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By Phil Ball

Q: I love living in this country and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. But it is a pain when I’m online signing up for something and the form only has a dropdown list instead of letting you type and I have to scroll a long way down the list to find the United States. Is there any easier way to do this?

A: Fortunately, there is such a way. I don’t like having to scroll all the way to the bottom of a long list of names of countries to finally get to the United States. I could have typed it in faster. I’ve learned that if I type in the first letter of the country, a ‘u’ in this case, it will jump down the list to the first entry under that letter.

You’ll probably see another country that starts with ‘u’ such as Uganda so just keep tapping the ‘u’ key and it will scroll down the list through the countries that start with ‘u’ until you get to the United States. Either double-click the one you want or press the ENTER key when it is highlighted to make it so.

Note that this works on most any kind of list whether you are online or just looking at a list of files on your computer. Typing the first letter can move you way down the list. I even use it for Arizona to get past Alabama, Alaska, and a few others. I just keep tapping the ‘a’ key.

Published: Courier 8/7/11 - Page 5C