Monday, June 8, 2009

Technophobia – meet Keyboard.

What could be simpler than a computer keyboard? Just tap the keys and the characters appear. Ya think?
I've had a few gremlins in my computer of late, and the latest decided to move some keyboard functions around. Hit SHIFT and 2, and get . Likewise, hit SHIFT and and get @. # ended up on SHIFT and , while £ (which isn't even marked on this keyboard) popped up above 3.
Maybe I'd accidentally hit some sort of bizarre function swap key. I tried for several days to fix this on my own – idiot!
Then a pal emailed me these pearls of wisdom: “You might need to look in the control panel under keyboard.” So, technofool that I am, I flipped over the keyboard and looked for a little control panel! Seriously – and I'm not even blonde!!
Then I googled 'keyboard problems' and found many people globally had the same problem. One UK site (Cherry Keyboards) explained I'd somehow changed the nationality/functionality that the computer recognised! I needed to change everything from US to UK...but when I reached Instruction Step 8, I discovered my computer's 'keyboard layout/IME' settings had NO option to choose English over US!
Then a light went on: change all the settings back to US, you prat! And with a huge sigh of relief, everything returned to normal! So if this happens to you, that's a probable solution.
...or maybe think about getting a blonde rinse!

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