Skip to main content

Keyboard Shortcuts & Me

I've been involved in many computer courses, as a participant and also a facilitator.  Sometimes when I step into a roomful of ICT-aware young so-and-so's, they look at me and immediately dismiss me as an 'auntie' who probably needed to be taught how to hold a mouse.  Auntie ah, the mouse you right-click and left-click like this one...

Ah but sometimes I do get my revenge.

You see, the kids nowadays learn computers from the cradle but their computers have mice and trackballs and joysticks.  The computer I learned how to use way back when only had a keyboard.  Mice back then were animals you chased with a broomstick..or a parang

The first computers I used didn't have Windows.  They had DOS.  For those young 'uns out there, DOS has C prompts and A prompts and strings of code people memorized.  When we migrated to Wordstar and Wordperfect, we also had to memorize commands such as CTRL-TAB or CTRL-F.  If you mastered Wordperfect, you were almost a demigod because there would be nothing for you to use but a totally blank screen and the keyboard.  Years of using such commands have made it almost second nature for me to use keys as shortcuts.  Such as using CTRL-i to italicise this sentence.

But back to my revenge....ah yes... imagine a non-functioning mouse and a deadline in ten minutes.  Suddenly auntie can save the day.

CTRL-P....!

Comments

Kef-Nurechor said…
Keyboard shortcuts FTW!
I used to be so proud that I could navigate windows 3.1 entirely on keyboard shortcuts :p hahahahahaha~ a bit harder with xp/vista though :/

Popular posts from this blog

Royal Commonwealth Essay Competition 2009

Another great opportunity for our young people to show what they can do! The Royal Commonwealth Essay Competition has four different age bands, 'Classes'. Each Class offers five topics, plus the Commonwealth Question and the Charlton Athletic Community Trust Question. As we hope to reach a diverse student body across the Commonwealth, there are options for both academic and creative minds.  The Competition deadline is 1st March 2009   CLASS A - Born 1990-1992  1400-1750 words  All questions can be answered by writing an essay or a story which explores the topic in an interesting and relevant way.   Can I help you?  Bullying is an issue which concerns young people throughout the Commonwealth. Why does it matter and what can be done about it?   It is 200 years since Charles Darwin was born and 150 years since the publication of "On the origin of Species". In your view, what evolutionary developments are neede...

Why It Is Frightening To Be A Teacher

Frightening to be a teacher?  Sounds laughable, right?  But I do feel fear when I am in school as a teacher or an administrator.  Some people would call me paranoid but I think it is better to be paranoid than to be in a dock in some courtroom or at a hospital bedside some place. Let me twist a Robbie Burns poem How do I fear thee (O' burden of a teacher)? Let me count the ways... 1. In Loco Parentis In English, that means 'in the place of a parent'.  In legal terms, that means a teacher is expected to be as responsible as a parent for the safety of his or her students while they are within the school grounds or under his or her care.  And they may be liable in the same way a parent would be, where the law is concerned. I attended a course by an IAB lecturer way back in 2000 and listened in horror as she detailed the many different ways I could've been in trouble with regard to the way I dealt with students.  If a rock falls on a student within ...

How Challenging Teaching In Sabah Can Be

As a teacher, I have had many memorable experiences but one of the most fascinating has got to be observing my colleagues from other states as they deal with their first days in Sabah. Born and bred in Sabah, I never really had much reason or opportunity to question what sort of image Sabah presented to the outside world (which includes other states in Malaysia) until I went to university in Kuala Lumpur.  And, of course, when I began working as a teacher. My first inkling of how 'scary' Sabah can be to outsiders came during my third year in university.  I had coursemates who quickly got married ... it was the first time I had ever heard of 'nikah gantung'.  Apparently, they could get married but it was a sort of 'marriage on hold' (if such a thing exists..).  What mattered was that they could get a marriage certificate that would help 'save' them from the jungles of Sabah and Sarawak.  Then, during the briefing I attended to receive my first posti...