Apple keyboard IV

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Ok, this is the last chapter from my experiments with Apple keyboards on a Windows PC. With the slim keyboard I never managed to reconfigure the “Fn” key to something useful – but that was just a side effect.

The main problems I had were that the keyboard is too small. I am a developer and heavy shortcut user, so I need to type all kinds of braces, dashes, dots and so on and also use Ctrl-Shift-PgUp and thelike. Using these key combinations is not easily manageable on the Apple keyboard.

The consequence? I have now invested 20 more €uros and bought the Logitech UltraX keyboard – which I have at work, too. This keyboard is much like a laptop keyboard, features a standard PC design and has a very nice layout and key press feedback.

Using git with cygwin on Windows

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Despite having circumvented the problems caused by the new Windows Vista UAC – as described in an older blog entry of mine and found all around the internet, git sometimes still has problems.

At work, my team collaborates with SVN and commits to our company svn server. I am using git as an SVN client, because it is more convenient for me; with no problems on my Gentoo (dev) box, but I never managed to check out on my Windows laptop.

Continue reading →

Learning the basic chords: D, G & A

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As every beginner, I have to learn the basics. So far, the book covers the chords D and A – both with three fingers down and a simple version of G where only the small finger presses the high e in the third section – I’ve already seen G is actually a bit more difficult, and at this point I’m glad about this simplification :-) .

The fingertips of my left hand now feels dazed all the day – but that will fade over the time. Next chord to learn is E; it’ll bring me new songs… Let’s go.

Siege of Bangkok airports

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We had just left Bangkok with Thai Airways heading to Surrat Thani, when Bangkok’s international airport has been taken off operation by some protesters. Since there was more than one week ahead before we needed to return there, Marie and me initially had no big concerns due to these events.
In safe distance, in southern Thailand, we followed progress on TV and the Internet. But, when after a whole week, there was no end in sight, we started to think about alternate ways to get back home again. Continue reading →

Apple Keyboard III

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Well, it seems, I only write blog entries to try out new keyboards :-) So – I’ve bought yet another Apple keyboard, this time the new thing metal brushed keboard.

This one’s especially nice – somthing I’ve though of the other one as well. First, let me say, it’s a normal USB keyboard and it works out of the box on a Windows machine – the guys from the Apple store weren’t sure about that, though.

I still need to use SharpKeys to remap Alt and Command keys, but that’s ok. One thing, however, is a bit sad: Apple placed a “fn” key right above the delete-key. On Un*x systems, one often uses the key Shift-Ins to copy thing from the clipboard to the current cursor position – the “fn” key is not remappable under Windows, as it seems (I’ve googled for this one but found no solution).

You’d probably need a software upgrade for the keyboard, so it would send the key with an own keycode… But anyway, it still feels great to type on this keyboard, so I can only recommend it.