Top 10 keyboard shortcuts everyone should know

Using keyboard shortcuts can often cut the time it takes to do something on a computer in half.

Below are our top 10 keyboard shortcuts we recommend everyone memorize and use.

Ctrl + C or Ctrl + Insert
Copy the highlighted text or selected item.

Ctrl + V or Shift + Insert
Paste the text or object that's in the clipboard.

Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Y
Undo any change. For example, if you cut text, pressing this will undo it. This can also often be pressed multiple times to undo multiple changes. Pressing Ctrl + Y would re-do the undo.

Ctrl + F
Open the Find in any program. This includes your Internet browser to find text on the current page.

Alt + Tab or Alt + Esc
Quickly switch between open programs.

F1
Open help for the program you're in.

Ctrl + P
Print what's currently being viewed in programs such as Microsoft Word or your Internet browser.

Ctrl + Left arrow / Right arrow
Move the cursor one word at a time instead of one character at a time. If you wanted to highlight one word at a time you can hold down Ctrl + Alt and then press the left or right arrow key to move one word at a time in that direction while highlighting each word.

Ctrl + Home / End
Move the cursor to the beginning or end of a document.
Page Up / Space bar and Page Down Pressing either the page up or page down key will move that page one page at a time in that direction.

When browsing the Internet pressing the space bar will also move the page down one page at a time.

Top 10 free PC programs everyone should have

There are millions of free and open source projects available, many of them better than any commercially available product. Below is a short listing of what we think is the best out there, broken down into ten categories.

Anti-virus and malware protection
Most PC users realize that they need some type of protection on their computer or may have an installed anti-virus program from their computer manufacturer. What most don't realize is that there are free programs that are in some cases better than the commercial products. Below are our recommendations

Anti-virus program: Avast!
Malware / Spyware protection: Malwarebytes

Backup solutions

There are dozens of free and commercially available backup programs for computers. Unfortunately many of those backups are stored locally, meaning if your house were to catch fire, get robbed, or if you simply lost your backup discs all your data would be lost. This is why when dealing with important data we suggest users use online backup services.

Online backup solution: Mozy *
* Free 2GB of online backup for personal use

Browsers

Although Microsoft Internet Explorer comes pre-installed on Windows computers. There are several excellent free alternatives that everyone should try. These free alternatives can often be faster, have more options, and in many cases be more secure than Internet Explorer.

Internet Browser: Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome

Compression utility

When downloading files on the Internet you'll eventually encounter a .zip, .rar, or other compressed file. Dealing with these files can be easy with our below free file compression utility.

File compression utility: 7-zip

Disc ripper and creation utility

Creating an audio or data CD/DVD, ripping the data from an audio CD, or creating a CD from a .ISO file can also be done freely using our below free recommendation.

CD burner / ripper utility: CDBurnerXP

E-mail

E-mail is yet another service that can be done freely. Most users today use online e-mail solutions like the one listed below. However, for those still using an e-mail client such as Microsoft Outlook we strongly suggest one or both of the below suggestions.

E-mail client: Mozilla Thunderbird
Online e-mail: Gmail

FTP, SFTP, and SSH Utility

Users who maintain their own web page or need to upload / download files to or from a server will have to use an FTP utility and/or a SSH client. There are many commercial programs capable of doing this but our below free recommendations beats them all.

 FTP client: Filezilla
SSH client: Putty

Image editor, paint program, and picture organizer

There are many great free solutions for editing, creating, and organizing your images on your computer. Many of the alternative programs capable of doing these types of tasks can be several hundred dollars, but all of the below programs are completely free.

Image editor: GIMP
Paint program: Paint.net
Picture organizer: Google Picasa

Multimedia
There are dozens of different multimedia programs with different capabilities and limitations. Below are our top free multimedia programs for watching video files and recording audio.

Audio editing and creating tool: Audacity
Video and DVD Player: VLC

Office Suite

An Office suite such as Microsoft Office is often one of the most expensive programs that a user can install on their computer. Why install these expensive programs when there are free solutions that are just as good.

Office suite: OpenOffice