Keyboard Replacement: A Bit of Fail

With the multiple (but non-fatal) failures of my laptop keyboard, I've finally gotten myself to go down to Sim Lim and get it changed. And at the same time, I got a fan that has a quieter motor, as well as 1 GB of RAM to help my computer handle certain demanding affairs (1.5 GB is quite sufficient for most purposes, especially in Ubuntu).

In truth though, the real motivation for me to get down to Sim Lim was actually to upgrade my home PC. It was several years old, and above all, last week it has finally died. It did not so much as cannot power up, but it kept hanging at some point when booting or loading Windows XP. I suspect it has something to do with the motherboard (which I've realised, when shopping for new parts, that it is now named with the politically-correct "mainboard"... fatherboard anyone?), but in any case, this upgrade will finally give me the chance to install Ubuntu in my PC (previously I can't because my hard disk - only one - has one partition, all occupied by Windows XP).

But back to the topic. I got my T43's keyboard and fan changed. All works excellently, but there's something... different about the keyboard. It is actually a keyboard with another country's layout:



The buttons are labelled differently, but they actually serve the old function. For example, the "~, #" key next to the "Enter" button is actually the old "\, |" button. "Shift + 2" still gives "@" instead of the double inverted commas as displayed on the key. This is not too big a problem, since I still have my old keyboard and I can simply replace the key.

What really irritates me, at least until I get used to it, is the different key sizes. The left shift key is smaller, and the Enter key has, well, morphed into another shape (previously, it wasn't too different from the right shift key downstairs). As a consequence, I ended up pressing the wrong key from time to time.

Oh, and also, the left shift key feels pretty mushy instead of the fresh springiness of other new keys. I suppose it has something to do with the rubber nipples, and I, again, have plenty of that from my old keyboard.

While I'm aware of keyboards of other layouts, I didn't realise this will be a problem until it got replace and fully installed. Ah, well, at least Alt + Tab works great, and I no longer get that worrying sound of grinding from my old fan.

By the way, anyone wants to guess what the key next to the left shift (it's labelled "|, \" but of course it is mapped to two other keys) gives?