Friday, March 3, 2006
A few days ago I had said that the home we're in now has the most space of all the places we've lived, but I now think that's incorrect. Our home at 302 Junipero Serra probably had more space; I made the mistake of using square footage figures which weren't complete. Not that it's terribly important to know which place had the most space, but just for the record. In planning for the eventual (?) scenario of me using Mac computers for everything (!), I started learning to use more keyboard shortcuts for OS X than Command+Tab. Apple has come a long way since OS 9 with respect to keyboard accessibility, and Apple's dearth of keyboard shortcuts has long been one reason why I hadn't taken its operating systems seriously for a long time. Sure, Apple immortalized Ctrl+{ZXCV} for Undo, Cut, Copy, and Paste, but as far as I know you still can't use the keyboard to resize a window in OS X—and this is still true more than 15 years after Microsoft first introduced it in Windows 3.1. One of the first things I did when I got my Mac Mini was swap the locations of the Command and Option keys. This feels more correct to me than the default configuration in Tiger 10.4, especially with things like Alt+Tab (aka Command+Tab). Today I learned that Ctrl+F1 turns on "full keyboard access" and Ctrl+F2 puts focus on the Apple menu in the menu bar (but it doesn't open it—you have to press the down arrow, which is very inconvenient). This decision—to not have full keyboard access on by default—to me is a little like Microsoft deciding to leave ClearType off by default for Windows XP, but I'm guessing the Apple gurus have a good reason for keeping it off by default. (Why must there be two modes?) The behavior of Ctrl+F2 is particularly irrational because there's no reason why the Apple menu couldn't automatically be opened when you press Ctrl+F2. Focus could still be on the Apple menu bar item, but the menu could at least be displayed so you can see your options immediately without an additional keystroke. Ctrl+F2 followed by Right Arrow could (should) display the Program menu item dropped down but with focus still on the Program item (e.g., Finder). Indeed, if someone has pressed Ctrl+F2, he or she is going to need to see a menu drop down at some point to get any good out of that action. Why force an extra keypress every time? Maybe this is a screen reader issue. But even if Apple were to change that behavior, Microsoft still has the advantage of being a single keypress (Windows key) with a strong finger (left or right thumb) instead of OS X's two-keypress combination (Ctrl+F2) which involves at least one weak finger (either pinky), presuming touch typists, of course. Maybe there's a way I can remap the Windows key on my keyboard to Ctrl+F2 followed by Down Arrow. But then what would I use for the Option key? Erg. Breakfast at home by myself: a banana, some yogurt, some cereal. At work I worked more on and later handed back a fixed laptop for student DES. Another student, TN, bought me a Starbucks gift card and a big bag of dark chocolate covered espresso beans, which I will enjoy very much. Poster work for Cindy. Troubleshot problems with Retrospect backup. I forgot that REV was a disk drive instead of a tape drive, so I chose the wrong thing when setting up my backup scripts and Retrospect later then gave an error I couldn't figure out: "No tape backup devices found." Fixed designer access for student KT. Answered a VPN question for student BR. Update from the Dean work for Susie. Answered a question about phishing for student MK. Met briefly with student WO about Idea Box forums. Asked Taylor by e-mail if I can get the Windows Vista beta. Dinner at home with Patrick: slow-braised pig ribs with mini penne in red sauce. Delicious! After dinner, we watched portions of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on DVD.