Remapping the enter key

Apple PowerBooks don't have extended keyboards - not even the 17" model which clearly has room for one. While I don't really miss the lack of a numeric keypad (as far as I'm concerned they are primarily used as as direction keys in games!) on my 15" 667Mhz model, I've always wished that Apple had managed to squeeze dedicated page-up and page-down keys onto the PowerBooks, rather than making you press the 'Function' key and an up/down arrow key. But what is really aggravating is that there is only one 'Function' key, and it is on the left side of the keyboard! This means that you need two hands to page-up or page-down.

As a result, ever since I got this laptop, I've been trying to remap my Enter key to a Function key so I could page up and down with one hand. I thought I had found a clue in this MacOSXHints story, but it turned out to be aimed at remapping Exposé activation keys. After more searching on the same site I eventually discovered this old story, which led me to DoubleCommand. What can I say - this kernel extension has answered my prayers and is a must-have for any PowerBook owner! It can not only remap the Enter key to a Function key, it can also remap other modifier keys as well as the caps-lock key. Not only that it can make your Mac react like a PC when you press the Home and End keys. On the Mac the Home and End keys have traditionally moved to the beginning and the end of the document, while on the PC they move to the beginning and end of a line. I've always found the PC behaviour to be more useful. Note: this seems to work in all apps I've tried, except TextEdit.

Keyboard problems

Bad news: the 'o' key on my keyboard has started acting up. Sometimes when I press it a second 'o' appears 2 or 3 characters after the first one. At other times I press it and the 'o' doesn't appear until 2 or 3 characters later. Very, very, very, annoying.

Here's a sample:

This paragraph is just randomo text but hopeofully when I look up from typing it you will see where all the extra o's have appeared. I need to type moroe woords with o's in them. Here are some more o words: bomb copper balloon crock crook rolloover zoo soap crd ooval oopal orogan oroganic odour orifice

Update: I've managed to fix it! All I did was pry the key off, clean out the crap that had accumulated underneath, and re-attach it. For one heart-stopping moment I thought I had snapped something off when I pried it out, but it seems to have re-attached without problem.

Postfix fix!

Good news: a contributor at MacOSXHints has found a solution to prevent postfix from breaking down whenever you repair permissions. Three cheers for clvrmnky!

The return of typhoon8

I have finally, after months of effort and four transatlantic faxes, managed to persuade Network Solutions that I am actually who I say I am. They have now changed my registered email address (they still had the old Hong Kong one) so that I once again have access to the typhoon8.net domain. Thanks to the free URL redirection service at MyDomain.com, I've pointed typhoon8.net to this page for now.

On a related note, while looking into the typhoon8.net situation, I noticed that typhoon8.com has been registered to an outdoor adventure company based in Hong Kong. On their website's links page they have a link for the "other" typhoon8, and the link is to the Hong Kong Observatory's typhoon signals explanation page! In the spirit of one-upmanship I thought I'd post this:

whois typhoon8.net
Domain Name: TYPHOON8.NET
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact:
Houghton, Timothy (31613958I)
Record expires on 18-May-2005.
Record created on 18-May-1999.

whois typhoon8.com
Domain Name: TYPHOON8.COM
Created on..............: Fri, Nov 29, 2002
Expires on..............: Mon, Nov 29, 2004
Record last updated on..: Thu, Feb 06, 2003
Administrative Contact:
Asia Explorer Limited

Maybe I should email them and demand inclusion on their links page! Or maybe I should just flog typhoon8.net to them. :-)