The Electric Wand
Weekly tips from the "Tip o' the Week" email distribution inside of Microsoft.
Tip o' the Week 370 – Using Bookmarks
Bookmarks feature in several places within Office apps – most obviously in Word, where they can be...
Author: EwanD Date: 03/27/2017
Tip o' the Week 368 – Mail and Calendar apps mature
Ever since Windows 8 came out, there were simplified Mail & Calendar apps built-in. Reviews were...
Author: EwanD Date: 03/10/2017
Tip o' the Week 366 – Night, Night, screen light
As many people use their phones or other digital devices just before going to bed, it’s worth...
Author: EwanD Date: 03/03/2017
Tip o' the Week 365 – Throttling applications' network perf
If you ever wonder why your home network is apparently bogging down, the blame may not be just down...
Author: EwanD Date: 02/17/2017
Tip o' the Week 364 – F is for Function
PC keyboards have always had Function Keys, just as mainframe terminals did before them – thank IBM...
Author: EwanD Date: 02/10/2017
Tip o' the Week 362 – Working with symbol characters
One of the coolest things about the PC as it developed from the earliest days, was the ability to...
Author: EwanD Date: 01/19/2017
Tip o' the Week 360 – Seasonal online goodies
If you’re still planning on completing your holiday gift-buying towards the end of the shopping...
Author: EwanD Date: 12/23/2016
Tip o' the Week 358 – MSPAINT becomes Paint 3D
Some Windows apps have been around, in one form or another, for donkey’s years. If you press...
Author: EwanD Date: 12/23/2016
Tip o’ the Week 356 – How not to send mail accidentally
An ohnosecond is the small measure of time between a luser doing something seemingly innocuous, then...
Author: EwanD Date: 12/23/2016
Tip o' the Week 355 - How to buy a FBTV
Tip 355, eh? This week’s tip is quite timely so we’ll skip over 354 and come back to that later. As...
Author: EwanD Date: 11/18/2016
Tip o' the Week 353 – Killing me Softly, part II
Back in the day, when it was an ambitious plan to have a PC on every desk and in every home, one...
Author: EwanD Date: 11/11/2016
Tip o' the Week 352 – Skype for Business Custom Presence
Everyone who has used Skype for Business/Lync/OCS/LCS etc will be familiar with the power you get...
Author: EwanD Date: 11/04/2016
Tip o' the Week 351 – Searching the GAL
When Exchange Server first appeared in 1996, to deliver email like nothing ever seen before in the...
Author: EwanD Date: 11/02/2016
Tip o' the Week 350 – Killing me Softly, part I
Many companies have products or services whose time comes, and they are – gently or otherwise – put...
Author: EwanD Date: 10/21/2016
Tip o' the Week 349 - Office 365 UI updates
At the Ignite conference in Atlanta at the end of September, lots of news came out about Artificial...
Author: EwanD Date: 10/18/2016
Tip o' the Week 347 – Mentions in Outlook
One of the nice things about subscribing to client apps as part of Office365 is the regular feature...
Author: EwanD Date: 10/14/2016
Tip o' the Week 346 – Under the Bridge
There’s something beautiful about a well-made bridge, even a modernist one with engineering on...
Author: EwanD Date: 09/30/2016
Tip o' the Week 344 – Inky betterness
Inky was, along with his friends Blinky, Pinky & Clyde, one of the ghosts in the original...
Author: EwanD Date: 09/09/2016
Tip o' the Week 343 – QUIET!!!!
One of the rare regressions from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 was the effective loss of “Quiet Hours”,...
Author: EwanD Date: 08/26/2016
Tip o' the Week 341 – Project PCs to other PCs
Have you ever been in a meeting where you need/want to show something on your PC but… (any of the...
Author: EwanD Date: 08/19/2016
Tip o' the Week 340 – Windows 10 Ink Workspace
One of the new features of Windows 10 with the Anniversary Update* is the Ink Workspace, which shows...
Author: EwanD Date: 08/12/2016
Tip o' the Week 337 - PPT premium groove things
Sometimes, news can pass you by and it’s only some time later when you are confronted by it, that...
Author: EwanD Date: 07/22/2016
Tip o' the Week 336 – Onetastic Update
As has been covered repeatedly on previous ToWs, OneNote - for some people - is a life-blood app...
Author: EwanD Date: 07/15/2016
Tip o' the Week 334 – Windows Maps app updates
A few months ago, ToW #318 talked about mapping on Windows 10. Well, a new update to the Maps app on...
Author: EwanD Date: 07/08/2016
Tip o' the Week 330 – Windows Store updated
Windows Insiders may have noticed since desktop build 14342 (which made it onto the slow ring...
Author: EwanD Date: 06/10/2016
Tip o' the Week 329 – Fuzzy Duck? Yes, he does
Sometimes, when writing the ToW, the topic is inspired by a specific problem that someone has...
Author: EwanD Date: 06/03/2016
Tip o' the Week 328 – Clip for art's sake
As discussed in Tip o’ the Week 28, Office Clip Art changed a while back – out was the staid clip...
Author: EwanD Date: 05/27/2016
Tip o' the Week 327 – To sleep, perchance to dream
Some old bard, about 4 centuries ago, wrote about sleep. We all know how important sleep is, for us...
Author: EwanD Date: 05/20/2016
Tip o' the Week 326 – Skype for Business, meet Skype consumer
Power Skypers will probably know this week’s tip already, but it’s a fair bet that it’ll be news to...
Author: EwanD Date: 05/13/2016
Tip o' the Week #325 – your time, my time, everyone’s time
Time is a subject that features regularly on ToW (tick, tock, tick, tock); maybe it’s a fact of...
Author: EwanD Date: 04/29/2016
Tip o' the Week #324 – Delve into something new
Here’s one of those services that arrived in Office 365, and yet many users will never have noticed,...
Author: EwanD Date: 04/22/2016
Tip o' the Week 323 – Some lesser-known Excel spreadsheetery
Spreadsheets did – or do, still – make the modern IT world go round. Until Dan Bricklin and VisiCalc...
Author: EwanD Date: 04/15/2016
Tip o' the Week 322 – Booking meeting rooms (again)
As any fule kno, the //build/ conference was on last week. There was lots of news and updates and a...
Author: EwanD Date: 04/08/2016
Tip o' the Week 321 – Quick Access Toolbar customisation
Most of us will have used the Quick Access Toolbar in Windows Office apps – even if only to click...
Author: EwanD Date: 04/05/2016