One person’s everyday computer shortcut may be another person’s “Cool! I didn’t know you could do that!” David Pogue, who writes a technology column for The New York Times, recently penned a long list of “Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User.” Here are a few suited for the efficiency-minded.

The recession put tremendous pressure on companies to explore ways to reduce costs—and IT expenses are no exception. Fortunately, there are now attractive alternatives for small and midsize businesses (SMBs) to significantly reduce their IT budgets while simultaneously improving the uptime, effectiveness and satisfaction of their investments in computers and technology.

Are you maximizing all that your BlackBerry offers to simplify your life? Here are 10 shortcuts: 1. Create the @ symbol and the dot when typing e-mail addresses by clicking the space bar. 2. To end a sentence with a period and a space and then capitalize the next word, click the space bar twice at the end of a sentence. 3. Capitalize a letter by holding it down ...

When you first see “FW:” in your e-mail inbox, you never know whether the sender is sharing something useful or frivolous. Use the “forward” button wisely, and you can connect others with valuable information or make a new, prized introduction. Keep these three tips in mind:

If you’re ignoring the middle button (or scroll wheel) on your mouse, you’re missing some shortcuts and only using your mouse to 70% capacity. Odds are, you get around documents and web sites just fine without using it, but, as Rick Broida points out in PC World magazine, there’s a world of potential in that little button.

A few of the top web sites for administrative professionals, according to Monster.com: CEO Express, Refdesk, Microsoft Clip Art, USPS,  BrainyBetty and XE.com.

You may be using Twitter.com already. If not, it’s worth taking a second look. Why? Because savvy businesses are using the tool to do some of what you do already—smooth out the information flow between leadership and everyone else. Here's how Twitter can help you on the job:

Do you ever feel like you needed more help after accessing the Help section in Microsoft Office? Here are three tips and tricks to getting the right help fast, and getting you back to work:

Here are two ways to use smartphones to make daily tasks easier: 1. Track your expenses with an iPhone application from Shoeboxed. 2. Map your way. Move over, TomTom. Phone-based navigation systems are becoming more popular, says Forrester Research.

Managing the stream of email that gathers in your inbox every day can feel like an impossible task. Slim down your filing system into this “trusted trio” of action-based folders.

Usually Google gets all the attention for its latest, online tools. But recently, Microsoft grabbed the headlines for adding zippy new features to Internet Explorer. Here are four IE (version 8) features to save you time:

An administrative assistant recently posted this dilemma on our Admin Pro Forum: “I know my office co-worker chats on Facebook most of the day ... and now I have proof. Do I say something to the co-worker, or do I bring it up to the boss? I am usually not a tattletale, but there are times when I am overwhelmed with work and I know she’s chatting on Facebook and not getting her work done.” Forum readers weighed in with advice:

To help an audience tune in to your PowerPoint presentation instead of zoning out, stick to these four cardinal rules from communications coach Carmine Gallo when creating a presentation: 1.Stick to three or four themes. 2.Type should be no smaller than 30 points. 3. Use charts sparingly. 4. Divide the number of minutes you’re allotted to speak by two—that’s how many slides you should have.

Having employees handle their own pay and benefits administration is the Holy Grail for HR professionals. You’d like every worker to independently access forms and find answers to payroll and benefits questions online. But old habits die hard. Solution: Initiate a long-term, multimedia strategy using techniques that encourage employees to help themselves.

Help a boss avoid “death by PowerPoint” by stealing presentation tips from the famously charismatic CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs. Jobs is a gifted speaker, not necessarily because he was born with talent, but because he sticks to several strategies. Jobs uses presentation software as a tool to visually complement his stories.

Here are three great tools for creating to-do lists, collaborating on documents online, and viewing and modifying PDFs: 1. Best for tracking tasks: Doomi. 2. Best for word processing: Zoho Writer. 3. Best for viewing PDFs: Foxit Reader.

Employers that don’t enforce reasonable e-mail and computer-access policies—consider yourselves warned. Without such policies and practices, you won’t be able to use the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to punish employees who send information through your system to other persons or computers.

Instead of reinventing the wheel every time you repeat a task, create a template and then reuse it. For years, Michael Hyatt, CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, has used templates to improve his productivity ...

We’ve offered advice before about keeping your professional and personal networks from overlapping too much. Now a new survey from OfficeTeam reveals that people are still uncertain about the rules of online social networking. Here are tips for blending personal and professional friends on Facebook:

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates uses digital tools to get things done. No surprise there, but are you using any of his top tactics?

If you find it hard to keep up with Facebook, Twitter and other social-media tools, you’ll love this idea for a New Year’s resolution: Stop trying to keep up with social technology. Alexandra Samuel, CEO of Social Signal, says you could spend half your life trying to figure out the latest, greatest tool—so don’t even bother trying. To refocus your relationships:

Have you tried these seven hot tools from Google? 1. Sidewiki. 2. Fast Flip. 3. Google Wave. 4. Google News Timeline. 5. Wonder Wheel. 6. Google Squared. 7. Flu Trends.

You see them all the time. The paragraph of legalese at the bottom of e-mails that attempts to provide protection from misdirected e-mails. Do they do any good?

So much to read, so little time. Could speed-reading boost your productivity? Two programs promise to improve your reading speed: EyeQ and The Reader’s Edge.

Your computer-usage policy no doubt prohibits visiting inappropriate web sites. But what if someone surfs forbidden sites using a computer that a group of employees has access to? In such cases, investigate but make sure to check out everyone’s story.