merle_: OSX numpad fixer

Merle (

merle_) wrote,
@ 2008-04-25 13:00:00

Current mood:	giddy
Current music:	Guano Apes, "You Can't Stop Me"

OSX numpad fixer
Ha ha, yes!

I have to give thanks to someone who was asking about.. drat, it's locked. You know who you are, you get the thanks, even if it was serendipity. Anyway, after over two years of suffering with the stupid OSX "users don't want the numpad to work like arrow keys" philosophy, I finally found a solution!

It was while searching for something which I didn't end up finding. Just as I was giving up on my search parameters and typing in new ones, I noticed "fixing the numeric keypad directional keys" as a link on the bottom of the screen. Quickly going there, the post ranted about the problems I had had, and pointed to KeyRemap4MacBook. Now when I move from a computer where the numpad works to OSX, I won't be surprised when typing on it to scroll around ends up navigating me somewhere bizarre.

HA!

(Post a new comment)

	cellio 2008-04-25 10:56 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks for the info! I'm filing this away for when I replace my desktop PC with a Mac. (Vista will not enter this house...) Glad I helped in a roundabout way. (The entry is only locked because I'm trying to surprise someone with something.) (Reply to this)(Thread)

merle_
2008-04-26 12:15 am UTC (link)

Oh, I know it's only locked as a surprise.. but even hinting at the type of surprise or who it was seemed wrong. Just in case. There are people who will pick at information until they know exactly what they are getting, and checking flists is not out of bounds. (I should know; I did that until I was old enough to know that I wasn't going to get anything I couldn't save up for and purchase for myself)

I wholeheartedly agree about Vista. I'm tempted to buy an OEM copy of XP Pro, just to have lying around. Just in case.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

cellio
2008-04-27 03:04 am UTC (link)

I'm tempted to buy an OEM copy of XP Pro, just to have lying around. Just in case.

As I understand it, to use Parallels or Fusion one still needs to buy the relevant Windows OS. I'm assuming that the installation discs from my current PC won't work. (Let's take it as given that I would decomission the machine, so I would not be stealing a second running copy.) I'm not sure how to implement this; I plan to use this machine for a while yet, until they stop updating XP or the machine rots, but I'm going to want to be able to run a few Windows apps on the Mac that comes next.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

merle_
2008-04-27 03:12 am UTC (link)

You are correct, to use a virtualized Windows machine you need the appropriate license. But from what I understand, the licenses are transferrable, if you are adamant enough. A friend of mine has moved his XP license five times in the last year, the latest time to a VM image under Ubuntu.

And there is always Win2K, which doesn't check back with Mother Microsoft to make sure it is valid.. and won't have any updates pretty soon...

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

cellio
2008-04-27 07:33 pm UTC (link)

Oh, good point -- I should be able to just load up my Win2K CD. Thanks! I ran Win2K until the updates stopped and I felt forced to switch to XP, but if it's not going to really be my OS but is just there so I can run specific Windows-only software, who cares? (One app I care about is Windows-only, and a couple others have Mac versions but why should I pay another several hundred dollars for something I already bought once?)

(Reply to this)(Parent)

Username:		Create an Account Forgot your login? Login w/ OpenID
Password:
	Remember Me
	English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…