Using Win key + arrows you can control the window you are working on. Win + Left makes the window occupy the left half of the screen and Win + right the right part. Especially good if you want to have windows side by side. With Win + Up you can maximize the window and Win + down minimizes it.

An issue that could be really frustrating in some computers is switching between screens. Now you can just hit Win + P and a panel will appear with all the possible cases. Also if you are a multi monitor fan then you can now send windows to other monitors by hitting Win + Shift + Left or Win + Shift + Right depending on which monitor you want your window to go.

Hitting Win + Home will minimize all your Windows except for the one you are working on. This shortcut is useful especially when you are trying to focus on a window and you have many other applications running in the background. However I usually work on maximized windows so I don’t use this shortcut frequently.

The best tip for launching apps from the new taskbar is that you can hit Win + the number of the application you want to launch. I used to have keyboard shortcuts for each application on Windows Vista but now I have docked all the applications I need so it’s very easy to launch them using this shortcut.

Should you need to see what’s happening on your desktop, just hold down Win + Space. Also if you have mupltiple windows of the same applications which are grouped at the new taskbar you can hold down Control key and start hitting the icon of the application at the taskbar. This will start displaying the windows one by one just like Alt + TAB does but only for that specific application.

The fastest way to the taskbar is the shortcut key Win + T which moves focus to the taskbar. Then you can navigate with the arrow keys to open / select programs.

Why such an application is so important?

If you think about the future, such an application can create a social network of people walking out (virtually) on the streets. That means a virtual world. And even if lively.com failed, it’s not hard to imagine that a virtual world can be built over Google Streetview (and Google Earth in general), with people walking everywhere, driving cars, interacting with each other and even placing advertisements. So the virtual world will be a representation of the real world enhanced with virtual objects like people, add on images, files, etc. This is so powerful because people are familiar with the real world, not virtual ones. Having the exact same environment of the the real world on the computer and the ability to interact with others there, will create new opportunities in several areas including travel, real estate, education and many other industries.

Ctrl+B toggles the bookmarks bar on and off.

Shift+Escape opens Google Chrome’s Task Manager.

Ctrl+L to move your cursor to the address bar. Also works with ALT+D.

Ctrl+K moves your cursor to the address bar to enter a Google search.

Ctrl+T opens a new tab.

Ctrl+N opens a new window.

Ctrl+Shift+T opens the last closed tab.

Ctrl+Shift+N opens a new window in “Incognito Mode.”

Ctrl+Tab cycles through open tabs. 

Ctrl+Shift+Tab reverse cycles through open tabs.

Ctrl+J opens the Downloads tab.

Ctrl+W closes the current tab.

Ctrl+R refreshes the current page. Also works with F5.

Ctrl+H opens the History tab.

Alt+Home loads your homepage.

Ctrl+1 through 9 switches to a particular open tab position.

Ctrl++, Ctrl+-, Ctrl+0 Enlarges, reduces, and restores default text sizes, respectively.

I also had a chance to try the beta version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 and I would say that there is a similarity of the approach with what Microsoft calls “Accelerators” and what Google calls apps. What is certain is that our internet experience will keep getting better!

p.s. There is a nice comic from Google at http://blogoscoped.com/google-chrome/ showing more information about the upcoming browser.