Email Not working
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[code]
Client: My email isn't working.
Me: Press F5 button to get mails.
Client: Where is F5
Me: It is located over your keyboard keys.
Client: Is it on my keyboard
Me: Yes it on your keyboard only.
Client: I cannot find it.
Me: If you look on keyboard, can you find ESCAPE key?
Client: Is that key that says "ESC".
Me: Yes. What is after that Key?
Client: I see F1
Me: Next?
Client: F2, F3, F4, F5. Oh, thanks I found F5.
Client: You fixed it. I'm getting my emails now.
[/code]
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You're lucky he didn't get a dialog telling him to 'Press any key to continue'.
"Yeah hello, this machine tells me to press the Any-key, but I can't seem to find it..."
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@steenbergh said:
You're lucky he didn't get a dialog telling him to 'Press any key to continue'.
Well, it helps that it's not 1988.
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@Nagesh said:
Client: Where is F5?
Me: It is located over your keyboard keys.
Wow, what a terrible answer. No, it's not located over your keyboard keys. It is one of your keyboard keys. Maybe you could have said that it was above the number keys or something like that instead? I can't really blame the client on this one.
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@dcardani said:
@Nagesh said:
Client: Where is F5?
Me: It is located over your keyboard keys.
Wow, what a terrible answer. No, it's not located over your keyboard keys. It is one of your keyboard keys. Maybe you could have said that it was above the number keys or something like that instead? I can't really blame the client on this one.
It's not above the number keys, either. It's forward of the number keys, assuming you're sitting facing the keyboard. And not the number keys on the right-hand-side, arranged in a square, but the number keys arranged in a row. Also the F keys have numbers on them, but they're not considered "number keys".
Oh, I can be pedantic too.
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Imagine if they were using one of those new Microsoft keyboards.
Tech: What is after that key?
Client: I see Help
Tech: Next?
Clent: Undo, Redo, New, Open. Still don't see F5.
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@blakeyrat said:
@dcardani said:
@Nagesh said:
Client: Where is F5?
Me: It is located over your keyboard keys.
Wow, what a terrible answer. No, it's not located over your keyboard keys. It is one of your keyboard keys. Maybe you could have said that it was above the number keys or something like that instead? I can't really blame the client on this one.
It's not above the number keys, either. It's forward of the number keys, assuming you're sitting facing the keyboard. And not the number keys on the right-hand-side, arranged in a square, but the number keys arranged in a row. Also the F keys have numbers on them, but they're not considered "number keys".
Oh, I can be pedantic too.
What?? Oh, are you still using those flat keyboards from the 20th century? Nagesh and I are using those cool new virtual 3D spatial keyboards, the function keys literally are hovering above the bulk of the other keys (except for the numeric and row of metasymbol accelerators, of course). You wear special goggles which project an augmented reality above an air puff machine. When the keyboard senses a finger has intersected a virtual key, it blasts it with a puff of air, simulating a tactile response. It's pretty awesome, as you can have as an arbitrary set of keys completely customized, and there are no more keyboard germs!
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@Xyro said:
@blakeyrat said:
@dcardani said:
@Nagesh said:
Client: Where is F5?
Me: It is located over your keyboard keys.
Wow, what a terrible answer. No, it's not located over your keyboard keys. It is one of your keyboard keys. Maybe you could have said that it was above the number keys or something like that instead? I can't really blame the client on this one.
It's not above the number keys, either. It's forward of the number keys, assuming you're sitting facing the keyboard. And not the number keys on the right-hand-side, arranged in a square, but the number keys arranged in a row. Also the F keys have numbers on them, but they're not considered "number keys".
Oh, I can be pedantic too.
What?? Oh, are you still using those flat keyboards from the 20th century? Nagesh and I are using those cool new virtual 3D spatial keyboards, the function keys literally are hovering above the bulk of the other keys (except for the numeric and row of metasymbol accelerators, of course). You wear special goggles which project an augmented reality above an air puff machine. When the keyboard senses a finger has intersected a virtual key, it blasts it with a puff of air, simulating a tactile response. It's pretty awesome, as you can have as an arbitrary set of keys completely customized, and there are no more keyboard germs!
Way to go buddy!
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@steenbergh said:
You're lucky he didn't get a dialog telling him to 'Press any key to continue'.
"Yeah hello, this machine tells me to press the Any-key, but I can't seem to find it..."
... or when the user is practically in tears because of not being able to get it to work, and it transpires the Ctrl or Shift key is being pressed. Oh how we laughed ...
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@Nagesh said:
<font face="Lucida Console" size="2"> Client: My email isn't working. Me: Press F5 button to get mails. Client: I have, still nothing Me: Describe exactly what keys you pressed? Client: F then 5</font>
FTFY
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@steenbergh said:
You're lucky he didn't get a dialog telling him to 'Press any key to continue'.
"Yeah hello, this machine tells me to press the Any-key, but I can't seem to find it..."
"I see esk, ctarl, and pig-up..."
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@db2 said:
@steenbergh said:
Pig-up? Ah, I see... you must be using an Elbonian keyboard.You're lucky he didn't get a dialog telling him to 'Press any key to continue'.
"Yeah hello, this machine tells me to press the Any-key, but I can't seem to find it..."
"I see esk, ctarl, and pig-up..."
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@steenbergh said:
You're lucky he didn't get a dialog telling him to 'Press any key to continue'.
"Yeah hello, this machine tells me to press the Any-key, but I can't seem to find it..."
Language can also get in the way in other ways. Over on this side of the pond, one user complained that it was too hard to press Ctrl-Alt-Delete.
The user was trying to press every key on the keyboard.
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This is how it would have gone if I were on the call:
Client: I cannot receive emails.
Me: Press F5
Client: I can't find it.
Me: It's to the left of the "tab" key.
Client: My tab key is the leftmost key.
Me: Well I guess you're screwed then.
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@ShatteredArm said:
This is how it would have gone if I were on the call:
Client: I cannot receive emails.
Me: Press F5
Client: I can't find it.
Me: It's to the left of the "tab" key.
Client: My tab key is the leftmost key.
Me: Well I guess you're screwed then.
Ooo, ooo, I wanna do one.
Client: I cannot receive emails.
Me: Welcome to Burger Clown, may I take your order?
Client: I can't find the F5 key.
Me: The Floppy Shoe Combo comes with a small order of fries and a medium soft drink
Client: But my email window is still blank!
Me: Your total will be $4.78, please pull ahead to the next window.
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It will only get worse. I bought a new HP laptop a few weeks back. (The hard drive on my old one was full and new ones are so cheap.)
The function keys have very small "f1" "f2" on them. The main symbol on the key was ... a symbol. Play, fast-forward, mute etc. The out-of-the-box behaviour was to do that custom action, not the actual function key. "F1 for help" makes the screen go darker.
Of course the HP documentation installed on the laptop doesn't even mention this behaviour, although I think I managed to find an instruction to press the "Fn" key (the key which seems to be relatively standard on laptops and usually enables the extra functions, not disables them.) Google did find the solution eventually: go into the bios and find the setting "using function keys" and set it to "disable" or someting oppposite.
The F5 key seems to be reasonably well-known among users, unlike other function keys like Fn-F8 or F11. It is one of the most-used keys on the most-used application, even if you prefer firefox or something different - they still all use F5. Couldn't HP have given the F5 key the special function of "refresh" and put the little two-arrow symbol on it? Maybe that would be another WTF: "F5 works but none of the other function keys work!"
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@Qwerty said:
The F5 key seems to be reasonably well-known among users, unlike other function keys like Fn-F8 or F11. It is one of the most-used keys on the most-used application, even if you prefer firefox or something different - they still all use F5. Couldn't HP have given the F5 key the special function of "refresh" and put the little two-arrow symbol on it? Maybe that would be another WTF: "F5 works but none of the other function keys work!"
And just to make things interesting, Lotus Notes uses F5 for "lock workstation".
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@da Doctah said:
Lotus Notes must die in pain.
FTFY.
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I bought a new HP laptop a few weeks back.
Does it also have the entire row of F-keys shifted left one due to a lock button on the right (a dedicated button for what I use start+L for, sigh) and a column of "helpful" macro keys up the left for things like print?
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@nexekho said:
Does it also have the entire row of F-keys shifted left one due to a lock button on the right (a dedicated button for what I use start+L for, sigh) and a column of "helpful" macro keys up the left for things like print?
I was recently setting up a cheap HP laptop that had some extra keys (play, rewind, fast forward, etc.) in a column to the left of main keyboard, with no space between them and the normal keys (Tab, Caps Lock, Shift etc.). You wouldn't believe how much that slowed me down - instead of just hitting the tab and shift keys at the edge of keyboard, I kept pressing the useless media keys. And to make things more fun, the top row with Esc and F keys wasn't shifted (Esc was in the same column as the media keys - but at least the F keys weren't remapped).
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@nexekho said:
Does it also have the entire row of F-keys shifted left one due to a lock button on the right (a dedicated button for what I use start+L for, sigh) and a column of "helpful" macro keys up the left for things like print?
@ender said:I was recently setting up a cheap HP laptop that had some extra keys (play, rewind, fast forward, etc.) in a column to the left of main keyboard, with no space between them and the normal keys (Tab, Caps Lock, Shift etc.). You wouldn't believe how much that slowed me down - instead of just hitting the tab and shift keys at the edge of keyboard, I kept pressing the useless media keys. And to make things more fun, the top row with Esc and F keys wasn't shifted (Esc was in the same column as the media keys - but at least the F keys weren't remapped).
And this is why I buy ThinkPads. If Lenovo even think about doing something stupid like that, the diehard ThinkPad users will beat them down and Lenovo will surrender and not do it. (That, and the keyboards are brilliant anyway).Having said that, I would love to know where they got this data that says Escape and Delete are two of the most pressed keys on the keyboard, and thus they must be made larger. Not sure about you lot, but I don't really use them all that much, unless I'm logging on or deleting a file.
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I've used a ThinkPad before. The laptop's Fn key was the bottom leftmost key, where my pinky expected Ctrl to be. Fortunately, Fn+C, Fn+V does not initiate a poweroff, but it was still very very very annoying. My company-supplied Dell Latitude has Ctrl where I expect Ctrl to be and the Fn key is to the right of it. Much better design and no stupid media keys (or that stupid right-click equivalent key). Sadly, no dedicated SysRq, that requires Fn+F10.
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@Xyro said:
Sadly, no dedicated SysRq, that requires Fn+F10.
This is a new definition of the word "sadly". I rejoice whenever a useless, confusing key is finally removed. Unfortunately, keyboards seem to be designed by a group whose motto is "never change anything, ever".
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@blakeyrat said:
@Xyro said:
Sadly, no dedicated SysRq, that requires Fn+F10.
This is a new definition of the word "sadly". I rejoice whenever a useless, confusing key is finally removed. Unfortunately, keyboards seem to be designed by a group whose motto is "never change anything, ever".
Oh Blakey, don't you know I wrote that just for you?
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@Xyro said:
The laptop's Fn key was the bottom leftmost key, where my pinky expected Ctrl to be.
You didn't have a Swap Fn/Ctrl setting in BIOS?
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@blakeyrat said:
@Xyro said:
Sadly, no dedicated SysRq, that requires Fn+F10.
This is a new definition of the word "sadly". I rejoice whenever a useless, confusing key is finally removed. Unfortunately, keyboards seem to be designed by a group whose motto is "never change anything, ever".
The mac keyboards go up to F19 but the extra keys aren't properly used by default. They even have overrides on the normal F1-F12 keys. It would have been better if they put dashboard on F19 instead of F4 or whatever. (I'm not at work at this second, which is where the Mac is)
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@blakeyrat said:
Unfortunately, keyboards seem to be designed by a group whose motto is "never change anything, ever".
When you are dealing with muscle memory situations, there have to be very compelling reasons for change.
Thought experience - consider if a car manufacturer changed the indicator so that moving the stalk up indicated to the right instead of to the left.
As for the Lenovo keyboards, I also believe the person who thought the Fn key should be bottom left should be severly beaten with old SCSI cables. Apart from that issue I have no problems with Lenovo laptop keyboards. As for this freaking HP EliteBook, that's another story...
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Another disturbing trend in keyboard design is to fuck with the arrow keys, and to remove or alter the edit pad (that's the 6-key cluster above the arrow keys). Yeah, not many people use them - but those of us that do are SIGNIFICANTLY faster at editing text than people who don't. Seriously - if you don't use it, learn it. Home and End will change your life (especially as a programmer). Insert and delete will make you more efficient. Page up and Page down will save you endless aggravation.
The only shortcoming in the standard 101/102/104 layout that I can find is that the numpad needs to be enlarged to include hexadecimal and the colon so we can type IPv6 addresses one-handed.
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@Xyro said:
My company-supplied Dell Latitude has Ctrl where I expect Ctrl to be and the Fn key is to the right of it. Much better design and no stupid media keys (or that stupid right-click equivalent key). Sadly, no dedicated SysRq, that requires Fn+F10.
This. Also, my Dell Precision has SysRq on Fn+PrntScrn (PrntScrn being above F10; Fn+F10 ejects the CD tray instead). It does have the right-click key though, next to PrntScrn. I suppose it would be useful if I got in the habit of using the keyboard for everything.
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@havokk said:
I don't find it to be a major problem. And no-one would say I was well co-ordinated. And of course, the side on which the indicator stalk is varies regionally, and it only takes people a few minutes to get used to it.When you are dealing with muscle memory situations, there have to be very compelling reasons for change.
Thought experience - consider if a car manufacturer changed the indicator so that moving the stalk up indicated to the right instead of to the left.
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@havokk said:
When you are dealing with muscle memory situations, there have to be very compelling reasons for change.
Please. Anybody with pulse can switch from Qwerty to Dvorak in less than a month. Changing the layout of Qwerty slightly wouldn't be that big a deal for more than a couple days.
In any case, I'm not talking about re-arranging the letters, just some work on the other keys. Having an entire row of keys named F1 - F12, some of which have tacit-but-consistent uses is 'tarded. Having a bunch of keys that are at best useless, and at worst cause major usability problems (specifically: Insert and Scroll Lock, and possibly Pause/Break. Edit: oh and Numlock) is 'tarded. Not having a way of distinguishing between "type a new line" and "submit this information into the computer" is 'tarded. Using a key for as both a key and modifier simultaneously (the Windows key) is 'tarded. You get the idea.
@havokk said:
Thought experience - consider if a car manufacturer changed the indicator so that moving the stalk up indicated to the right instead of to the left.
What's "the stalk"? Are you sure you're driving a car and not, say, a giant lobster?
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@Weng said:
Another disturbing trend in keyboard design is to fuck with the arrow keys, and to remove or alter the edit pad (that's the 6-key cluster above the arrow keys).
I'm with you on this one. Whenever I have to use my manager's computer this screws me up, because the block of 6 is now a bock of 9 (I think the top row is the Print Screen, Scroll Lock and Pause / Break keys). Half the time I end up hitting the wrong row of keys and going somewhere completely different to where I wanted to.The only shortcoming in the standard 101/102/104 layout that I can find is that the numpad needs to be enlarged to include hexadecimal and the colon so we can type IPv6 addresses one-handed.
That's not a need I have. :) The main keys I wish I had easier access to when I'm working with the numpad are generally comma and space.@blakeyrat said:
Having a bunch of keys that are at best useless, and at worst cause major usability problems (specifically: Insert and Scroll Lock, and possibly Pause/Break. Edit: oh and Numlock) is 'tarded.
I do use Insert to toggle between Insert and Overwrite mode now and then, mainly in TOAD. I do also use NumLock quite often, but that's mainly to turn NumLock on after someone or some program has turned it off. On the other hand, one of my colleagues prefers working with NumLock off, and if I'm doing something with his computer I have to turn it on before I can use his keyboard. Also, it's quite an important key on many laptops that I've had the misfortune of using. (Why can't I log in? Oh, NumLock is on and several of the letters in my password are being drastically altered.)@blakeyrat said:
@havokk said:
Thought experience - consider if a car manufacturer changed the indicator so that moving the stalk up indicated to the right instead of to the left.
What's "the stalk"? Are you sure you're driving a car and not, say, a giant lobster?
Not sure if serious here (you really couldn't work it out from context?). Well, presumably not serious about driving a giant lobster, as interesting as that might be. In this context, the stalk is the lever, projecting from the steering column, which controls the turning indicators.
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@blakeyrat said:
Not having a way of distinguishing between "type a new line" and "submit this information into the computer" is 'tarded.
If you really cared, you could set your two enter keys to do different things.
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@Scarlet Manuka said:
That's not a need I have. :) The main keys I wish I had easier access to when I'm working with the numpad are generally comma and space.
Ah, but my grand plan for the numpad can include this too!It looks something like this:
NS=/*- CF789+ BE456+ AD123E ,:00.E
Where S is space N is numlock, E is enter, and everything else is as-pictured. An alternative layout that ganks some tweaks from the classic Apple Deluxe keyboard:
\SN/*= CF789- BE456+ AD123E ,:00.E
incorporates an (dubiously-useful) extra character and preserves the original position of the numlock key, at the expense of adopting the standard size + key
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@intertravel said:
@blakeyrat said:
Not having a way of distinguishing between "type a new line" and "submit this information into the computer" is 'tarded.
If you really cared, you could set your two enter keys to do different things.Not really, because applications wouldn't understand it. Edit: I guess I could set the normal Enter key to "Shift-Enter" but then you hit the problem that some applications use Shift-Enter, some use Control-Enter, and some use Alt-Enter to type a carriage return without entering the information.
FYI, the only company that made a real effort to reform the keyboard was Apple, back in the Classic days when they gave a shit. And yes, they did have separate Enter and Return keys, as it should be. They also got rid of all the shitty keys I mentioned above, as well as adding a "Help" key to the keyboard, instead of just adding the "Help" label to F1. About the only keyboard 'tardedness they didn't fix is Caps Lock... but at least the Mac version was Caps Lock (like the label implies) instead of Caps Reverse (what Windows does.)
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@Scarlet Manuka said:
@Weng said:
I'm with you on this one. Whenever I have to use my manager's computer this screws me up, because the block of 6 is now a bock of 9 (I think the top row is the Print Screen, Scroll Lock and Pause / Break keys). Half the time I end up hitting the wrong row of keys and going somewhere completely different to where I wanted to.Another disturbing trend in keyboard design is to fuck with the arrow keys, and to remove or alter the edit pad (that's the 6-key cluster above the arrow keys).
I
ownedsuffered from one of those keyboards, too. I frequently turned my PC off instead of making a screenshot because the keyboard had a Sleep key where the Print Screen key used to be.@Weng said:
NS=/*-
CF789+
BE456+
AD123E
,:00.ENot bad, but I would keep related keys closer together (i.e., decimal mark and thousands separator). Also, an X might be useful when typing hex literals. The position of the letter block is somewhat unfortunate, but since decimal numbers are probably more common, it should be fine. I changed the order of the letters to match the numbers, however. The Numlock key could be moved somewhere else; perhaps near the status LEDs.
S;:/*-
EF789+
CD456+
AB123E
X,00.E
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@fatbull said:
S;:/*-
EF789+
CD456+
AB123E
X,00.E
How about a dollar sign and curly braces? I think if ${} had their own keys, my shift-mashing left pinky would be [i]at least[/i] 52% healthier.
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@Xyro said:
@fatbull said:
S;:/*-
EF789+
CD456+
AB123E
X,00.E
How about a dollar sign and curly braces? I think if ${} had their own keys, my shift-mashing left pinky would be at least 52% healthier.Screw the 105-key keyboard, let's invent the 105-key NUMPAD!
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@blakeyrat said:
@Xyro said:
@fatbull said:
S;:/*-
EF789+
CD456+
AB123E
X,00.E
How about a dollar sign and curly braces? I think if ${} had their own keys, my shift-mashing left pinky would be at least 52% healthier.Screw the 105-key keyboard, let's invent the 105-key NUMPAD!
Finally! A numpad for Perl programmers and sendmail.cf maintainers!!
(APL users can come, too.)
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You seem to be missing the normal brackets to go with the braces.
and why not include typical keywords such as "if" "else" "switch" etc ?
In fact, fook it, lets just put an OLED screen under each key.
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They're kind of pricy but here's one with 35 keys.
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Except for the fact that you can't replicate any of the keypad layouts given as examples in this thread. The 682 even comes with 3 double-keycaps for making the double keys, and you can get more.
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@Sir Twist said:
Except for the fact that you can't replicate any of the keypad layouts given as examples in this thread. The 682 even comes with 3 double-keycaps for making the double keys, and you can get more.
Yeah, but mine looks meaner. Grr.
On a related note, I think you're taking this thread far too seriously.
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@Sir Twist said:
If I found myself needing to do so, I very much hope I'd take a step back and find TRWTF. In fact, I'm willing to bet real money that no-one here can come up with a sensible use-case for one of those which doesn't have a simpler alternative.Except for the fact that you can't replicate any of the keypad layouts given as examples in this thread. The 682 even comes with 3 double-keycaps for making the double keys, and you can get more.
[Disclaimer: I will pay up if I lose, but I reserve the right to redefine the meanings of certain words in order to ensure that I don't lose. No-one ever reads all the small-print anyway, do they? And I heard Blakey loves monkeycocks.[/disclaimer]
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@Sir Twist said:
They're kind of pricy but here's one with 35 keys.
From the webpage:Applications
So... if someone nicks it they have easy access to my login information? Sounds like a winner.• One touch control of email, password and login info.
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@blakeyrat said:
FYI, the only company that made a real effort to reform the keyboard was Apple, back in the Classic days when they gave a shit. And yes, they did have separate Enter and Return keys, as it should be. They also got rid of all the shitty keys I mentioned above, as well as adding a "Help" key to the keyboard, instead of just adding the "Help" label to F1. About the only keyboard 'tardedness they didn't fix is Caps Lock... but at least the Mac version was Caps Lock (like the label implies) instead of Caps Reverse (what Windows does.)
If I recall, the AppleDesign (the pinnacle of their keyboard manufacturing) still had numlock - it just acted as a "clear" key (which did nothing in most apps) unless the application specifically enabled traditional numlock functionality. Same with scroll lock.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Sir Twist said:
Because what I truly need is to spend twice as much money on a numpad as I spent on my insanely expensive boutique keyboard (Das Keyboard mark 2 - from before they sold out and started making even more insanely expensive fashion accessories)They're kind of pricy but here's one with 35 keys.
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@Weng said:
@blakeyrat said:
FYI, the only company that made a real effort to reform the keyboard was Apple, back in the Classic days when they gave a shit. And yes, they did have separate Enter and Return keys, as it should be. They also got rid of all the shitty keys I mentioned above, as well as adding a "Help" key to the keyboard, instead of just adding the "Help" label to F1. About the only keyboard 'tardedness they didn't fix is Caps Lock... but at least the Mac version was Caps Lock (like the label implies) instead of Caps Reverse (what Windows does.)
If I recall, the AppleDesign (the pinnacle of their keyboard manufacturing) still had numlock - it just acted as a "clear" key (which did nothing in most apps) unless the application specifically enabled traditional numlock functionality. Same with scroll lock.And if I recall, that keyboard only has the alternate numlock (and alt) lettering because it shipped on DOS-compatible Macs, like my old beloved Quadra 610 model. These had a 486 in addition to their own 68k CPU, and could be switched back and forth into DOS mode. Shipped with DOS 6.22. They even ran Win 95, IIRC, but it's been ages. I know you could run DOOM on it, because I did it.
Anyway, point is that key was only ever Clear on Macs.
