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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

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

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