Useful Keyboard Shortcuts for you

BANGALORE, INDIA: Keyboard shortcuts not only save you from the strenuous task of using a Mouse, but also makes your computing experience more enriching and fulfilling. These keyboard shortcuts can also be thought of as an alternative to Mouse. We list the keyboard shortcuts for today's major operating systems viz Windows, Mac and Linux.

There are a variety of Keyboard shortcuts for various operating systems. We list below some keyboard shortcuts that you are sure to find useful and interesting.

Keyboard shortcuts for Windows:

• Windows Logo+L: Log off Windows
• Windows Logo+P: Starts Print Manager
• Windows Logo+C: Opens Control Panel
• Windows Logo+V: Starts Clipboard
• Windows Logo+K: Opens Keyboard Properties dialog box
• Windows Logo+I: Opens Mouse Properties dialog box
• Windows Logo+A: Starts Accessibility Options (if installed)
• Windows Logo+SPACEBAR: Displays the list of Microsoft IntelliType shortcut keys
• Windows Logo+S: Toggles CAPS LOCK on and off

Some more Windows shortcuts:

• Press SHIFT five times: Toggles StickyKeys on and off

For even more shortcuts, click here.

Keyboard Shortcuts for Linux:

Ctrl + Alt + +: Switch to the next resolution in the X Window System. This works if you've configured more than one resolution for your X server. Note that you must use the + in your numpad.

Ctrl + Alt + -: Switch to the previous X resolution. Use the - in your numpad.

MiddleMouseButton: Paste the highlighted text. You can highlight the text with your left mouse button (or with some other highlighting method, depending on the application you're using), and then press the middle mouse button to paste. This is the traditional way of copying and pasting in the X Window System, but it may not work in some X applications.

If you have a two-button mouse, pressing both of the buttons at the same time has the same effect as pressing the middle one. If it doesn't, you must enable 3-mouse-button emulation.

This works also in text terminals if you enable the gpm service.

Ctrl + Alt + Backspace: Kill the X server. Use this if X crashes and you can't exit it normally. If you've configured your X Window System to start automatically at boot-up, this restarts the server and throws you back to the graphical login screen.

< Command line - misc >

Ctrl + c: Kill the current process.

Ctrl + z: Send the current process to background. This is useful if you have a program running, and you need the terminal for awhile but don't want to exit the program completely. Then just send it to background with Ctrl+z, do whatever you want, and type the command fg to get the process back.

Ctrl + d: Log out from the current terminal. If you use this in a terminal emulator under X, this usually shuts down the terminal emulator after logging you out.

Ctrl + Alt + Del: Reboot the system. You can change this behavior by editing /etc/inittab if you want the system to shut down instead of rebooting.

< Virtual terminals >

Ctrl + Alt + F1: Switch to the first virtual terminal. In Linux, you can have several virtual terminals at the same time. The default is 6.

Ctrl + Alt + Fn: Switch to the nth virtual terminal. Because the number of virtual terminals is 6 by default, n = 1...6.

tty

Typing the tty command tells you what virtual terminal you're currently working in.

Ctrl + Alt + F7: Switch to the GUI. If you have the X Window System running, it runs in the seventh virtual terminal by default in most Linux distros. If X isn't running, this terminal is empty.

Note: in some distros, X runs in a different virtual terminal by default. For example, in Puppy Linux, it's 3.

Click for more Linux keyboard shortcuts.

Keyboard shortcuts for Mac:

• Option- Display all bootable volumes (Startup Manager)

There are some more useful MAC keyboard shortcuts here.

Use these keyboard shortcuts and experience enriched computer experience.