TheBanyanTree: A little good news, just for fun.

[Laura]

 I'm a genius.  Or, I'm an idiot, I guess it depends on how you look at it.

See, I've got this keyboard that I love.  Hmmm... no, I don't love it - I
loved the original Microsoft Natural keyboard that my son finally trashed -
but this one's close.  It's an MS Wireless Natural Multimedia keyboard.  The
only reason I don't love it is because it has all those extra "mulit-media"
keys on it.  I've disabled all of them.  Nothing quite as annoying as typing
away in a document only to suddenly have your email program open and dump
you into a new mail because you accidentally clipped that extra key up
there.  Oh, and there is an "F-lock" key you have to hit everytime you log
on if you want to use the function keys.  Which I do, all the time.

So anyway, I've got this keyboard I really, really like.  And it's wireless,
which is a big selling point for me.  :)

A few days ago, when I got a new computer system, I discovered I couldn't
use the nice keyboard because it had to have a PS2 connector.   Well, I got
to thinking.  How stupid is it that there are two connectors for one
wireless receiver?  One for the mouse and one for the keyboard?  It doesn't
make sense, really, but I've had them both plugged in the whole time on the
old system, and everything worked just fine.

This afternoon, I was looking at new keyboards online, trying to find one I
liked that didn't cost an arm and a leg, when I came across a description of
the very keyboard I was having to replace.  It said, "PS2 or USB
compatible".  Huh.  I got up and went around the back of the old computer to
look at the connectors.  Sure enough, there were two - one PS2, and one
USB.  Suddenly, the lightbulb went on.  You only have to connect ONE or the
OTHER!  Not both!  DUH.

I unhooked it from the old system, pulled out the new, tiny, ugly,
icky keyboard and new mouse, and hooked up just the USB cable from the old,
beautiful, beloved wireless keyboard and mouse.  Da-DINK.  Da-DINK.  "Your
new hardware is installed and ready to use."

WOO-HOO!!!  At last my arm is complete again!!!!  (sorry, a little Sweeney
Todd thrown in there for good measure.)

Now I don't have to blow $50 for a new keyboard!

-- 
Laura
wolfljsh at gmail.com