Mr. Modem: Being an “entrenched transactor” and outsmarting websites with tiny fonts

I received a letter from my bank that referred to “entrenched transactors,” along with the announcement that the bank is going to start charging a fee if I don’t agree to receive my bank statements online. What is an “entrenched transactor”?

In banking-industry parlance, “entrenched transactors” are people who refuse (or are reluctant) to use cost-saving ATMs, preferring to deal only with more expensive human bank tellers, or people who prefer receiving paper statements via U.S. mail (thus costing the bank more money) rather than reconciling statements online.

Sometimes when viewing various websites, I will encounter one that has tiny fonts that make it difficult to read. Everything else is fine, so I don’t want to enlarge the fonts on everything I view, but is there some way to temporarily increase the size of just those fonts?

If you encounter a site with hideously tiny fonts, courtesy of some thoughtless 20-something Web designer with disgustingly perfect vision, hold down the CTRL key and move your mouse wheel. If you don’t have a mouse wheel, hold down the CTRL key and press the plus (+) key to increase the size of what appears on screen, or the minus or hyphen (-) key to reduce the size.

There has to be a faster way to copy and paste than to highlight something, then right-click and select COPY? Help!

The ability to copy and paste is one of the most basic skills every computer user should know. There are multiple ways to do this, but the fast-and-simple one that I prefer is to highlight (select) the text to be copied by holding down the left mouse button and moving the cursor over the text, or simply press CTRL + A to select everything. With the text selected, press CTRL + C to copy. It will appear as if nothing happens, but your selected text is copied to the Windows Clipboard.

Navigate to your destination location — wherever you want to paste the selected text — and press CTRL + V. Your selected text will pop right into the location of your cursor.

How can I get the programs I use on my computer to run on my tablet? I tried copying the .exe files, but nothing happens. What’s the problem?

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the programs you are running on your computer aren’t designed to run on your tablet. Windows, Apple’s iOS and Android are three separate operating systems. Your tablet can perform many of the functions that a home computer user can, such as Web browsing, email, videos, games, word processing, etc., but it won’t perform those tasks by using your PC software.

To find programs (called “apps”) for an Android device, go to the Google Play Store; to find apps for Apple products, go to Apple’s App Store; to find apps for the Microsoft Surface, go to the Windows Store. In most cases you will find app versions of programs you currently use on your computer.

This story was originally published March 24, 2015 at 7:00 AM with the headline "Mr. Modem: Being an “entrenched transactor” and outsmarting websites with tiny fonts."