21st August 2001
It's been a while since we've covered that number pad thingy. Look on the right side of your keyboard. Go ahead, I'll wait. Okay, did you notice anything special in the top row? Probably not. Take a look again (but be quicker this time -- I've got a steak on the grill). There's an asterisk! Sure, you could hold onto SHIFT and press the 8 key to produce the same character, but... one key is always easier to tap than two. But wait -- there's more! Open up your Windows Explorer and put the cursor's focus into the Folders pane. Don't have a Folders pane on the left side? Turn it on by clicking View | Explorer Bar | Folders. Or, ya know... click the Folders icon in Explorer's toolbar. Now, let's say you wanna see all the subfolders of your Windows folder. Select it in the left (Folders) pane first, then tap that asterisk. Just like pulling a rabbit out of a hat (albeit, with much less fur). And even though we covered it a few months ago, you can use another key-combo to resize field widths when your Explorer view is set to Details. Hold onto CTRL and tap the plus sign on your numeric keypad. Ah, each column is optimized for the longest data string within it.