Did you know that Windows 11 has a bunch of shortcuts that can make your life easier and help you get things done more quickly? We’ve put together a handy list of these keyboard shortcuts to help you streamline your workflow effortlessly. Give them a try and see how much more productive you can be!

General Windows 11 shortcuts

These shortcuts enable you to perform common functions, including copying and pasting text, switching between windows, and more.

Windows 11 Command Prompt shortcuts

The Windows Command Prompt is a powerful tool used to perform various operations on your computer. The following shortcuts can help you save time when using it.

Windows 11 File Explorer shortcuts

Navigating and managing files can be tedious, but with these shortcuts, you can open, view, and organize files more quickly.

New Windows 11 keyboard shortcuts

Windows 11 has unique features that you can access with these handy shortcuts.

Mastering these Windows 11 keyboard shortcuts can greatly enhance your productivity and efficiency. So, try incorporating these shortcuts into your daily routine and experience the optimum functionality of Windows 11.

If you want to find more ways to increase your productivity using Windows 11, call our experts today.

If you’ve recently upgraded to Windows 11 and want to navigate it like a pro, you’ve come to the right place. In this guide, we’ll explore handy keyboard shortcuts that can make your Windows 11 experience smoother and more efficient. Whether you’re a seasoned Windows user or a beginner, these shortcuts will make it easier to manage your workflow and boost your productivity.

General Windows 11 shortcuts

These shortcuts enable you to perform common functions, including copying and pasting text, switching between windows, and more.

Windows 11 Command Prompt shortcuts

The Windows Command Prompt is a powerful tool used to perform various operations on your computer. The following shortcuts can help you save time when using it.

Windows 11 File Explorer shortcuts

Navigating and managing files can be tedious, but with these shortcuts, you can open, view, and organize files more quickly.

New Windows 11 keyboard shortcuts

Windows 11 has unique features that you can access with these handy shortcuts.

Mastering these Windows 11 keyboard shortcuts can greatly enhance your productivity and efficiency. So, try incorporating these shortcuts into your daily routine and experience the optimum functionality of Windows 11.

If you want to find more ways to increase your productivity using Windows 11, call our experts today.

Cut down on time spent navigating menus and opening programs with the help of these useful Windows 11 keyboard shortcuts. Learn how to quickly switch between windows, open new tabs, and access the Start Menu, all with just a few keystrokes.

General Windows 11 shortcuts

These shortcuts enable you to perform common functions, including copying and pasting text, switching between windows, and more.

Windows 11 Command Prompt shortcuts

The Windows Command Prompt is a powerful tool used to perform various operations on your computer. The following shortcuts can help you save time when using it.

Windows 11 File Explorer shortcuts

Navigating and managing files can be tedious, but with these shortcuts, you can open, view, and organize files more quickly.

New Windows 11 keyboard shortcuts

Windows 11 has unique features that you can access with these handy shortcuts.

Mastering these Windows 11 keyboard shortcuts can greatly enhance your productivity and efficiency. So, try incorporating these shortcuts into your daily routine and experience the optimum functionality of Windows 11.

If you want to find more ways to increase your productivity using Windows 11, call our experts today.

Are you tired of constantly juggling between different windows on your computer? Dual monitors can be the game-changer you need to overcome such challenges. By adding an extra monitor to your workstation, you can revolutionize the way you work, play, or create digital content. In the following sections, shed light on how dual monitors can transform your work setup and improve your productivity.

Increased productivity and seamless multitasking

With dual monitors, you can have a word processing document open on one screen while conducting research on the other, eliminating the need to constantly switch between windows. This streamlined workflow minimizes distractions and saves precious time.

For instance, a software developer can have their code editor on one screen and the application they are developing or debugging on the other. This configuration allows for a smoother debugging process, as the developer can monitor the code and the output simultaneously.

Improved collaboration and communication

Having dual monitors during meetings or collaborative sessions enables participants to view shared documents, presentations, or video conferencing platforms while simultaneously taking notes or referencing additional information on the other screen. This promotes active engagement and improves the overall effectiveness of group discussions and decision-making processes. It also ensures that all participants and collaborators are on the same page.

Seamless comparison of products

When you have two monitors, comparing things becomes a breeze. Suppose you’re looking to buy a new smart phone, but you’re torn between two models. Before reaching a final decision, you’d naturally want to compare their specifications. If you had just one monitor, you’d have to constantly switch between tabs to compare the two models. However, with the luxury of two monitors, you can effortlessly view the models side by side, enabling you to easily identify their differences and make an informed purchase.

With a dual monitor setup, you can unlock your full potential, optimize your digital workspace, and elevate your overall user experience. If you want to learn more about dual monitors, call our hardware experts today.

With the rising demand for efficiency and productivity in today’s fast-paced world, dual monitors have become a popular choice for individuals and organizations alike. By expanding your digital workspace, dual monitors enable a seamless and efficient workflow that can increase productivity and overall satisfaction with your computing experience. Here are all the benefits of using dual monitors.

Increased productivity and seamless multitasking

With dual monitors, you can have a word processing document open on one screen while conducting research on the other, eliminating the need to constantly switch between windows. This streamlined workflow minimizes distractions and saves precious time.

For instance, a software developer can have their code editor on one screen and the application they are developing or debugging on the other. This configuration allows for a smoother debugging process, as the developer can monitor the code and the output simultaneously.

Improved collaboration and communication

Having dual monitors during meetings or collaborative sessions enables participants to view shared documents, presentations, or video conferencing platforms while simultaneously taking notes or referencing additional information on the other screen. This promotes active engagement and improves the overall effectiveness of group discussions and decision-making processes. It also ensures that all participants and collaborators are on the same page.

Seamless comparison of products

When you have two monitors, comparing things becomes a breeze. Suppose you’re looking to buy a new smart phone, but you’re torn between two models. Before reaching a final decision, you’d naturally want to compare their specifications. If you had just one monitor, you’d have to constantly switch between tabs to compare the two models. However, with the luxury of two monitors, you can effortlessly view the models side by side, enabling you to easily identify their differences and make an informed purchase.

With a dual monitor setup, you can unlock your full potential, optimize your digital workspace, and elevate your overall user experience. If you want to learn more about dual monitors, call our hardware experts today.

Enhancing productivity and improving multitasking capabilities are two of the key goals for many individuals, whether in a professional or a personal setting. One way to achieve these goals is by incorporating dual monitors into your workstation. With two screens at your disposal, you can multitask like never before, seamlessly switching between different applications, documents, or web pages. Let’s explore the other advantages of dual monitors.

Increased productivity and seamless multitasking

With dual monitors, you can have a word processing document open on one screen while conducting research on the other, eliminating the need to constantly switch between windows. This streamlined workflow minimizes distractions and saves precious time.

For instance, a software developer can have their code editor on one screen and the application they are developing or debugging on the other. This configuration allows for a smoother debugging process, as the developer can monitor the code and the output simultaneously.

Improved collaboration and communication

Having dual monitors during meetings or collaborative sessions enables participants to view shared documents, presentations, or video conferencing platforms while simultaneously taking notes or referencing additional information on the other screen. This promotes active engagement and improves the overall effectiveness of group discussions and decision-making processes. It also ensures that all participants and collaborators are on the same page.

Seamless comparison of products

When you have two monitors, comparing things becomes a breeze. Suppose you’re looking to buy a new smart phone, but you’re torn between two models. Before reaching a final decision, you’d naturally want to compare their specifications. If you had just one monitor, you’d have to constantly switch between tabs to compare the two models. However, with the luxury of two monitors, you can effortlessly view the models side by side, enabling you to easily identify their differences and make an informed purchase.

With a dual monitor setup, you can unlock your full potential, optimize your digital workspace, and elevate your overall user experience. If you want to learn more about dual monitors, call our hardware experts today.

Chances are you don’t like wasting time in useless meetings. People often say that this meeting should have been an email. But what about one-to-one calls? Could they be a series of voice messages and quick text replies?

Meet Async, a new productivity startup based in New York that wants to replace quick calls with asynchronous audio messages. While voice messages are increasingly popular in consumer messaging apps, such as WhatsApp and Telegram, this communication method hasn’t taken off in a business context — or at least, not yet.

Async is now available as a public beta on the web, macOS and iOS. The company doesn’t want to replace Slack or other internal communication tools. Instead, Async has been designed for individuals with busy calendars and back-to-back meetings — think CEOs, investors, consultants, journalists, recruiters, etc.

There are multiple ways to start a conversation in Async. First, you can use Async to answer a long email or pick someone’s brain on a new project idea. You open the app on your laptop or phone, start recording and get a link that you can share anywhere. For instance, you can paste it in Gmail or add it to a Notion document.

At this point, you might think that voice messages are incredibly easy to record but not great if you’re the recipient. That’s why Async automatically creates transcripts so that you can skim the content of a voice note and find the relevant audio message later. In addition to that, Async doesn’t allow voice messages that are longer than five minutes.

Alternatively, you can add recipients to your voice message directly in Async. This way, other Async users can add time-stamped emoji reactions, write quick replies or record audio messages as replies. Essentially, you can “move conversations to Async” if you want a voice-optimized messaging platform.

Async gets particularly interesting with its profile link system. When you first sign up to the service, you also get your own personalized URL that you can start sharing in your email signature or on your LinkedIn profile.

Other people can click on this link and send you a voice message. These audio messages end up in your Async inbox so that you can go through them every now and then.

In many ways, Async is copying Calendly, the popular scheduling product. But instead of booking meetings in your calendar, people are just sending you audio messages. It’s an asynchronous way to get in touch with someone with a pitch, a partnership proposal and more.

Image Credits: Async

Right now, Async only has one paid feature. By default, new users can’t choose their username for their personal URL. It’s usually their first name followed by a handful of random numbers. Users can choose to pay $35 per year to customize their profile URL — this feature is currently on sale at $19 per year.

“We’ll launch a premium monthly plan very soon with several pro features — it’s fairly straightforward,” co-founder and CEO Ilan Abehassera told me. “But we are working on a prosumer tool. We don’t target companies, we target individuals who have a lot of meetings like Superhuman or Calendly.”

That interaction with Ilan Abehassera took place on Async. I asked several questions in an audio message. He took the time to send me several audio messages to answer all my questions one by one. Reactions are all time-stamped, meaning that you can easily jump to the right audio message. And of course, Async attached a transcription to each audio message.

Of course, I couldn’t jump and ask followup questions as I would have during a live conversation. But it only took me a few minutes to record my questions, which is much faster than the usual 30-minute phone conversation.

The alternative would have been a list of questions in an email conversation. But Abehassera’s answers were more authentic and less polished than what they would have been in an email thread. Direct answers are always better than canned replies.

The startup raised $4 million from BaseCase, Box Group, Shrug, A*, Apollo Projects (the fund of the Altman brothers), Aglaé Ventures, Vivek Sodera, Alex Bouaziz and others.

I have to say that I was a bit skeptical about Async’s usefulness when I first signed up. But it’s a well-designed app that could definitely appeal to busy executives, investors or journalists who like to hear other people’s voices.

Now, Async’s success will depend on the effectiveness of the viral loop. When people click on an Async profile link and record an audio message, they have to create an account to send the message. Similarly, intensive Async users can synchronize their calendar with Async and choose to turn events into Async conversations. That could also lead to new signups. But it also creates a barrier to entry. It’s going to be interesting to see other people’s reaction to Async links.

Image Credits: Async

Async replaces work calls with asynchronous voice messages by Romain Dillet originally published on TechCrunch

Microsoft Workplace Analytics gathers data from Microsoft 365 to provide insights into how employees work and interact with one another. It shows how employees use technology to accomplish tasks, giving a better understanding of how every member of the team spends their time at work. This allows business leaders to identify and address process inefficiencies to increase productivity.

How does Workplace Analytics improve productivity?

Workplace Analytics extracts employee behavioral insights, such as communication patterns, collaboration habits, and workloads, from data gathered from emails, calendars, documents, and Microsoft 365 apps. It then uses this data to generate reports and recommendations for improving productivity.

Specifically, Workplace Analytics can:

• Identify inefficiencies – Workplace Analytics can help pinpoint areas where employees are spending too much or not enough time, which can help managers optimize workloads and ensure that resources are being used effectively.
• Improve collaboration – By analyzing communication patterns, Workplace Analytics can help identify communication bottlenecks and improve collaboration between employees or teams, which can lead to better productivity.
• Reduce distractions – Workplace Analytics can identify distractions affecting productivity, such as excessive email notifications or social media use, and provide recommendations for reducing these.
• Improve work-life balance – Workplace Analytics can help managers recognize employees who are overworked and provide recommendations for reducing their workload, which can improve work-life balance and prevent burnout.

Overall, Workplace Analytics can provide valuable insights into employee behavior and productivity, enabling organizations to optimize their resources and improve overall performance. However, it is important to note that businesses should use this data responsibly and ethically so that employee privacy is respected at all times.

What is Workplace Analytics for?

Workplace Analytics is designed to solve productivity and engagement problems a business may be experiencing.

Business leaders can leverage Workplace Analytics data to devise effective strategies for workplace productivity. For instance, if the data highlights that employees are spending most of their time in meetings, managers should look into ways to reduce the frequency or the length of meetings so that employees can spend more hours on other productive tasks. Human resources (HR) can also use this same data on working patterns and trends to identify burnout triggers. With these insights, HR personnel can recommend helpful solutions.

Businesses can also use Workplace Analytics to evaluate how their workers collaborate with internal and external contacts. For example, if you want to find out whether the weekly sales team meetings with particular vendors are aiding goal achievement or hindering success, simply draw up the relevant data in a few clicks. You can then assess whether these conversations could be more effectively directed elsewhere for greater collaboration potential and increased profits.

On top of these, Workplace Analytics can accurately measure employee engagement. With this data, managers can create a more motivated and productive workforce by ensuring that workloads are fairly distributed amongst employees or departments. And by being able to measure employee engagement, employers can identify areas of improvement in terms of working conditions and where additional training may be necessary.

Get the full benefits of Workplace Analytics by partnering with a trusted managed IT services provider like us. Our team of professionals specializes in the use and management of Microsoft programs and services, so you can trust that your business is in capable hands. Contact us today to get started!

Using data gathered from Microsoft 365, Workplace Analytics empowers organizations to track employee productivity with unprecedented clarity. This powerful software can track several employee behaviors, enabling business leaders to identify bottlenecks to develop powerful strategies that eliminate inefficiencies while increasing overall productivity. Read on to learn more about Workplace Analytics and how it can improve your team’s productivity.

How does Workplace Analytics improve productivity?

Workplace Analytics extracts employee behavioral insights, such as communication patterns, collaboration habits, and workloads, from data gathered from emails, calendars, documents, and Microsoft 365 apps. It then uses this data to generate reports and recommendations for improving productivity.

Specifically, Workplace Analytics can:

• Identify inefficiencies – Workplace Analytics can help pinpoint areas where employees are spending too much or not enough time, which can help managers optimize workloads and ensure that resources are being used effectively.
• Improve collaboration – By analyzing communication patterns, Workplace Analytics can help identify communication bottlenecks and improve collaboration between employees or teams, which can lead to better productivity.
• Reduce distractions – Workplace Analytics can identify distractions affecting productivity, such as excessive email notifications or social media use, and provide recommendations for reducing these.
• Improve work-life balance – Workplace Analytics can help managers recognize employees who are overworked and provide recommendations for reducing their workload, which can improve work-life balance and prevent burnout.

Overall, Workplace Analytics can provide valuable insights into employee behavior and productivity, enabling organizations to optimize their resources and improve overall performance. However, it is important to note that businesses should use this data responsibly and ethically so that employee privacy is respected at all times.

What is Workplace Analytics for?

Workplace Analytics is designed to solve productivity and engagement problems a business may be experiencing.

Business leaders can leverage Workplace Analytics data to devise effective strategies for workplace productivity. For instance, if the data highlights that employees are spending most of their time in meetings, managers should look into ways to reduce the frequency or the length of meetings so that employees can spend more hours on other productive tasks. Human resources (HR) can also use this same data on working patterns and trends to identify burnout triggers. With these insights, HR personnel can recommend helpful solutions.

Businesses can also use Workplace Analytics to evaluate how their workers collaborate with internal and external contacts. For example, if you want to find out whether the weekly sales team meetings with particular vendors are aiding goal achievement or hindering success, simply draw up the relevant data in a few clicks. You can then assess whether these conversations could be more effectively directed elsewhere for greater collaboration potential and increased profits.

On top of these, Workplace Analytics can accurately measure employee engagement. With this data, managers can create a more motivated and productive workforce by ensuring that workloads are fairly distributed amongst employees or departments. And by being able to measure employee engagement, employers can identify areas of improvement in terms of working conditions and where additional training may be necessary.

Get the full benefits of Workplace Analytics by partnering with a trusted managed IT services provider like us. Our team of professionals specializes in the use and management of Microsoft programs and services, so you can trust that your business is in capable hands. Contact us today to get started!

Imagine being able to monitor employee productivity, identify bottlenecks, and see where improvements could be made with a single business solution. Workplace Analytics is the tool that can do all that and more. In this article, you can learn more about this valuable tool from Microsoft and the wonders it can bring to the productivity levels of businesses across every size and industry.

How does Workplace Analytics improve productivity?

Workplace Analytics extracts employee behavioral insights, such as communication patterns, collaboration habits, and workloads, from data gathered from emails, calendars, documents, and Microsoft 365 apps. It then uses this data to generate reports and recommendations for improving productivity.

Specifically, Workplace Analytics can:

• Identify inefficiencies – Workplace Analytics can help pinpoint areas where employees are spending too much or not enough time, which can help managers optimize workloads and ensure that resources are being used effectively.
• Improve collaboration – By analyzing communication patterns, Workplace Analytics can help identify communication bottlenecks and improve collaboration between employees or teams, which can lead to better productivity.
• Reduce distractions – Workplace Analytics can identify distractions affecting productivity, such as excessive email notifications or social media use, and provide recommendations for reducing these.
• Improve work-life balance – Workplace Analytics can help managers recognize employees who are overworked and provide recommendations for reducing their workload, which can improve work-life balance and prevent burnout.

Overall, Workplace Analytics can provide valuable insights into employee behavior and productivity, enabling organizations to optimize their resources and improve overall performance. However, it is important to note that businesses should use this data responsibly and ethically so that employee privacy is respected at all times.

What is Workplace Analytics for?

Workplace Analytics is designed to solve productivity and engagement problems a business may be experiencing.

Business leaders can leverage Workplace Analytics data to devise effective strategies for workplace productivity. For instance, if the data highlights that employees are spending most of their time in meetings, managers should look into ways to reduce the frequency or the length of meetings so that employees can spend more hours on other productive tasks. Human resources (HR) can also use this same data on working patterns and trends to identify burnout triggers. With these insights, HR personnel can recommend helpful solutions.

Businesses can also use Workplace Analytics to evaluate how their workers collaborate with internal and external contacts. For example, if you want to find out whether the weekly sales team meetings with particular vendors are aiding goal achievement or hindering success, simply draw up the relevant data in a few clicks. You can then assess whether these conversations could be more effectively directed elsewhere for greater collaboration potential and increased profits.

On top of these, Workplace Analytics can accurately measure employee engagement. With this data, managers can create a more motivated and productive workforce by ensuring that workloads are fairly distributed amongst employees or departments. And by being able to measure employee engagement, employers can identify areas of improvement in terms of working conditions and where additional training may be necessary.

Get the full benefits of Workplace Analytics by partnering with a trusted managed IT services provider like us. Our team of professionals specializes in the use and management of Microsoft programs and services, so you can trust that your business is in capable hands. Contact us today to get started!

Google and Microsoft are locked in a head-to-head competition to bring as much generative AI to their productivity services as possible. Only days ahead of Microsoft’s “Future of Work” event, Google today announced a sweeping update to Workspace that will bring its generative AI models to virtually every part of its productivity suite, in addition to new developer solutions that will make Google’s foundation models, including its 540 billion-parameter PaLM large language model for multiturn chats, available to developers through an API and new low-code tools.

The caveats worth mentioning up front: For the time being, these new features will only be available for what Google calls “Trusted Testers.” It’s unclear when they will roll out to a wider audience. There’s also no pricing information available yet, though it sounds like at least a subset of these features will be available to consumers — including those on Google One plans. Basically, this is akin to Google’s LaMDA announcements a few weeks ago: they sound great, but it’ll be a while before you can try any of this in practice.

Image Credits: Google

Google’s plan is to bring its generative AI models to virtually every part of Workspace, be that writing emails for you in Gmail, helping you write (or rewrite) documents in Docs, formula generation in Sheets, capturing notes in Meet, or creating text, images, audio and video in Slides. If I had to take a guess, chances are Microsoft will announce very similar updates later this week.

“Google Workspace has been a longtime pioneer in enabling real-time collaboration, where human beings work together in real time in our products,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said during a press briefing ahead of today’s announcements. “This next phase is where we’re bringing human beings to be supported with an AI collaborator who is working in real time in concert with them.”

Image Credits: Google

Kurian said the company plans to rapidly roll out new features “every couple of weeks.” Throughout the year, trusted testers will get access to the first phase now, which will include getting help in writing emails in Gmail and documents in Docs. The core features here, for now, are getting help with writing and adjusting the tone and style of text. But as Google stressed, that’s just the start (at least for the Trusted Tester group).

Image Credits: Google

The promise here is that Google will eventually infuse AI into virtually every workflow in Workspace. This may mean summarizing an email conversation or brainstorming a Docs document. Of course, because so much of this is chat-based, Google Chat will also get support for some of these features, but so far, Google has only said that it will “enable workflows for getting things done in Chat.”

Image Credits: Google

Maybe the most impressive demo Google showed, though, was combining a lot of this text-based work with generative AI models for image and music generation — and using that to create a full-fledged presentation around it. “With Slides, we’re helping you generate insights and images from text in slides,” Kurian explained. “So you can use images from your rich content library, your brand images — if you’ve got your own company’s images — and private repositories, to generate these images and superpower every person building with slides, including generating soundtracks.”

Image Credits: Google

When asked about pricing, Kurian noted that the company plans to make “these solutions available broadly to our enterprises, to small businesses, to consumers — and even to people who subscribe to Google One.” And that’s pretty much all we know for now, though the mention of Google One is an interesting one, given that Google has been pushing its subscription service — which offers additional cloud storage space as its main benefit — to slowly include more features over time, including its VPN service.

It’s been no secret that Google was going all out with bringing generative AI to the widest possible range of its product. It’s just a bit of a shame that many of today’s announcements feel like vaporware, with only a select number of users getting access to it for now. And while features like Smart Compose and Smart Reply are obviously widely available (and quite useful) Google seemingly remains hesitant to put its latest AI technology into the hands of everyday users.

The strategy here, though, feels right. Google Workspace provides the largest canvas for the company to bring its various AI technologies to users and Gmail and Docs are the lowest-hanging fruit here, so it makes sense for Google to start there. It’s also where large text models shine, all while Google gets to sidestep the issues that Bing and ChatGPT face with their chatbots going off script (though Microsoft seems to have gotten this under control for now) and without any risk to its search business.

Google goes all-in on bringing AI to Workspace by Frederic Lardinois originally published on TechCrunch

Enterprise project management and team collaboration unicorn monday.com is digging deeper into the Asia-Pacific with the opening of its new regional headquarters in Sydney. Founded in Israel, monday.com opened its Sydney HQ two and a half years after it first launched in Australia in June 2020.

Monday.com recently marked a 76% year-over-year growth in the number of its employees in Australia, prompting the company to open its own space, said its vice president of Asia Pacific and Japan Dean Swan.

The company now has 13,000 customers in Australia, including Canva, Tourism Australia, Officeworks and Kmart. The number of its customers in Australia and New Zealand grew 122% year-over-year. Monday.com’s global revenue increased 68% year-over-year, and in Australia alone it saw about a 50% growth in revenue year-over-year.

In terms of localizing monday.com for the Australian market, Swan said it is prioritizing sectors that are especially relevant in the country, including retail, marketing, project and portfolio management, FSI and manufacturing. It also has local channel partners like Work Perfect and Upstream.

In addition to Australia, monday.com is focused in New Zealand, Singapore and Japan for regional growth. It also has an office in Japan, where its customers include Eisai Co. and Sony Biz Networks Corporation.

The opening of monday.com’s APAC headquarters comes about a year after it opened its first European headquarters in London, with plans to increase its headcount there to as much as 150 over the next several years.

Monday.com opens its APAC headquarters in Sydney by Catherine Shu originally published on TechCrunch