Speed Tip - Selecting Text

On the subject of how to get things done as quickly as possible, here is the first Speed Tip.

Increase Speed while copying text

The web is full of tedious work, from having to manually input eight thousand products into a database to converting a site into a new format. Yes, it is totally impossible to work on the Internet and not end up having to do some extremely tedious work at one time or another.

Take today for an example: I had 70 straight HTML pages that I was converting into a PHP-included layout where the page's title, meta description and meta keywords were all variables. So I had to go to the page source, copy the title, go to my new page, and paste the title... go to the page source, copy the meta tag... etc., etc., etc.

While selecting text (the "<title>" for example), you normally have to go the start the line (right after "<title>"), drag to the end of the line (right before "</title>" and then copy.

Heres the Speed Trick
If you double click on the first word, it will automatically select that entire word. If you hold down that second click, you can drag to the last word, and select each word at a time (; not each letter at a time). This way you only need to go to the first word and drag to the last word to make your selection.

"Whoa.. big whoop... save twenty pixels of mouse movement...." No, it's better than that, you don't have to waste time trying to get right to the front of the word. It gives you a much larger target, and thus it takes less time to "aim."

-Ashton Sanders

Website Developers - Speed

Regardless of your profession, your speed and ability to get things done quickly will make or break you. This is especially the case in the field of website design and development where almost everyone has a story of working with a "really slow" website designer, web master, etc.

At Websites in a Flash, I always am working on improving my speed no matter what the project.

"But you get paid by the hour. Who cares how long you take?" - Lazy

An sloppy and unethical business man will have this opinion, but a website designer who's goal is to create high-quality, professional websites on or before the targeted completion date won't care.

I feel that speed is one of the most important factor (seconded only by quality). That is why I call my business Websites in a Flash!

-Keep it moving
-Ashton Sanders