QWERTY Trials

Another three day weekend is history, except I have the sore muscles to remind me how much gardening was accomplished – my brain can remind me of how much is yet left!  It is satisfying though to see some order where before there was an overgrown mess.  I know periwinkle’s quite pretty, but the stuff does grow like a weed and needs constant reigning in, as any recalcitrant child.   The sky now is overcast and hopefully some promised rain will give a boost to the newly planted flowers and shrubs.

The countdown is now on for Bloody Words – ten more sleeps.    Jamie Tremain will have a manuscript evaluation of Body Perfect while we're there and hopefully our skill and ability have grown considerably since the last Bloody Words we attended in Ottawa.

Last week I got out my NetBook, for something trivial I’m sure, and discovered I couldn’t get the password to work. Now, anyone who knows me should know how annoyed and disbelieving that left me.  I never forget passwords.  Between work, writing and other online sites, passwords do accumulate and I've a pretty good system in place to keep them straight and provide hints should they be needed.  So I was pretty much peeved off that I couldn’t find the right combination to unlock my NetBook-  which will be called up for duty at Bloody Words.

Off to my neighbourhood Staples I slunk to shamefacedly admit it appeared I couldn’t remember my password. Ah, the knowing looks that passed between the tech staff.  “You don’t understand,” I wanted to explain, but even to my silent ears I knew the plea would have been heard countless times before. I wouldn’t have believed it either.

“We’ll see what we can do, but it may mean re-formatting the hard drive.”

“Whatever it takes,” I said with a smile counting imaginary dollars in my head.

Picked it up after work today –  password free, no charge and no reformatting thankfully. Came home, booted it up.  Lovely.  Then wanted to send a test email to ensure everything was working.  My QWERTY had disappeared to be replaced by some random foreign language!  Letter ‘o’ was now a 6, the ‘k’ a 2 and so on.   The light dawned...it wasn’t that I didn’t remember my password – but not being able to see the keys pressed on the screen I had no idea what I was typing wasn’t what was showing up!  Vindicated!

Vindication was step one, restoration became step 2.  Searching ‘help’ on Windows proved fruitless, so I turned to my trusted font of all knowledge, Mr Google.  After a few intimate moments with him, the answer was revealed.

Fn key!  (Seems appropriate somehow)   That’s the Bluetooth Fn key – it was locked and in that state substituted QWERTY keys with other characters.  Fn + NumLock restored my keyboard.  Relief!

So now my little NetBook is all ready for Bloody Words and next week is vacation from work, so that should give me plenty of time to get ready as well – overpacking here I come.

We’re also awaiting results of the Poisoned Pen Press contest on May 31 – wouldn’t that be a great way to start off Bloody Words? Whatever the outcome – Pam and I are geared up to be positive and relentless in our pursuit to see Jamie Tremain on a bookstore shelf near you!

Cheers!

Liz