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October 30, 2011
Reader Comments (40)
I thought all caps meant you are YELLING ! DAMMN!
Panel 2 is a winner. As is "pIG lATIN FOR YOUR FINGERS"; sadly, my Mac doesn't invert the shift selection, it just makes everything capitalized.
Seriously? The first thing I do whenever I get a new computer (or a new version of Windows) is make sure there's a way to keep the Num Lock key from coming on by default. I can type digits faster using the number row above the alphabet anyway, and I value my arrow keys, particularly in games where you can use the diagonal ones.
/win
I still remember when, somehow, I had hit Insert by mistake and activated "Overwrite" mode in Microsoft Word. I had NO IDEA what was going on for minutes.
Now, who in the world uses THAT?
Wow, it's like you've hit all my pet subjects! I'm a programmer and I've had calls from people saying their keyboard doesn't work in Excel anymore ... seriously!
I actually don't use NumLock (Googles "Luddite" - wow, had no way of guessing that) as with combinations of Shift and Ctrl one can quickly navigate a whole document and easily cut, copy and paste. Programmers don't actually write code, they just copy/paste from code they wrote previously (we are given one of every character when we graduate and use copy/paste from then on).
Also, all of windows can be navigated with the keyboard alone and it's way faster if you know every short-cut. There is only one thing you cannot do and that's click on the notification tray - but and you guessed it, you can use a keypad driven pointer to get to those too - and its controlled by the key pad!! For the win!
Funny as always Scott, cheers :D
Ah, the insert button, I think every computer user has gone through that phase. The same for Ctrl-Shift, mixing up half your keyboard...
They really should teach this kind of stuff at school.
Ok, where can I get keyboard labels for "sabotage"? Maybe "cruise control" for the Caps Lock key.
I used to have a set of fake keys that you could stick onto your keyboard. One was "panic", another "eject seat" and a third one that I forgot.
I DARE you people to find an use for the Lock Scroll key.
Horrible Luddite! Great, I just found my Halloween costume!
BRillIANt
That horrible luddities would use a computer is gold! Top of the comedy pyramid. One wonders if horrible luddites would also read aweb comic but pass on the comments.
I have an IRC client with a split screen, so you can scroll up while still seeing newly incoming messages. Scroll Lock turns the split screen on or off. Chicken McBooyah. ...Of course, ctrl-z does the same thing.
I do remember back in the days of DOS and Unix when scroll lock actually did something meaningful. I just can't remember what it was. I vaguely recall that it... locked the screen... from scrolling?
These days, all those useless keys are just buttons I can map to additional skills in World of Warcraft. They're perfect since I'm not using them for anything else.
When I get a new laptop one of the first things I do is pry out the Insert and NumLock keys. I leave CapsLock in -- I have the OS map that as a third Ctrl key.
"I DARE you people to find an use for the Lock Scroll key."
I use scroll lock from time to time. When I'm connecting to a remote computer through a terminal emulator, scroll lock is occasionally needed to see all of a commands output.
I probably use it once or twice a year.
Remember those days of green characters on a black screen? That's the last time that insert and scroll lock had any use. Of course, there are still people using legacy systems who have use for those keys.
The keys should be removed from keyboards. Why? Anyone using a legacy system is likely doing so via an emulator of some mainframe system. The emulator program is perfectly capable of mapping a handy key to those functions.
Macs don't have any of the keys in question. Why? Because Macs never used DOS (also because they always had a mouse.) If a Mac needed one of the keys then see the previous paragraph.
@ Bauds: I actually do have a use for the Scroll Lock button...there are some KVM switches (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) that use the Scroll Lock button as a switch to change computers :)
(of course, they use that button because it has no other use anymore :)
My KVM takes a double click on scroll lock followed by the number to get to the PC I want to use. As for the rest....
i MISS THE "OVERWRITE" FUNCTION - i HAVE A KEYBOARD THAT HAS AN "INSERT" KEY THAT SEEMS TO DO nothing! - dAMN! aND i always USE MY NUMBER KEYPAD AS numbers, SINCE MY arrow KEYS ARE right next to them IF i WANT TO USE arrows.
(lOVE THE "pIG lATIN FOR THE FINGERS, sCOTT!)
You forgot the worst key, the start menu key. You know, that one with a windows logo on it right between the control and alt keys. The only thing that it does is kick me out of computer games when I meant to hit the control key, and all to open the start menu?! I can do that with the mouse.
If I were a Luddite, I would be a horrible Luddite.
Thanks, again, Scott for sharing your sheer brilliance!
Horrible Luddites!
I will have to remember that one.
another key is scroll lock. it does nothing except screw up excell.
When I was a kid, about 11 or so, I wrote a 40pg story and while editing I accidentally hit the "insert" key. I couldn't figure out what was going on so I REWROTE 20pgs before I finally went to my dad pissed as hell and he went "...-click- Fixed."
Insert has great use when programing. Copy code, paste code, press insert, type over variable names/numbers that need to change.
I tell myself this every time I have to help people figure out why their typing is suddenly goofy.
Call me "Horrible Luddite" {ah, I finally found my Halloween costume!], I navigated this whole comic and comments without using mouse.
Sad confession - I didn't make the jump to mice or GUI until 1998 - I thought graphic user interface was for imbeciles and would ruin computing.Then I figured out people don't want to use computers for computing - they want to use it for "stuff"
and now Steve Jobs will have everybody else doing away with both keyboards and mice with voice commands and hand gestures on or in front of a screen - jazz handing like Tome Cruise in Minority Report - somebody is laughing ...