Posts Tagged ‘keyboard’
Palm-sized keyboard works like a laptop in your hand
February 2nd, 2010
Home theater keyboards continue to evolve, and each iteration seems to get more practical. This $92 (or is it $49?) 6-inch-wide Rii Mini Wireless Keyboard fits in the palm of your hand, and features handy LED backlit keys for use in darkened environments, rechargeable batteries, and a just-big-enough touchpad. You don’t need to point it directly at your computer, because it wirelessly communicates with a USB receiver you plug into the PC. And what’s that? A laser pointer? Perhaps that’s getting overly helpful, Brando.
Nevertheless, now we’re getting somewhere. Keyboards are a must when using a computer in the home theater, and this could be the next incremental improvement. TiVo had the right idea, this week rolling out its new remote with that slide-out keyboard for its Series 4 models. If we could combine that TiVo remote technology with this Rii device, we might be getting close to the perfect PC controller for home theater.
The Keyboard
June 1st, 2008
Like the mouse, the keyboard is a means of interacting with your computer. You really only need to use the keyboard when you’re typing text. Most of the keys on the keyboard are laid out like the keys on a typewriter. But there are some special keys like Esc (Escape), Ctrl (Control), and Alt (Alternate). There are also some keys across the top of the keyboard labeled F1, F2, F3, and so forth. Those are called the function keys, and the exact role they play depends on which program you happen to be using at the moment.
Most keyboards also have a numeric keypad with the keys laid out like the keys on a typical adding machine. If you’re accustomed to using an adding machine, you might want to use the numeric keypad, rather than the numbers across the top of the keyboard, to type numbers. It doesn’t really matter which keys you use. The numeric keypad is just there as a convenience to people who are accustomed to adding machines.
Most keyboards also contain a set of navigation keys. You can use the navigation keys to move around around through text on the screen. The navigation keys won’t move the mouse pointer. Only the mouse moves the mouse pointer.
On smaller keyboards where space is limited, such as on a notebook computer, the navigation keys and numeric keypad might be one in the same. There will be a Num Lock key on the keypad. When the Num Lock key is “on”, the numeric keypad keys type numbers. When the Num Lock key is “off”, the navigation keys come into play. The Num Lock key acts as a toggle. Which is to say, when you tap it, it switches to the opposite state. For example, if Num Lock is on, tapping that key turns it off. If Num Lock is off, tapping that key turns Num Lock on.
What is Hardware?
January 4th, 2008
Your PC (Personal Computer) is a system, consisting of many components. Some of those components, like Windows XP, and all your other programs, are software. The stuff you can actually see and touch, and would likely break if you threw it out a fifth-story window, is hardware.
Not everybody has exactly the same hardware. But those of you who have a desktop system, like the example shown in Figure 1, probably have most of the components shown in that same figure. Those of you with notebook computers probably have most of the same components. Only in your case the components are all integrated into a single book-sized portable unit.
The system unit is the actual computer; everything else is called a peripheral device. Your computer’s system unit probably has at least one floppy disk drive, and one CD or DVD drive, into which you can insert floppy disks and CDs. There’s another disk drive, called the hard disk inside the system unit, as shown in Figure 2. You can’t remove that disk, or even see it. But it’s there. And everything that’s currently “in your computer” is actually stored on that hard disk. (We know this because there is no place else inside the computer where you can store information!).
The floppy drive and CD drive are often referred to as drives with removable media or removable drives for short, because you can remove whatever disk is currently in the drive, and replace it with another. Your computer’s hard disk can store as much information as tens of thousands of floppy disks, so don’t worry about running out of space on your hard disk any time soon. As a rule, you want to store everything you create or download on your hard disk. Use the floppy disks and CDs to send copies of files through the mail, or to make backup copies of important items.
