Features You Just Figured Out (Car, Tech, etc)

[Jennshark]

I've owned my Suzuki SUV for six years and just last week figured out that the little tabs under the rearview mirror are switches for nice map-reading lights!

Last winter I found the "secret pockets" in the LL Bean coat I've had for 14 years.

[swampbear]

Well, I think I sorta kinda understand how to send a text message on my cell phone now. I still don't wanna, but I feel like I could if I did wanna... Taking pictures, however, still confuses me. :D

[Omegaman]

I don't have any but I would like to share , when you buy a vehicle, read the owners manual. If it's used, get one and read it. So many features are built into vehicles these days that there is no way of guessing what they are. I work for a new car dealer and still, every vehicle my wife or I buy, I read the manual. I have found features that I didn't even know were there. Owners manuals are relatively cheap and are chock full of information you need to know about your vehicle. Please Jennshark don't think I'm picking on you, because you bring up an excellent point that is missed by almost everyone I see purchase a vehicle.

[Rick]

Agreed Omegaman like I often say RTFM. You will be amazed what you find out.

[Marlitharn]

The other night I discovered that I could hit F11 in Internet Explorer and hide all my toolbars.

And I only recently found the little switches that turn on my oven light and over the stove light on an appliance I've owned for almost a year.

And I'm embarrased to admit how old I was when my husband showed me the little crumb-emptying trapdoor on the bottom of the toaster.

[rowrrbazzle]

Last winter I found the "secret pockets" in the LL Bean coat I've had for 14 years.They're very effective, obviously. :)

[Sunspace]

Agreed Omegaman like I often say RTFM. You will be amazed what you find out.Thank you for supporting my real-life job. (I write manuals. :) )

[racer72]

My wife and I have owned a 1997 Ford Taurus for 5 years. A few months ago I was cleaning out the trunk and found the 6 disc CD changer located behind a carpeted panel. We always figured the CD changer button on the stereo was on all the Taurus stereos.

[levdrakon]

Mac computers come with a handy little eject button on the upper right of the keyboard. Nice idea, but it never works! What a useless key. I've complained about it on the boards before, I think it was in the "most useless key" thread.

So today I'm ejecting a disc and just for giggles decide to use the eject button and hold it down for a moment or two. Dag! The damn button does work. What's it been now, three, four years of thinking it doesn't work? :smack:

[Hockey Monkey]

I had been the owner of a 2000 Saturn L-Series for several years, and was in Florida to visit the in-laws when I discovered a feature on my car. I was in Gainesville, mid-July, in the parking lot of the Harley Dealership waiting for my now ex-husband to shop for yet another f-ing HD t-shirt. Of course it is hotter than Satan's anus in Gainesville in the middle of July, but since I didn't feel like wandering around like a dork in the dealership, I waited in the car with the A/C running full blast. It was fairly cool in there. Since I was bored, I started playing with buttons and hit the one on the climate control panel with the circular arrow. Imagine my suprise when the A/C air suddenly got much colder! Now imagine the sense of stoopid that washed over me when I realized that not only had I owned this car for 3 years, but that this button is on every car. :smack: The rest of the trip was more enjoyable (despite the fact that I was with my nimrod ex-husband).

For anyone else who might not know what this button is: It's the recirculate button. When your A/C is on recirculate, it uses the air that is already in the cabin (which is already cooled), instead trying to cool hot air drawn from outside. It's good to get fresh air in the cabin of course, but when it's that hot, your A/C doesn't have to work as hard to keep you comfy.

[1010011010]

Not something I just found out, but the joy it seems to bring people who didn't know about it makes it worth mentioning.

You know how you can TAB through web forms?
SHIFT+TAB will tab backwards.

[Barrington]

You know how you can TAB through web forms?
SHIFT+TAB will tab backwards.Not just web forms - it's a Windows standard, and applies to any decently-written Windows application that uses forms.

[Rick]

Thank you for supporting my real-life job. (I write manuals. :) )
A well written manual is a joy to behold. You being a doper, I know your manuals are the best out there.

[Jennshark]

They're very effective, obviously. :)

Apparently, yes ;)

My SIL and BIL, who live like pigs, "found" a 1/2 bath they forgot they had when they did one of their semi-annual shovel-out-the-sty festivals.

[fishbicycle]

I've been using the same audio editor since 1998, under various design and name changes. Last night was the first time I ever had occasion to use its vertical zoom. Normally, I use horizontal zoom, to get a close-up view of a part of the waveform. The one I was working on was quite low in volume, and I discovered that if you hit the vertical zoom, it expands the view of the waveform to fill the screen top-to-bottom! I never had to use it before, but now I know what it's for!

[Ichbin Dubist]

My SIL and BIL, who live like pigs, "found" a 1/2 bath they forgot they had when they did one of their semi-annual shovel-out-the-sty festivals.

Not to be nosy, but I'd like to hear more on this. They lost a lavatory? That's epic.

[Zsofia]

Not something I just found out, but the joy it seems to bring people who didn't know about it makes it worth mentioning.

You know how you can TAB through web forms?
SHIFT+TAB will tab backwards.
Oh, wow. I love you, man!

People are always shocked as hell when I show them either "Printable View" links or "Print Selection" on the print menu, but I'm sure all Dopers know about that stuff.

[Eleanor of Aquitaine]

My SIL and BIL, who live like pigs, "found" a 1/2 bath they forgot they had when they did one of their semi-annual shovel-out-the-sty festivals.I know a family who found a piano in their house they didn't know they had.

I drove my car for years before I found out that you could roll down the windows remotely by holding down the unlock button on the remote. It's nice for letting out some heat on hot days.

[Sunspace]

A well written manual is a joy to behold. You being a doper, I know your manuals are the best out there.Thank you! :: blush ::

[Lionne]

I found out recently that holding CTRL and SHIFT and using the up or down arrows will highlight a column of items or paragraph. No more mouse-clicking!

[Ferd Burfel]

Not something I just found out, but the joy it seems to bring people who didn't know about it makes it worth mentioning.

You know how you can TAB through web forms?
SHIFT+TAB will tab backwards.

Did you know that ALT + back arrow is the same as clicking the "Back" button on your browser?

[Jennshark]

Not to be nosy, but I'd like to hear more on this. They lost a lavatory? That's epic.

They bought their house 16 years ago and it had a full bath and one with just a potty and a sink off the living room. The years came and went, they and their kids stacked more and more crap on some shelves they had put across the potty door and it gradually faded from memory. They rediscovered the long-lost potty when they re-carpeted and had to dumpster bunches of shit. It was literally a "wow, we forgot we had a potty in here!"

Pigs. Utter, filthy people. I can't stand to be in their house for more than five minutes and then I have to go home and shower afterward. In the outside world they look perfectly normal; however, their house interior is like one of the bad ones on the BBC series "How Clean is Your House?"

[StGermain]

racer72 - Can you tell me where your CD changer was? I recently bought a used Mercury Sable wagon. The control panel looks like there should be a 6-disc changer, and the manual said it would be in the cargo area on the right. But darned if I can find it!

StG

[Leaper]

Netscape (and, I believe, other Mozilla-based web browsers with an e-mail reader) store your inbox as a single text-based file in a particular directory, making it great for archiving. For years, I struggled with clearing enough room on a single CD-R to back it and everything else up (the INBOX file was over 400 MB), and wondering why it seemed to stay that big even after I deleted a bunch of the e-mails.

Then I discovered that Netscape (and Mozilla-based browsers) don't actually delete mails you delete from a folder - only hide it from view. THEN I discovered this command called "compress folders" that clear out all those hidden mails.

That 400MB+ file immediately and quietly shrunk down to a few KB.

[Morgyn]

Thank you for supporting my real-life job. (I write manuals. :) )Ditto (so do I).

[TheVanishingGirl]

Sorry if this doesn't really fit, but I am still angry that I figured out how to do cruise control on my Honda Civic AFTER I drove from San Jose to Las Vegas and back. :smack:

I wanted to turn right back around and do it right.

[Philster]

My wife drove her Jetta for eight years with the seat all the way down at its lowest setting. One time, she actually drove while I was a passenger and she complained about the seat height, and I asked her why she didn't raise it. She looked confused.

She was absolutely stunned when I showed her how to raise it. Two minutes after that I was showing her how to use the tilt wheel, which she also managed to not know about for seven years.

She also though that to cook popcorn in a microwave you had to use the 'popcorn' button. She thought this did something special until I showed her it just used a conservative time setting to keep from burning the popcorn.

[Misnomer]

Timely thread for me: just two days ago I discovered that my car, which I've had for 2.5 years, has little joysticks for adjusting the side mirrors from inside the car. :smack:

This is only the 3rd car I've ever had, and the last two did not have little joysticks: the side mirrors had to be adjusted manually, outside of the car. I guess I just assumed that this car was the same way, but still I felt very unobservant when I finally noticed them.

[Whammo]

My wife and I have owned a 1997 Ford Taurus for 5 years. A few months ago I was cleaning out the trunk and found the 6 disc CD changer located behind a carpeted panel. We always figured the CD changer button on the stereo was on all the Taurus stereos.

:eek:

My Taurus has a cd changer button on the radio! I'm gonna have to check my trunk!

[Max Torque]

I learned this trick last week: you know how Firefox remembers stuff you enter in web fields? Like, you type "st" and a little menu lets you pick "steve johnson" so you don't have to type it all?

Well, with some services, those autofill menus get overloaded or get stuff in them that you don't want others to see. I used to think there was no way to get rid of them other than to clear all offline content, losing all my handy history in the bargain.

But, I just learned, you can selectively delete the stuff you don't want by typing the first letters, scrolling with the arrow keys down to the entry you want to delete, and pressing SHIFT + DELETE. Yay! Now people won't see "goat porn" on the list when I'm trying to Google "Good Times starring Jimmy Walker"!

[hobscrk777]

I own a Taurus as well and thought that the CD button on the dashboard was just for a feature that wasn't in my model. Your post gave me hope though. I rooted around in the trunk but couldn't find the cd player. The spare tire wasn't secured completely, so it wasn't a total loss though.

Could I trouble you to give me a more thorough description, or perhaps a picture or two if you're looking for something to do? Thanks a bunch.

[Telperien]

Mom and I are going to look for the CD changer in her Taurus later, as I told her about this thread. If we can't find it, though, I'm coming back to this thread.

[Terminus Est]

Did you know that ALT + back arrow is the same as clicking the "Back" button on your browser?
Or you could just press BACKSPACE.

[SSG Schwartz]

Or you could just press BACKSPACE.

And to return from the page back, you can press SHIFT+BACKSPACE

Sgt Schwartz

[UncleRojelio]

One day someone showed me a shortcut for filling out webfroms that contain a drop-down list of states. Highlite the drop-down and type 'tt' ( for Texas anyway) and then just hit enter.

[el_nombre]

I own a Honda Civic 99 and I would always lock the door with my key because I couldn't push the lock down on the inside if the door was open. A friend of mine who's a car salesman told me that all you had to do was pull the handle out halfway while you push the lock in. It's some sort of safety feature that prevents (helps) you from leaving your keys inside.


When I was little I had a few Voltron toys. After years of playing with the yellow lion figure I realized that the "ears" opened up revealing a pair of laser beam guns. That was good day.

[Cowgirl Jules]

I was sitting at work, watching a job this week, and was bored enough to read my owner's manual.

And lo! There's a code to turn off the seatbelt dinger! O frabjous day!

So I hopped around to the driver's seat and started following directions, turning the truck on and off, clicking and unclicking in the specified order.

Nuts. It didn't work. I'll just have to continue to ignore it. (I don't wear my seatbelt on sites, there's too much getting in and out.)

[Max Torque]

One day someone showed me a shortcut for filling out webfroms that contain a drop-down list of states. Highlite the drop-down and type 'tt' ( for Texas anyway) and then just hit enter.
If that was on the board, was that me? I remember giving that tidbit of advice to someone way back when....if it was, it's good to know that I can be useful once in a while. I must show this thread to my wife....

[groo]

<<snip>>
But, I just learned, you can selectively delete the stuff you don't want by typing the first letters, scrolling with the arrow keys down to the entry you want to delete, and pressing SHIFT + DELETE. Yay! Now people won't see "goat porn" on the list when I'm trying to Google "Good Times starring Jimmy Walker"!Thank you.

In Firefox, if you hit CTRL+Tab, you'll cycle through all of the tabs on the current window. I was looking for that feature for a long time, but when I found it, it was by accident.

I own a Honda Civic 99 and I would always lock the door with my key because I couldn't push the lock down on the inside if the door was open. A friend of mine who's a car salesman told me that all you had to do was pull the handle out halfway while you push the lock in. It's some sort of safety feature that prevents (helps) you from leaving your keys inside.Beware! That little habit has forced me to use my AAA card on several occasions.

I was out shopping with a friendgirl once, and she bought a ton of stuff including a tall lamp. When we got back to her car, I reached into the trunk, pulled the lever and folded her rear seat down. She was amazed; she had no idea her rear seat could do that.

[Thudlow Boink]

I recently bought a used Mercury Sable wagon. The control panel looks like there should be a 6-disc changerYeah, mine looks like that too, but there's no CD changer in the trunk (although presumably I could get one installed if I really wanted one). I asked the dealer when I bought it, just to be sure!

[Mama Tiger]

I use WordPerfect for work, and several times I have accidentally hit some combination of keys that moves the cursor back to the beginning of the last sentence. I have tried and tried and tried to replicate it, but every time I try I can't seem to do it. I do vaguely remember once, when I was working really late and rushing to finish a job and was so sleepy I could hardly hold my eyes open, I actually replicated it on purpose. But did I write it down? Of course not. And of course I can't find anything in the help files about it. :smack:

Also, a few times I've accidentally hit some combination of keys that instantly minimizes everything I have open and takes me straight to my desktop. Does anyone know what that might be? Because I've not been able to replicate it deliberately.

[1010011010]

Also, a few times I've accidentally hit some combination of keys that instantly minimizes everything I have open and takes me straight to my desktop. Does anyone know what that might be? Because I've not been able to replicate it deliberately.Keyboard shortcuts for Windows (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/126449)

Windows + M will minimize all windows and show the desktop.
SHIFT + Windows + M returns to condition prior to being WinM'd.

Meaning you can WinM your IDE, open a couple of other windows to look some some arcane spec, IM the local guru to ask about something, then SHIFTWinM to bring back up the IDE windows in their exact state and get back to work.

Or, you can walk in on someone pretending to work on a hastily brought up spreadsheet and SHIFTWinM to see what they were really doing. But that would be Evil™.

And the WordPerfect trick sounds like the Home key. Nothing spooky.

[Mama Tiger]

Thanks, 1010011010. That Windows trick is exactly what I was thinking of, considering where my fingers were at the time I accidentally did it.

But the WP trick definitely doesn't involve the Home key. I only wish it did. Believe me, I've tried every variation of that I could think of. It's something arcane that I hopefully will one day rediscover.

[panache45]

I own an '02 PT Cruiser. There's a lever under the driver's seat that enables you to manually scoot the seat forward and backward. Well last summer I took a long trip to the Southwest U.S., and my rental car was an '06 PT Cruiser. There had been many changes since my car, some I liked and some I didn't. But a big problem was that the driver's seat was way too far forward for me. I could still drive, but the steering wheel was practically right up against me. And there was no longer a lever under the seat to adjust this. For the entire 12 days I was cursing the Chrysler engineers who removed the lever from the new models. Finally on the last day of my trip, I was returning the car to the rental agency, and as I was getting out, I accidentally hit a little button on the side of the seat, and it moved back.

Yeah, read the manual. :smack:

[Telperien]

We cannot find the CD changer and it is driving us all crazy. My mother is convinced that the button is there just to lead us on.

[Barrington]

Thanks, 1010011010. That Windows trick is exactly what I was thinking of, considering where my fingers were at the time I accidentally did it.

But the WP trick definitely doesn't involve the Home key. I only wish it did. Believe me, I've tried every variation of that I could think of. It's something arcane that I hopefully will one day rediscover.Maybe Win and D? That takes you to your desktop, just using your left hand.

[Triskadecamus]

I just found out yesterday that <Ctr> "+" and <Ctr> "-" make Mozilla Firefox change text size! Way cool.

Tris
-------------------------
"You can't always get what you want." ~ M. Jagger/K. Richards ~

[Queen Bruin]

Thank you.

In Firefox, if you hit CTRL+Tab, you'll cycle through all of the tabs on the current window. I was looking for that feature for a long time, but when I found it, it was by accident.


Awesome I have been wondering about that for forever!

ALT+TAB will shift between open programs. Keyboard shortcuts were the only useful things I ever got out of my ex-boyfriend.

I just found out yesterday that <Ctr> "+" and <Ctr> "-" make Mozilla Firefox change text size! Way cool.


Alternately, you can use CTRL and the scroll wheel on the mouse if you have one so outfitted for the same effect.

[levdrakon]

On a Mac using Safari I'm accustomed to highlighting a word and hitting command+shift+colon to spell check, but found out by mistake if you hit command+shift+L it automatically opens a google search on what you've highlighted in a new window. Very handy for looking up obscure words and phrases that crop up from time to time.

[Cyberhwk]

In my first job as a teenager I ran a graphics board for a local minor league baseball team.

Lady that ran it before me taught me all she knew, which ended up not being much.

It was TWO FULL YEARS before I figured out there was a "center" button. For two years I just took her word for it not existing and had to eyeball it, sometimes rewriting it 2-3 times. Also the ability to make multiple slides and advance them step by step was a feature I was assured didn't exist.

[Rocketeer]

I was sitting at work, watching a job this week, and was bored enough to read my owner's manual.

And lo! There's a code to turn off the seatbelt dinger! O frabjous day!

So I hopped around to the driver's seat and started following directions, turning the truck on and off, clicking and unclicking in the specified order.

Nuts. It didn't work. I'll just have to continue to ignore it. (I don't wear my seatbelt on sites, there's too much getting in and out.)

On our Miata, the electrical connector to the Annoying Buzzer "fell off" shortly after we bought it. Someday I'm gonna have to fix that. Or not.

[Shoeless]

I had my Hyundai for about a year before I realized that "variable speed wipers" actually had a double meaning. Not only can I adjust the speed of the wipers with the wiper controller, but I discovered one drizzly day that when I hit about 40mph, the wiper speed will automatically kick up a notch!