OC-IT

There are times when you may want to capture what is currently being shown on your iPad’s screen. That’s easy to do on an iPad. Simply press the Home button and then the Sleep/Wake button simultaneously.

If you own an Android phone, you can use it as a substitute for an external drive or a USB key. You can load files into your phone simply by plugging it in to a PC with a USB cable, then tapping on “Mount” when you are prompted by the system.

If you are using Windows Gadgets (or those small mini-applications that are embedded on your desktop that show interesting things like the latest news, weather updates, or sports scores), you may sometimes wish you can just quickly hide them to declutter your workspace.

Have you ever sent an email and then immediately regretted sending it? If you are using Gmail as your mail client, you can do just that with an interesting but buried option in Gmail settings

Do you prefer Bing over Google but like Google’s sparse but fast loading page better? With this tip you can get the best of both worlds.

Did you know that on iOS5 on the iPad, you can actually split the keyboard into two? This can be useful for typing with your thumbs if you are holding the iPad with both hands. To do so, press and hold the keyboard icon on the on-screen keyboard.

Want to do a quick currency conversion? You can use Google for that. Simply type in the amount in the original currency, then the currency you want to convert it to

The Mac introduced the concept of using multiple “Desktops” (previously called “Spaces”) using Lion’s Mission Control application. Using Mission Control, you can specify which desktop applications will automatically open in which desktops by default. To set your preferences, select and right-click (or ctrl+click or two-finger click) on an application in the Dock, then select the “Options” menu in the resulting pop-over.

If you use an iPad, there is a switch conveniently located at the right side of the device which you can set to either lock the orientation of the screen or to mute the audio when you slide the switch — depending on your preference.

If you, for example, install multiple media player applications on your Android device, you’ll find that Android will give you the choice of which application to launch by default when you open a media file or document. However, you may later want to change this default setting. To do so, go to Settings > Applications > Manage applications and then press the “All” tab.