The Electric Wand

Weekly tips from the "Tip o' the Week" email distribution inside of Microsoft.

Tip o’ the Week has a new home

I’m moving the tip o’ the week archive and this location will no longer be updated, and will...

Author: EwanD Date: 04/05/2019

Tip o' the Week 471 – Buying stuff at auction

As the web turns 30 and its role in the End Of the World As We Know It starts to become more clear,...

Author: EwanD Date: 03/22/2019

Tip o' the Week 469 – To-Do Files and Accounts

ToW has featured Wunderlist and To-Do on a number of occasions; it’s good to see new functionality...

Author: EwanD Date: 03/22/2019

Tip o' the Week 468 – Get Office, My Office, Office app appears

For a while now, new PCs have been installed with an app that “encouraged” users to install and use...

Author: EwanD Date: 03/22/2019

Tip o' the Week 466 – Mobile Teams Tips

Teams is more than just a replacement for Skype for Business on your PC, it’s also a consummate...

Author: EwanD Date: 02/15/2019

Tip o' the Week 463 – Photographs, eh (he asked him knowingly)?

Nudge Nudge! We’ve all taken photographs and wanted to manipulate them with better tools or on a...

Author: EwanD Date: 02/04/2019

Tip o' the Week 461 – share LinkedIn profile quickly

Lots of professional types rely on LinkedIn – sales professionals, recruitment professionals, people...

Author: EwanD Date: 02/04/2019

Tip o' the Week 460 – AI, AI, Oh…

Artificial Intelligence has been dreamt of for decades, where machines will be as smart – or maybe...

Author: EwanD Date: 02/04/2019

Tip o' the Week 457 – Clipboard improvements

Windows 10’s latest update – the October 2018 Update – has now started rolling out again, after a...

Author: EwanD Date: 11/22/2018

Tip o' the Week 456 – Alexa on PC

There’s no doubt that Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant has been hugely successful – and Black Friday...

Author: EwanD Date: 11/22/2018

Tip o' the Week 454 – Time Zone Tumult Ahead

You may be affected by upcoming changes to time zones, as much of the northern hemisphere moves out...

Author: EwanD Date: 10/26/2018

Tip o' the Week 453 – Outlook Quick Steps

Somewhat improbably, one fairly prominent feature of Outlook has never been discussed in detail on a...

Author: EwanD Date: 10/25/2018

Tip o' the Week 451 – OneNote auto-listing

Here’s a quick tip in OneNote – both the full-fat desktop client and the modern app version – which...

Author: EwanD Date: 10/25/2018

Tip o' the Week 450 – blur: team life?

Teams is coming – it’s going to Skype for Business Online – which we know – though the Skype for...

Author: EwanD Date: 10/04/2018

Tip o' the Week 448 - Sometimes, size does matter

Once upon a time, users had to deal with email quotas that meant they often had to shuffle messages...

Author: EwanD Date: 09/20/2018

Tip o' the Week 447 – October is usually boring

October is – in the northern hemisphere at least – a generally pretty unexciting month. The early...

Author: EwanD Date: 09/20/2018

Tip o' the Week 446 – What's brown and sticky?

Q: What is brown and sticky?A: A stick…Q: What’s yellow and sticky?A: One of the most successful...

Author: EwanD Date: 09/20/2018

Tip o' the Week 445 – Finding Modern App names

As detailed in ToW #443, there are ways of running Modern Windows apps from a script, command line...

Author: EwanD Date: 08/24/2018

Tip o' the Week 442 – Whose phone? Your phone...

Back at the May 2018 Build conference, an app for Windows was previewed, which would allow you to...

Author: EwanD Date: 08/10/2018

Tip o' the Week 440 – Break out the whiteboard

Teachers of any tenure will probably have used a blackboard, with the dusty chalk and the other...

Author: EwanD Date: 07/23/2018

Tip o' the Week 439 – Go! Go! Go!

The legendary Merry Talker made a big thing about his “Go” (quite apart from his Colemanballs)....

Author: EwanD Date: 07/23/2018

Tip o' the Week 437 – Mapping of Minds

Like just about every other productivity technique, “Mind Mapping” has vociferous proponents and...

Author: EwanD Date: 06/29/2018

Tip o' the Week 435 - Symbols, reprised

When the late purple paisley musician Prince restyled himself as a squiggle (or “Symbol”), nobody...

Author: EwanD Date: 06/27/2018

Tip o' the Week 434 – To Do: update To-Do

Lots of people like to-do lists – from Post-it notes stuck on the side of your monitor (or the...

Author: EwanD Date: 06/27/2018

Tip o' the Week 431 – Hiding your name

If you use your laptop on a train or in other public spaces, there’s always the concern that someone...

Author: EwanD Date: 05/18/2018

Tip o' the Week 430 – developers, developers, developers

This week has seen the Microsoft developer conference, called //build/ in its current guise, take...

Author: EwanD Date: 05/11/2018

Tip o' the Week 424 – Tracking meeting responses

Office 365 updates roll in on a regular basis – that’s kinda-the-point of delivering a service...

Author: EwanD Date: 04/13/2018

Tip o' the Week 423 – SwiftKey update swipes in

Resident Microsoft Paddingtonites or visitors, may be familiar with the cubist stools used in some...

Author: EwanD Date: 04/13/2018

Tip o' the Week 422 – Freshening Outlook.com

Microsoft has been the butt of jokes in the past when it comes to branding, but one of the strongest...

Author: EwanD Date: 04/13/2018

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