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Ph34r my skillzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

  • Article

I thought i'd mention how interesting it is trying to type messages without access to the 'z' key. I'm using a toshiba laptop right now that's missing it. It's not a common character so it's not too tought to avoid using it. But it is rather interesting how it will come up when least expected and how you have to work around words. How have i been typing that letter so far (notice how i didn't actually use it)? Good old character map. It's only about 1000 times less efficient than actually typing.

Sigh... AIM made me start abbreviating everything. Word made me forget how to spell. Now toshiba is making me cut out letters from the alphabet. Any time now I'm just going to end up with newspeak being the only language I know.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    Cyrus,

    ha ha, maybe just replace it with an 's'? Nine out of ten it will just look like plain english :)
  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    It's not a common character unless your name has a "z" in it!
  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    Configure a special Keyboard Layout which replaces another unused key (for example, the key `~ would would work for me) to actually type Z.

    You can use Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator to customize your keyboard layout. It's brand you, from Microsoft :)

    http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/tools/msklc.mspx
  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    Just replace the "z" with "x"

    So you get words like "xebra" and also "xulu" and "xone"

    ... maybe not
  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    OSK.exe

    The on screen keyboard.
  • Anonymous
    June 22, 2004
    For a while, I used FeedReader to read my blog subscriptions. The latest "public" version (on my machine, at least) didn't take the 'z'. Actually, it took the 'z', but treated this keystroke as a command to toggle the blog list. This made responding to comments a bit of a challenge at times. :)

    So I would routinely open up my text editor of choice and type a z. Whenever I needed a z in the text, I'd copy/paste it. I'm really not sure why I stuck with FeedReader as long as I did.
  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    d00d! i (@n $33 ur l33tn3$$ fr0// h3r3!!

    //h3r3 d0 i g3+ a ph@+ +0$hib@ l1k3 ur$??
  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    Your solutions are too complicated....simplicity is its own reward.

    Use the power of the Copy-Paste Luke!

    Find someone with a z...not too hard..

    I went onto google, typed in alphabet and lo and behold, i see a Z right there in the list right away. Copy that....paste that. <Fanfare/>

    :-)
  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    Ahh i forgot to mention...ever used a keyboard where the keys have been moved manually.....well one of my roommates had to pull this joke on me. He changed the keys on the keyboard to some other format.

    So in order to type, i would have to close my eyes and clear my mind and think of nothing...just letting my fingers do the work. Was fun.....try that on your office workers some day. :-)
  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    alt-090, alt-0122
  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    Heh, we did the switch the key button caps before. It's funnier if you only swap two keys, say M and N. It's usually a subtle enough difference and visual typers really don't catch it until they look up to see what they typed.
  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    You should be using the decabet:

    (Dan Aykroyd) of the U.S. Council of Standards and Measurements explains the "Decabet" the new metric alphabet consisting of 10 letters. "A-B-C and D, our most popular letters, will remain the same. E and F, however, will be combined and graphically simplified to one character. The groupings G-H-I and L-M-N-O will be condensed to single letters. (Incidentally, a boon to those who always thought that L-M-N-O was one letter anyway.) And finally, the 'trash letters,' or P-Q-R-S-T-U-V-W-X-Y and Z, will be condense" to one "easily identifiable dark character."
  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    June 23, 2004
    Josh,

    Using ALT + numeric pad keys is not a good solutions on many laptops because the numeric pad keys are simply not easy available (they are usually bounded to some keys in the alphanumeric section of the keyboard).