keyboards

Modifier keys for Mac systems are the Shift, Control, Option (Alt), Command, and Caps Lock keys. The commands triggered by combinations of these keys can greatly speed up how you use your computer, but it can slow you down again if you switch to a keyboard with an unfamiliar layout.

While most Mac keyboards have these keys in the same relative locations, so you don't have to change your typing habits, there are situations in which you may end up using something different, such as if you take a laptop to the office and plug in whatever keyboard you … Read more

Apple includes a number of screensavers in OS X that provide you with options to exercise your display and prevent LCD ghosting, CRT burn-in (if you still use a CRT monitor), or other persistent images from being a nuisance. As with most screen savers, you can deactivate them by moving your mouse or pressing a button on your keyboard; however, this may not always be the case, and depending on the screensaver being used you may instead find the screensaver will persist even when some inputs are pressed.

Advance photos in slideshows Apple includes a number of slideshow screensavers that … Read more

Beyond the basic arrow key navigation and space bar to start and stop song playback, there are a few other keyboard shortcuts in iTunes 11 that can be used to help you navigate its features.

Since the release of iTunes 11, a few convenient keyboard shortcuts have been revealed that offer quick ways to manage playback, navigate the windows, or otherwise deal with some of iTunes' common functions. As with most programs, various shortcuts can be found in the application's menus. However, along with these there are some hidden options that may prove convenient.

Clear play queue When playing … Read more

Tablets are dandy just as they come, but sometimes you can really stand to have a keyboard at your fingertips. You can carry around something like Apple's wireless keyboard or a fat case with a keyboard built in. Or you can get behind the Nibiqu iPad keyboard project on Kickstarter.

I don't really know what Nibiqu stands for, but I do know it's mighty thin at less than a quarter inch in thickness. It doubles as a case, but the most compelling aspect is the full keyboard with keys that depress. The maker is advertising it as "the thinnest keyboard for your iPad," though it may have some competition in that department.… Read more

As with most e-mail clients, Apple's Mail program supports multiple accounts so you can access all of your e-mail from one program, and as such it is not uncommon for people to have different accounts configured for work, home, and other activities that they would like to keep separate. While convenient in some respects, there are times when composing messages using multiple accounts can have you redundantly selecting the account to send from.

By default Mail should use the current selected account as the "From" account when replying to a message, so managing replies or forwarding messages … Read more

When not blogging for CNET, I review laptops and other tech products. And I've come across a shocking number of laptops with what I can only describe as crappy touch pads, from poorly integrated mouse buttons to mouse buttons that are too stiff to unresponsive performance from the touch pad itself. If you are saddled with such a laptop, you may find that browser extension gleeBox lives up to its name.

gleeBox is available for Chrome and Safari (the gleeBox Firefox add-on is out of date). At its core, it lets you tab from one link to another on … Read more

We've seen a variety of creatures use Twitter, including flies and politicians, but check out this footage of real birds tweeting.

Lativan artist Voldemars Dudums created a viral marketing campaign for IR magazine based around the concept phrase "Everyone has a right to be heard."

With that philosophy in mind, Dudums decided to give birds a voice -- on the Internet. The artist took a keyboard and replaced the keys with pieces of unsalted fat, then connected the calorie-filled input device to a computer set up on an outdoor post in Sarnate, Lativa. … Read more

While many of us plug away on monotone-colored keyboards, creative folks at Sony continue to push the bar away from the anemic designs that plague our store shelves.

If you regularly observe fashionable computer accessories, you might recall that Sony's U.S. arm sells a wide array of colorful rubber keyboard skins for Vaio computers -- however, in Japan, the company sells something much more stylish. … Read more

The slow demise of cursive handwriting is not a new story, but lately the death knell has been tolling a little louder. In a recent example, the State Board of Education of Kansas is about to debate the role of cursive lessons in the schools amid a nationwide decline in those lessons.

School districts large and small have been phasing out cursive. Verona, Wis., will phase out most third-grade cursive instruction by 2014. Indiana formally de-emphasized cursive last year in favor of pushing proficiency in keyboard use.

Common Core State Standards for what students are expected to learn have been picked up by most of the states in the union. Those standards don't require cursive. Keyboarding skills, however, are featured in the writing standards. That means most states no longer have a mandate for teaching cursive.… Read more