Adventures & experiences in contemporary technology
Last night, something very stupid happened to me: I tripped up in my main PC’s cables and brought the behemoth crashing about the place. There was some resulting damage with the keyboard PS/2 socket being put out of action and a busted USB port and mouse. When this happens, thoughts take on the form of a runaway train and the prospect of acquiring a new motherboard and assorted expensive paraphernalia trot into your mind; there are other things that more need my cash. Of course, the last time to be making such big decisions on computer components is when a mental maelstrom has descended upon you.
Eventually, I got myself away from the brink and lateral thinking began to take over. What helped was that most of the system seems unaffected and I am using it right now to write this post. While a spare will work for now, a new ergonomic mouse is on order but cheaper alternatives to the keyboard conundrum have come into play. If PS/2 wasn’t an option, then USB remained one and that was the line of attack that was taken. It involved a visit to the nearest branch of PC World after work but I came away with a new USB hub and a USB-compatible keyboard for less than the price of a new AM2+ Gigabyte motherboard that would have served my needs. An otherwise functional Trust keyboard may have been retired but that was a less expensive option than a full PC rebuild, something that I may still need to do but it can be left for a whole lot longer than the immediacy that flashed before my eyes within the last 24 hours. In fact, acquiring some cable ties should be higher on the acquisition wish list so as to avoid cable-induced tumbles in the future. It really does pay to able to step back and see things from a wider perspective.
Maximising and minimising windows is all part and parcel of using window-based user interfaces so it’s nice to know that there are keyboard shortcuts that reduce the need to use your mouse all of the time. Here are a few that work in Windows:
Alt+Space+N Minimise
Alt+Space+X Maximise
Alt+Space+R Restore (set to default)
I have recently encountered an odd situation following my recent upgrade to Ubuntu 8.04: when I use VMware Workstation to run Windows XP in full screen mode, the keyboard no longer acts as it should. For instance, Caps Lock and Num Lock keys stop working as does the Shift key. Logging out and back in again is the least that’s needed to set things right but there has to be a better way to fix the problem. I am not saying that it’s limited to the scenario where I saw it happen but it’s still very odd behaviour. If you have a solution, please let me know. Of course, I’ll keep you posted if I find one. In the meantime, I’ll be avoiding full screen mode with VMware as much as I can.
Update 1:
I have done a spot of digging on this one since and gained the impression that there might be a conflict between VMware and the version of X.org Server that comes with Ubuntu. A restorative trick that I have seen suggested is to issue the following command in a terminal, replacing "gb" with your own locale, but I have yet to see if it works:
setxkbmap -rules xorg -layout "gb"
In any case, it looks as if it is not a permanent fix but just a way to keep working without resorting to system restarts, logging off and back on, etc.
Update 2:
I can now verify that the comand quoted above works for me. Of course, it would better to find a permanent fix and even better for the behaviour never to occur at all but any fix is better than none whatsoever.