Readers’ Tips
Send your tips to [email protected] – win a Web User Back Issues disc! 13 - 26 November 2019^71
A large amount of taskbar space is
taken up by the search box, but you can
gain extra space by reducing it to a
button. Right-click the taskbar and select
Search, ‘Show search icon’. This replaces
the big box with a small magnifying glass
icon. Just click it when you want to
search for something.
John Sullivan, via email
WINDOWS
Dictate instead of typing
Are you still bashing keys to enter text
into your computer? Why? A lot of
people don’t seem to realise that you
can simply speak to it. Open the Settings
app and click Privacy. In the Speech
section, turn on the ‘Online speech
recognition’ switch.
Now, wherever you would normally
type in text, press Windows+H. A small
bar appears at the top of the screen –
it says Initialising for a short time, and
then says Listening. Speak and whatever
you say is entered for you. I don’t like
using it when there are other people
around, though.
Jan Spencer, via email
EMOJI
Use emoji and kaomoji
You probably know how to enter emoji
into messages on your phone, but can
you do it on your Windows PC? I’ve just
discovered that when you type text,
pressing Windows+full stop shows a set
of emoji in a small pop-up panel.
If you see the emoji you want, just click
on it. If you can’t see it, start typing a
definition of the emoji and Windows will
find the one you want. For example, if
you start to type burger, the burger
emoji will be displayed. You can then
click it to insert it into the text. You can
also view a different set of emojis by
clicking on the icons below.
There are other things in the pop-up
window, too. Click the kaomoji symbol
;-) at the top and all sorts of strange
mini pictures appear made of characters
such as < / ; - and so on. There is a row
atthebottomtoshowdifferenttypesof
kaomoji. Some of them seem obvious,
but others I can’t make head nor tail of.
Alex Dunn, via emailWINDOWS
Disable sticky keyboard
shortcuts
I’m sure some people must find Sticky
Keys handy, but I’ve personally never had
a use for it and find it annoying when it
pops up accidently. I finally realised that
it can be disabled pretty easily. Press theShift key five times to bring up the sticky
keys menu, then click the link ‘Disable
this keyboard shortcut in Ease of Access
keyboard settings’. There’s a box that
says ‘Turn on Sticky Keys when SHIFT is
pressed five times’ – if you untick it, the
sticky keys menu will stop appearing.
Dipak, via emailWINDOWS
Minimise the volume OSD
You know that irritating black box that
appears any time you change the
Windows 10 volume? There’s actually a
very simple way to get rid of it. You can
download a tool called Hide Volume OSD
(bit.ly/osd488). When you install it, you
can choose between two options: tray
icon and silent mode. The tray icon
version gives you a small button in your
notification area, letting you turn the
OSD (on-screen display) on and off.
Silent mode simply turns the OSD off
altogether.
Maurice Fletcher, via emailBLUNDER OF THE FORTNIGHT
Have you managed to fix a PC-related disaster?
If so, please send your story to [email protected]I was in the embarrassing situation of
missing several important calls from my
kid’s school last week after putting my
phone in ‘do not disturb’ mode while in
the office. Although it’s good for
blocking spam calls and WhatsApp
messages, I hadn’t thought about what
would happen if someone tried to get
through in an emergency. I’ve now
gone through my contacts list and
added a star to my most important
contacts, setting them as my
favourites. Under the ‘do not disturb’
settings, you can choose to allow calls
from starred contacts only. Hopefully,
this will help readers with Android
phones avoid getting into the sticky
situation I found myself in!
Janine McGregor, via emailNever miss important calls
MOBILE
Starring your contacts should ensure
that important calls get throughIf you can’t type very fast, try turning on
speech recognition and dictating instead
Use emoji and kaomoji in Windows by
pressing the Windows key + full stopWindows displays when you change your
volume settingsSick of being bugged about Sticky Keys?
Fix it here