The QWERTY keyboard layout has been used in most western countries now since the late 1800′s.  Though there are differences in some countries, such as AZERTY in France, this keyboard layout remains with modern computers even though it’s not always the quickest way for people to type. It was invented by Christopher Latham Sholes who [...]

Categories: ask the readers

Well that’s it!  Everybody, well some of the experts anyway seem to agree that the ageing keyboard and mouse just isn’t going to cut it any more.  It’s just not a good enough way to communicate with our computers.  It’s slow and clunky, in fact the story goes that an alphabetical keyboard would be quicker to type [...]

Categories: Misc

When I was working in IT I sometimes dealt with support requests that involved the caps lock key. Users were complaining that they could not enter their password, or that they locked their account even though they were sure that they had entered the right password, or that their username was displayed in upper case [...]

Categories: Tutorials Basic

It is easy to type in multiple languages in Ubuntu. This tutorial will guide you through the simple steps to adding keyboard languages to Ubuntu and show you how to modify the settings for keyboard shortcuts to toggle between languages. You can switch between different keyboard layouts, preview and print the layouts, and alter settings [...]

Categories: Linux, Operating Systems

Ghacks regulars know that a computer keyboard can be dirtier than a toilet, with up to 400 times the bacteria. If you are like me, you sometimes do things like eating in front of the PC that contribute to that. I usually feel the urge to clean my keyboard when I’m working on the computer, [...]

Categories: Tutorials Basic, Windows

As people are using PCs for many more things at home and the computer itself has become, in a few cases, an objet d’art in the case of some all-in-one devices companies are putting much more effort into peripherals.  In this review I want to look at two of these high-end devices, Logitech’s illuminated keyboards. Let’s start [...]

Categories: Hardware

In the last few years the world of computer peripherals has changed with many high-end products coming to market.  Now though a great many of these products are the norm with keyboards and mice now costing over £100 ($150).  We’ve generally accepted these price increases as consumers as commonly they bring additional benefits such as [...]

Categories: Hardware

It is frustrating to be forced to re-enter a password on the Internet or local PC after hitting the caps lock key on the keyboard accidentally. Computer users with LEDs on their keyboards can see if the caps lock key is active or not and react properly. Users with keyboards that do not have indicators [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

Standard PC keyboards have three visual indicators for Num lock, Caps lock and Scroll lock states. That way it is possible to see the state of the three locks immediately and react if they are not set correctly. The most used locks of the three is probably the Num lock state, which turns the numeric [...]

Categories: Software, Windows