I received an email the other day from a client who has been receiving my weekly articles for years. She was frustrated with my new article “format” because it was difficult to read. To paraphrase her email, she stated:

“Rob, when you use all caps for your bullet points, they are very difficult to read. I send your weekly blogs to people in my department and it would be so much easier to read if you didn’t use all caps! Could you please make that change? Below is a snapshot of what parts of your article looks like when I receive it.”

She was right; it looks terrible. BUT, I didn’t do it … her browser did it. I wasn’t using all caps, but for some strange reason, using an old browser caused this to happen. Instead of trying to explain what was happening in an email, I called her. I asked her to use her Google Chrome browser to view my article and she was shocked that the problem was instantly corrected.

She had no idea that an older browser would do that; a lot of people don’t. Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Edge browsers all work great … but an old browser on Internet Explorer can do some strange things. I learned a long time ago to always be thankful for the person who doesn’t tell you what you WANT to hear but, will tell you what you NEED to hear. I am so thankful my client brought this to my attention, so I could pass it along to others who might be having the same problem.

Here are a couple of other things that might surprise you about computers.

According to a statistic published in The Atlantic, 90% of computer users don't know what Ctrl+F can do. If you’re looking for a specific word on a web page, instead of scanning it yourself, all you need to do is press Ctrl+F and type the word you’re looking for and your computer will highlight the word on your screen. Very cool!

May I suggest you type in “Computer Shortcuts” in your Google bar and you will find all kinds of great computer time saving shortcuts. Here are a few tricks for you YouTube watchers. Press the “K” key to pause the video, the “J” key to go backwards, and the “L” key to go forward.

Post it notes are great for removing crumbs from between the keys on your keyboard. There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with: orange, purple, and silver! Honey is the only food that doesn’t spoil and celery has negative calories! It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery has in it to begin with. I learned all of these today researching this article. Yes, it is true, we don’t know what we don’t know … so now “WE” know.