Archive for the ‘Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts’ Category
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/05/07
Thanks Christian S. – Moers for the fix for KB2686509 repeatedly failing and the answer below.
I’ve used it as the Microsof FixIt offered at You may receive a “0x8007F0F4” error code when you try to install updates from the Windows Update Web site or from the Microsoft Update Web site did not work on several systems. The fix by Christian did work on all those systems.
Note: it is possible you get the same error for KB2676562: MS12-034: Description of the security update for Windows kernel-mode drivers: May 8, 2012, as it is related to KB2686509: MS12-034: Description of the security update for CVE-2012-0181 in Windows XP and Windows Server 2003: May 8, 2012.
One of the symptoms is that your system contains the file %windor%\faultykeyboard.log containing a list of missing keyboard layout DLL files or KBD files (one of my machines had these missing: kbdjpn.dll and kbdkor.dll).
The cause is that KB2686509 can have problems with registry keys stored here:
- HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layout
- HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Keyboard Layouts
Christian wrote a batch file to fix it (named BatchFixKB2686509.cmd) which works splendid on the systems I had this error.
The batch file uses regedit /e to export parts of the registry, then writes a small .reg file to clear the keys and imports them with regedit /S, waits for you so you can install the update, then writes back the saved registry data.
So basically, it automatically performs the manual steps described at KB2686509 – Failure Due to Upgrade from Windows ME or 98 to Windows XP – TechNet Articles – United States (English) – TechNet Wiki.
His answer: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Batch-Files, Development, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User, Scripting, Software Development, Windows, Windows XP | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/04/18
Boy, I wish I had found this far earlier:
- in Windows Explorer this is called cut & paste:
Ctrl+X & Ctrl+V
- in Mac OS X Finder this is called copy & move items here:
Command+C & Command+Option+V
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Apple, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Power User | 3 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/04/11
I know that Apple likes “design”, but boy their desing resulted into Mac OS X having lots of Fn/Option/Ctrl/Shift keyboard shortcuts.
Being a keyboard person (before the DOS era), I love to learn new keyboard shortcuts to make my life easier, while vendors are step by step hiding information about them.
I will update this table over time to reflect even better the ones I use most regularly.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Apple, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Power User, SpotLight | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/04/10
One of the frustrating things about using a Mac, is the pain to find keyboard shortcuts for everyday tasks.
Having had RSI in the early 1990s, I’ve learned to use the keyboard for virtually everything. So I’m used to find keyboard shortcuts on most operating systems, or write scripts to make common tasks easier.
On most *nix or Windows systems, those shortcuts are either there, easy to enable or tools are there to enable them.
For OS X, somehow this seems much harder, so I’m always glad to bumped into answers to questions like
Is there a keyboard shortcut to move a window from one monitor to another? – OSX/Ask Different.
From the answers in that question it is clear this is not built-in behaviour in OS X.
Also the answers show a few tools that can (some free, some paid). So those are on my research list.
But I’m already glad to know that these tools are available.
I’m also going to dig a bit more into Hands-on with OS X Mavericks: Multiple-display support | Macworld, as I’m sure there are some subtle things with multi-monitor setups that I’ve not yet found myself.
–jeroen
via: osx – Is there a keyboard shortcut to move a window from one monitor to another? – Ask Different.
Posted in Apple, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Power User | 3 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/19
Nicely done: the USB Typewriter — Classic Typewriters for the Digital Age, as they can do almost all keys a PC keyboard can do see the USB Typewriter — FAQ using a mechanical (not electrical!) typewriter.
Basically the opposite of the IBM Selectric Computer Terminal, the Daisy wheel printing, the IBM 1050 system, and the IBM 2741 Console.
Note the kits (there are both soldering and non-soldering versions) are mostly aimed at models that once were popular in the USA, so for manufacturers like Adler there are no guidelines (but the existing guidelines for soldering and for non-soldering probably work fine).
–jeroen
Posted in Development, Hardware Development, Hardware Interfacing, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, LifeHacker, Power User, USB | Tagged: Classic Typewriters | 2 Comments »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/03/15
I’m glad that G+ supports keyboard shortcuts out of the box:
Google+ supports the following keyboard shortcuts. To see the full list from any screen in Google+, press SHIFT+?
The list is big, but is close to for instance the GMail shortcut list.
–jeroen
via:
Posted in Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Power User | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/02/13
This reminds me about mapping the CapsLock to Windows-key on old Lenovo keyboard (you can do that [Wayback/Archive] with ReMapKey from Microsoft, the [Wayback/Archive] slightly more convoluted open source SharpKeys, or a AutoHotKey script), and a [Wayback] Mac equivalent:
MacOS:
I like to have a second Control key instead of Caps Lock.
In OS X, go to System Preferences -> Keyboard -> Keyboard -> Modifier Keys… and change or turn off Caps Lock, Control, Option and Command.
For more radical key remapping in OS X, use KeyRemap4MacBook. Despite the name, it works on non-Macbook machines, too.
…
ChromeBook:
If you miss having the Caps Lock button on your #Chromebook, you can turn the Search button into a Caps Lock button in a couple steps: find “Keyboard Settings” under the “Settings” menu, and select “Caps Lock” under the “Search” drop-down menu.
Or you can use this quick link on your Chromebook: chrome://settings/keyboard-overlay
Chromebook has [Wayback/Archive] quite some different keys than a Windows keyboard.
Ben Ostrowsky has a nice post with an SVG drawing of the [Wayback/Archive] Chromebook keyboard layout.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Apple, Chromebook, Google, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Power User | Tagged: Caps Lock, Chromebook, keyboard, map, remap, Windows keyboard | Leave a Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/02/10
Every now and then my Mac RDP program will suddenly turn on the CAPS LOCK on the connected Windows terminal.
It happens on different OS X versions, and different Windows versions. I haven’t figured out the steps to reproduce yet. I will amend this post when I have (:
I also have it occasionally fail when I RDP from a physical Windows system to another Windows system, but far less than from Mac OS X.
You work around it using the On Screen Keyboard tool in Windows like Josh Adams explains:
- launch the On-screen Keyboard application (generally this can be done by choosing Start ==> All Programs ==> Accessories ==> Accessibility ==> On-screen Keyboard; as noted by DrFooMod2 in a comment below, you can also bring up the On-screen Keyboard by typing “osk” without the quotes in the Windows Run… box) and
- toggle Caps Lock by clicking on the virtual “lock” button in the application.
- The On-screen Keyboard application shows–and can change–the state of Caps Lock
The easiest way to start the On Screen Keyboard is to create a shortcut to this:
%windir%\system32\osk.exe
–jeroen
via: Josh Adams’s Blog: Fixing Inverted Caps Lock on VMWare Fusion, Parallels, or Remote Desktop.
Posted in Apple, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, Power User, Remote Desktop Protocol/MSTSC/Terminal Services, Windows | 1 Comment »
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/02/04
So I don’t forget:
Often, Ctrl-F2 (^-F2) fails to show the menu, but ⇧ ⌘ ? (shift+command+/) works all the time.
You can navigate the menus in the menu bar without using a mouse or trackpad. To put the focus in the menu bar, press Control-F2 (Fn-Control-F2 on portable keyboards). Then use the key combinations listed below.
| Left Arrow and Right Arrow |
Move from menu to menu |
| Return |
Open a selected menu |
| Up Arrow and Down Arrow |
Move to menu items in the selected menu |
| Type the menu item’s name |
Jump to a menu item in the selected menu |
| Return |
Select a menu item |
–jeroen
via:
Posted in Apple, Keyboards and Keyboard Shortcuts, Mac, Mac OS X / OS X / MacOS, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, MacBook, MacBook Retina, MacBook-Air, MacBook-Pro, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks, Power User | Leave a Comment »
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