I hate 'ALT"

[petemoore]

Who the heck put that thing next to the space bar? Touch that and the page completely disappears !!! Lovely...dang pinky keeps hitting that stupid key [alt] and ruining my posts...not that they we're any good to begin with...lol
  anything I can do to re-program these stupidly laid out keys?

[smoguzbenjamin]

You could rip the key off

[Ansil]

  anything I can do to re-program these stupidly laid out keys?

why not build your own keyboard.

i did this years ago.. i hard wired the shift key to work with the top row no. keys as i 10key only and never use the top keys for more than there shift functions

if you have a junk keyboard you could try it

[zener]

Which of the two ALT you often hit?

When I was still playing Countersrike few years ago, i use to accidentally hit the Windows button and back to the desktop. When I click on the game in the taskbar, I lose audio. I just took the button off.

[Mark Hammer]

My first computer - an ACORN ATOM (1mhz, 12k RAM, 12k ROM, $600)- had the "break" key right beside the enter/return key.  Their suggestion in the manual was to stick a piece of cardboard under the Break keycap so you only ended up pressing it when you wanted.

Thankfully, we've come a long way in 22 years.

[petemoore]

Thanks for all the suggestions.
 i like the form follows function techniques....
 I was really just venting...but now that you say it's 'OK' I probably will semi-disable that key [right alt]... See I use shift, ? and space alot, having a key that loses the page and returns to desktop right there is just plain dumm...of course I'm no 'real' engineer so I would have noticed that if I were designing it most likely [[lol...fogs with breath and polished fingernails...perfect!] I would have circumvented such problems with a different placement of that key.
 I'm thinking it's not going to be hard at all to partially disable/ make it hard to depress that key/
 Thank you for your support !!!

[Benny]

I've never tried this, but it looks pretty cool:

http://www.autohotkey.com/

It lets you remap (or disable) any key in Windows.  Looks like it's lauguage-based, not menu-driven, but they have a forum (though surely not as cool as this one ) if you need help!

Benny

[Eric H]

Who the heck put that thing next to the space bar? Touch that and the page completely disappears !!! Lovely...dang pinky keeps hitting that stupid key [alt] and ruining my posts...not that they we're any good to begin with...lol
  anything I can do to re-program these stupidly laid out keys?

you can remap the keyboard easily (ever hear of the Dvorak keyboard?)
through the control=panel in windows:
http://www.annoyances.org/exec/show/article02-022

The alt key is there for people who use computers to make a living (writers, graphics pros, Cad designers, etc.) and is used to navigate through software features without having to constantly reach for the mouse (along with the ctrl and shift keys).  If you take time to really learn the key-combinations you can maneuver around a program far more efficiently than with a mouse.
Try it

OTOH  --I always yank the caps off those keys with the windows-specific icons (they get in the way for games)

-Eric

[petemoore]

EZ fix, super kwik
 I just foleded a matchbook cover so two layers could be stuck like under the keys, the duct taped them to the front of the board...problem solved...takes well more than a simple bump now to push them, and the mod can very easily be 'retroed'.

[petemoore]

What's the best service for instant messaging?
 Any answers containing MSN Messenger...would be wasted on me.
 They keep messing with it, requiring downloads every few weeks, won't let me use the 'old' one, the new one won't work, the new one won't load...bout done with that. Then I can't seem to get a new password etc etc etc et c etc etc etc etc et ct c etc ... done staying up late nights looking for the wrong download etc etc. having my password re rejected...phone works better!!!
 Oh yes the new one requires that one look at 'Bennifer' or some 'celebritney' every time it comes up...garbaging up the screen...

[Peter Snowberg]

What's the best service for instant messaging?

Download a copy of Trillian http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/
It works as a client to all the standard IM services at the same time.

Take care,
-Peter

[sirkut]

This post really cracked me up. I actually use my ALT key all the time. Especially if the mouse isn't loaded due to being loose or whatever. Or if I need to close a lot of windows quickly at work, just alt+f4 for example. There are other cool things you can do with ALT. One solution is to type a little better, j/k!

[smoguzbenjamin]

Wow a client for all IM services at the same time? Will it run on a 100Mhz machine? :mrgreen:

[Chris R]

i don't know if it will run on 100 mghz.. but this is the smallest trillian skin (frontend)

http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/187599/

C

[The Tone God]

It was proven awhile back that Trillian stole the code for it's product from another open source project. I wasn't too impressed.

I like GAIM. Its a staple of open source software. Its does all the IM services in one package. I just finished portupgrading it a few minutes ago. I haven't had any probs with it connecting to MSN since they changed the protocol many months ago. Its free and has a windows port availible. All the popup crap is not present either.

http://gaim.sourceforge.net

Andrew