Category Archives: Computing

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.

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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.

Apple keyboard

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I’ve recently bought a new keyboard, an Apple keyboard. The old one was just dirty and the cable almost broke, so I’ve decided to spend that money.

There are two things that had annoyed me a bit since then:
First, the Apple keyboard has the Command key which functions just like the Windows key, however being positioned at the place where normal PC keyboards have the Alt key.

Secondly, when waking the computer up through a keystroke, the keyboard only works correctly until the BIOS startup sequence has finished. In the boot menu (grub in this case) it does not do anything and it also takes its time to start working in the Windows login screen.

Issue no. 1 has now been solved: Continue reading →