Human nature is funny, isn’t it? We all have our own methods of doing things, utilizing tools that have been made for us (most of the time anyways). Like the keyboard on your laptop. It has been designed to comply with your needs of typing and giving the puter some input.

And when a key becomes dysfunctional, it throws you off. This was the case with Thumper on Friday. He was designing and if you don’t know anything about design – the shift key is essential. Designers have to hold down the shift key while hitting other keys as well as clicking on the mouse. These commands are shortcuts and have been learned, adapted, and customized over time. They are second nature to him.

I suggested he used the shift key on the right. That didn’t go over so well. Designers have their techniques. Thumper compared it to having his left arm amputated.

He was stressed having promised a few mock ups for clients that evening. Never the less, he managed to get his work done in the usual quality – it just took a little bit longer.

Granted we both could use new computers for work, but in this case he decided he would just buy a keyboard and a stand for it so the screen didn’t have to be moved further away.

New Keyboard

Thumper went to the store and purchased a new keyboard that looked as though it could do the job, along with the stand. As he so proudly described it at first, being a sleek sexy number – his opinion soon changed.

He hooked it up and discovered that it wasn’t going to work as he had hoped.

I am sure you can all relate to the sensitivity of the keys on a laptop. You have to press down harder on this keyboard. You have to press down really hard on this keyboard. If you just type as usual, you’ll notice that the keyboard, while looking nice and sexy, didn’t register half of the letters you typed.

This is a major problem for him, as you can imagine. When using a shortcut, he can’t just hope that the keyboard is getting the pressed key. He needs to know it.

This is also important when coding, which is a part of web design – well actually web development. There are so many codes to know.

There is HTML, XML, CSS, PHP, MySQL, JavaScript, ActionScript, and the list goes on.

This is an sample XBML (eXclusive Bunny Markup Language):

<Tbunny_ emporium_company(strong) AE&# 26<10026>;T</T_bunny_emporium>company/

This is a series of commands for a company name. It should have the text size and color and then closing of the command. Maybe

He has spent some time showing me what he does. I am interested in learning it. The codes make up the designs and structure of the application, and the functionality for a website.

I know some of you may think after a few hours of adjusting to the sleek little new keyboard, he would retrain himself. Well that is not the case. He plans to work with the old one and return the other one on Monday for a hopefully better one. Unless he beats it to death first.

As he types on the new one, it sounds more like he is using an antique typewriter. It is that loud.

So my question is this: are you prepared when one of the technical gadgets you have come to rely on breaks down? No doubt we are spoiled by technology, but do you have a back up plan besides hitting save?

Do you save your work to a disk each day or think you will be able to retrieve it no matter what?

Do you store your programs in a file on your computer without a hard copy? It is easy to forget about certain forms you don’t use that often until you lose them.

Have you ever lost or broken your personal cell phone with friends’ and family members’ phone numbers on it? That speed dial is great but I ran over my cell phone a couple of years ago. I dropped my purse that was unlatched and almost everything dropped out of it. I thought I had picked it all up but missed the cell phone for my personal use. The end of it was when I drove my car over it.

It would have been easier if it was my business phone.