It takes more than technology to be productive.

Most everyone appreciates technology and its promise. The flip side is it can also be a pain. It could be you have the right tools, but you aren’t sure how to use them to your advantage. How many times have you stared at a screen and wondered, “now what?”. I have, and it’s frustrating. The goal of this site is to pass on my learnings.

Whether you’re frustrated or simply trying to level up your skills, we’d like to help. We’ve written many tutorials and informative articles covering everything from Amazon’s Alexa to Microsoft Excel with lots in between. And we’re open to suggestions.

FEATURED ARTICLE

DIY Printable Gift Certificates

We all know that it's the little things in life that make people feel special. One of the most thoughtful gestures you can give to someone, such as your customers, is a gift certificate. Instead of using store-bought generic ones, we've created a tutorial to show how to make custom printable gift certificates using Microsoft Word and Excel. The process I’ll outline can be separated into 4 tasks: Define what you want on your gift ...
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FEATURED PRODUCT

Snagit 2021 Captures Screens & Your Imagination

If I were to give an award for the software program I've reviewed and valued the most over the years, TechSmith's Snagit would be toward the top. It's one of those essentials you immediately install to a new computer because you don't want to work without it. Just don't call Snagit a screen capture or print screen program because it can do much more than your native screenshot program. Snagit consists of two programs. The ...
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EASY TUTORIALS

Create Outlook Auto Reply Emails Using Rules & Template

This week I got an email from a friend who changed his email address and contact information. He asked me the best way to notify his contacts. I sent some suggestions and then remembered Microsoft Outlook rules could complement his ...
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Excel Slicers Make Data Analysis Easier

One of my favorite Microsoft Excel features is data slicers. As the name suggests, it's a way of taking an Excel table or pivot table and filtering it in predetermined ways or slices. It's a little like a push-button interactive ...
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Reuse Text & Images with Outlook Quick Parts

For a moment think of the emails you've replied to this week. I'm guessing some of them were repetitive with people asking the same questions. I dislike having to type the same thing countless times. Instead, I prefer to use ...
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Quick Guide to Microsoft Excel Solver

Some time back, I wrote a tutorial about a useful function in Microsoft Excel called Goal Seek. It quickly allows you to solve easy “what-if” scenarios. Although helpful, it comes with limitations. Fortunately, Microsoft has a more powerful add-in analysis ...
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Make Your Own Word Keyboard Shortcuts

Sometimes using the Microsoft Word menus is slower. Granted, many built-in commands have keyboard shortcuts, but most do not. This was the case for me when I wanted to use Word's Reading Mode. Instead of finding the correct tab and ...
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