Windows Phone Tips and Tricks

Go to your Pictures tile. Select the Picture you want as the background. Press and Hold on the picture. Then select Change background. You can then adjust the picture by zooming or panning. You can also allow the phone to randomly choose a picture by pressing, holding and selecting ‘Change it for me’

If you want to type a word with a capital letter, you can press and hold on the Shift key, then slide your finger to the letter and then release. This saves having to press Shift then pressing the letter.

The same thing works for numbers – press and hold the &123 key, then slide your finger to a number and release. The keyboard will then return to the Alphabetical keyboard so you don’t need to toggle between the two

While viewing a website, press the 3 dots at the bottom of the screen. Then click on Find on page. Then search for the word you want to find

To add Google Calendar to your phone, go to Settings – Emails – Google email.

From here you can sync your emails, contacts and calendar to the phone.

You can use your smartphone as an Xbox controller.

First, download and install the Xbox SmartGlass App (formerly known as My Xbox Live). Once this is installed go to Xbox hub and make sure your Xbox is turned on and connected to your WiFi router. Then make sure the phone is connected to the same WiFi network.

If that is all setup, then the App will sign you in and you can start controlling your Xbox with the phone.

To soft reset your phone, hold down the power button for a few seconds.

Then wait for 5-10 seconds and hold down the power button again to restart the phone.

If the phone is really frozen, then try holding down the power button for around 10 seconds to turn it off.

If the volume of your friends’ posts, comments and tweets becomes too much, you can filter them.

Go to Start, then flick left to the Applications list. Then press Settings – Applications – People. Then select Only show posts from people visible on my contact list.

Alternatively, you can go to Start – People. Then flick to What’s new – All accounts. Then select the account you want to view posts from.

To share a website with a friend, then browse to the website you want to share.

Then Press and Hold on a hyperlink, then select Share. You can then choose how to share the site.

To pair your phone with Bluetooth speakers or a headset via Bluetooth, then start from the homescreen and scroll to the right.

Then choose Settings – Bluetooth. Then slide the Bluetooth to On. The phone will then scan for nearby Bluetooth devices. It may ask for a password for the device. Try entering 0000 or 1234.

Please note that this may not work for all devices.

To maximise the viewable area when viewing websites, then you can rotate the phone to landscape mode.

This has the effect of hiding the menu toolbar and address bar so that you can see more of the website.