The Electric Wand
Weekly tips from the "Tip o' the Week" email distribution inside of Microsoft.
Tip o' the Week 419 – What's the time?
The subject of time has featured on a few occasions on ToW – #301, #314, #325, #388 … but there’s...
Author: EwanD Date: 02/23/2018
Tip o' the Week 418 – Preview Apps on Windows 10
The Insider Program for Windows 10 is one of the largest public beta program in software development...
Author: EwanD Date: 02/16/2018
Tip o' the Week 417 – Resolving aliases in bulk
This might be a very old-Microsoft culture thing, but alias names have always been a relatively big...
Author: EwanD Date: 02/15/2018
Tip o' the Week 416 – Teams Slash At Apps
There’s a perennial tension amongst productivity evangelists, about how best to do it – from which...
Author: EwanD Date: 02/08/2018
Tip o' the Week 415 – Another right To-Do
It’s been 9 months since the unveiling of Microsoft To-Do, the task manager app that will someday...
Author: EwanD Date: 02/08/2018
Tip o' the Week 413 – Got Skills, they're multiplying
It’s not been a great time in the press for Cortana. The personal assistant software which appeared...
Author: EwanD Date: 02/08/2018
Tip o’ the Week 412 – I Stream a Stream
Not to be confused with iStream, a manufacturing process dreamed up by legendary car and Formula 1...
Author: EwanD Date: 01/10/2018
Tip o' the Week 411 – Rip it up and start again
Despite the continuing rise in popularity of vinyl, the consumption of media-based audio and video...
Author: EwanD Date: 01/10/2018
Tip o' the Week 410 - Inbox Zero for New Year?
ToW has covered various strategies in dealing with email (189, 223, 310 and more), but this week’s...
Author: EwanD Date: 01/10/2018
Tip o' the Week 408 – sign up for email lists
The curse of email is that it’s too easy to send nonspecific content to large groups, meaning it’s...
Author: EwanD Date: 01/10/2018
Tip o' the Week 406 – A path! A path!
One issue that’s plagued the user experience of computer application design, is the traditional need...
Author: EwanD Date: 12/01/2017
Tip o' the Week 404 – [%subject%] not found %&
This CONTENT can’t be reachedTip o’ the week’s author could not be found.Did you mean...
Author: EwanD Date: 11/30/2017
Tip o' the Week 403 – Office Insiders and training
The Windows Insiders program is well known as an early-access scheme for Windows, with millions of...
Author: EwanD Date: 11/30/2017
Tip o' the Week 400 – Shake your Groove thing
Streaming tunes has been covered by ToW in the past (#284, #350 and perhaps, most pertinently, #361)...
Author: EwanD Date: 10/25/2017
Tip o' the Week 401 – Go with the Flow
We all get notified of stuff that we’re probably interested in, but which we never get around to...
Author: EwanD Date: 10/21/2017
Tip o' the Week 398 – New Dimensions in Sound
Sound technology has been advancing ever since the phonograph wax cylinder, through higher quality...
Author: EwanD Date: 10/20/2017
Tip o' the Week 397 – Bing visual image search
Loyal Microsoft fanbois and grrlz will doubtless use Bing as their default search engine, and many...
Author: EwanD Date: 10/10/2017
Tip o' the Week 396 – Handling dates in Office apps
There are many times when you may need to deal with dates in ordinary applications – and there are a...
Author: EwanD Date: 09/19/2017
Tip o' the Week 395 – Resizing pictures in Windows 10
As smartphone cameras get better, it’s very common to have snaps with dimensions of 4,000 x 3,000...
Author: EwanD Date: 09/15/2017
Tip o' the Week 394 – Change your lock screen
As any fule kno, good corporate types should lock their PC every time they walk away from the...
Author: EwanD Date: 09/12/2017
Tip o' the Week 393 – Searching in OneNote
Tip o’ the Week ❤ OneNote. Both the full-fat trad Windows app version (OneNote 2016), and the Store...
Author: EwanD Date: 09/08/2017
Tip o' the Week 392 – distract with GIFs
We’re all used to file formats being associated with programs and the data they work with. Some,...
Author: EwanD Date: 08/18/2017
Tip o' the Week 391 – Smile, control your emoticons
“Smileys” have been around in one form or another for a surprisingly long time. The use of the...
Author: EwanD Date: 08/11/2017
Tip o' the Week 389 – Jump to Windows Settings
There are many ways of jumping straight into bits of Windows that would otherwise take a load of...
Author: EwanD Date: 07/28/2017
Tip o' the Week 387 – Learning to Fly (reprised)
Sometimes, the best ideas come back for another go. When thinking about the topic for this week’s...
Author: EwanD Date: 07/28/2017
Tip o' the Week 385 – Using Tags in OneNote
There are many bits of functionality buried in Office applications, and the typical assumption is...
Author: EwanD Date: 06/30/2017
Tip o' the Week 383 – Windows Maps refresh
Can you remember the time when, if you wanted to know how to get somewhere, you needed to look on a...
Author: EwanD Date: 06/30/2017
Tip o' the Week 381 – Send to OneNote
OneNote is a favourite app for many people, especially if you like taking notes using a pen. With...
Author: EwanD Date: 06/30/2017
Tip o' the Week 380 – Hey Cortana, take flight!
With the news that Cortana is coming to a consumer audio device near you, it’s worth revisiting a...
Author: EwanD Date: 05/30/2017
Tip o' the Week 377 – Windows 10 Films & TV
In a culturally-sensitive and relatively unusual sort of localis(z)ation, Windows 10 has an app...
Author: EwanD Date: 05/22/2017
Tip o' the Week 376 – Toodle-oo, Wunderlist!
Toodle-oo (like it’s synonym, toodle pip) is, if you’re not otherwise familiar, a charming and...
Author: EwanD Date: 04/28/2017
Tip o' the Week 374 – Creators Update arrives
this tip was originally sent in email inside Microsoft, on 7th April 2017 “Redstone 2”. That’s the...
Author: EwanD Date: 04/13/2017
Tip o' the Week 372 – Locking your PC
Back in the 1980s and up to the early 1990s, IBM had many employees – this author included, though...
Author: EwanD Date: 03/31/2017
Tip o' the Week 371 – Enabling 2FA for MSA
Do you feel that you don’t spend enough of your time authenticating to online services? Maybe it’s...
Author: EwanD Date: 03/29/2017