies the complete path — just paste it into chat or a dialog.

Ctrl+Z works on files too: undoes a move, rename, or delete

Ctrl+Z

Accidentally dragged a file who-knows-where? Ctrl+Z in File Explorer undoes the last file operation — move, copy, rename, and delete to the recycle bin.

A new folder without the right-click: Ctrl+Shift+N

Ctrl+Shift+N

You create folders all the time — and every time via right-click and a menu. Ctrl+Shift+N creates a new folder instantly, already primed for naming.

Text Extractor: copy text that can't be copied

Win+Shift+T

Text in a screenshot, an image, or a video? Win+Shift+T from PowerToys reads the selected area through OCR and drops the text on your clipboard.

Peek: preview a file with Ctrl+Space, no app required

Ctrl+Space

What's in that file? Peek from PowerToys shows the contents of a selected file on Ctrl+Space — no waiting for Word, a photo viewer, or a PDF reader to launch.