From The Tips Box: Quick Reboots, Facebook Tags

Readers offer their best tips for restarting your machine mid-boot, tagging people on Facebook and Google+, and setting reminders that pop up every time you start an application.

Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons — maybe they’re a bit too niche, maybe we couldn’t find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn’t fit it in — the tip didn’t make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favourites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or use the contact box on the right.

Pres Ctrl+Alt+Del To Reboot Your Computer Before It Has Booted

KBS shares a time-saving tip for PC users:

If you need to restart your computer mid-boot — whether it’s because you picked the wrong OS at your dual boot menu, if you missed hitting F8 for Safe Mode, F2 for Boot Options, or F10 for BIOS settings — you can quickly press Ctrl+Alt+Del to start the booting process again. Saves a lot of time over waiting for Windows or Linux to turn on, log in, and restart to get back to your selection menu.

Use Either “+” Or “@” To Tag People On Facebook And Google+

The inqusitive guy shows us that Facebook and Google+ are taking from each other’s playbooks:

Just discovered this, You can now, apparently, tag anyone with “+” followed by the name, on Facebook and of course on Google+. Although “@” definitely works.

So on Facebook and Google+ you can use “@” or “+”; both work. Twitter still uses only “@”, though. Convenient if you’ve got one pinned in your muscle memory.

Give Yourself Audible Reminders When Launching Apps

Java-Princess wrote a script to speak certain text for you whenever you launch an app:

Here’s something that I got the idea for last night.

Using a bit of simple VBScript you can create smart shortcuts, or smartcuts that talk to you and alert you or remind you to do things when you start an app, such as change the default printer.

Enter the text in line one you want to be spoken when you click the shortcut, enter the path to the app in line two, and save to your desktop as a vbs file:

message="Change the default printer to black and white"

app=”C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe”

WScript.CreateObject("WScript.shell").exec app

WScript.CreateObject(“SAPI.SpVoice”).Speak message