If you’re using Windows Phone 7, one of the things you’ll notice pretty quickly are the little notification overlays that appear over the top part of the screen. These notifications arrive when Wi-Fi is enabled and you come in contact with a new wireless network, when SMS/MMS messages arrive, and in other situations.

A typical Windows Phone 7 notification (at the top).

Sometimes, these notifications can be annoying. For example, if you’re using the IE Mobile web browser and a notification pops up, it obscures the address bar, preventing you from accessing the Stop/Refresh button or editing the text in the address bar. And if you don’t know how to get rid of the notification, you have to sit there and wait until it times out and disappears on its own.

But there’s a better way: To immediately close a notification, simply swipe your finger across it from left to right. Voila!

This particular tip does not appear in Windows Phone 7 Secrets, which, to me at least, makes it even more valuable. I checked the prototype phone just to see whether maybe this was a feature that was added later. And it was, thankfully. :)

Thanks to Quoc-Thy Ngo for the tip. A book is on the way!