System Tray

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System Tray
What is the system tray? Basically, the system tray is located at the very bottom of your desktop in the taskbar (the long bar that runs all the way across your desktop). If you look along the taskbar, you'll see some icons in the Quick Launch area, then you have some open space for any applications you have open and then on the very far right, you'll see where the system tray sits.

The system tray contains the clock icon, the volume icon and various other icons, depending on what all you have installed on your computer. Usually, your antivirus program icon will be there, it's where your printer icon shows up, your modem icon is there, the safely remove hardware icon sits there and so on. If you need to use any of the items in your system tray, all you have to do is double click on the icons and the programs will open. So, as you can see, the system tray is home to a lot of important applications on your PC.

Is there any way I can make my shortcuts even faster

If you usually work with Your programs maximized (for example, you can't see your desktop), it's easier to press a shortcut key combination than to minimize the current application and then click a shortcut on the desktop.

For example, I have shortcuts on my desktop to several of my most frequently visited Web sites and I've assigned them each a shortcut key.

Now, if I'm working in MS Word and need to hop over to one of those sites, I simply press its shortcut key. A browser window will open and voila, I'm on the site! It's much easier than minimizing Word, opening up Internet Explorer, hunting through my favorites, clicking on the link and having the page load. But with shortcut keys, I'm only a keystroke away!

Here's how to set up shortcut keys for yourself:

1.) Right click on the shortcut you wish to have a shortcut key for and then select Properties.

Note: This seems to work best when the icon in question lives on your desktop. I've tried it time after time for icons in the Quick Launch toolbar (next to the Start button) and it just doesn't seem to work there.

2.) You'll see a box for the shortcut key. Click it.

3.) You won't be able to delete the "None" label that's currently sitting there, so don't even try, just press the key you would like to use for your shortcut. You can use either letters, numbers or (my favorite) function keys. Finally, click OK when you're done.

Now, if you decide to use letters or numbers, you'll have to use Ctrl + Alt + yourkey to activate the shortcut. Function keys are a single keystroke affair (just be sure to pick ones you don't use in your favorite programs or you may be launching applications when you're really trying to do a function). Other than that, this little trick can save you a lot of time!