Blob
>the personal blog of david n wallace
[aka Dave the Lifekludger]

Essentially Flat

I have blogged previously that I have a PDA and written elsewhere how it is a very handy tool that helps me manage my life and work with a disability.

Well lately I’ve been having problems after I came out one morning to find it had done a hard reset. I had data synced on my PC so it wasn’t too much of a drama. It went trough the auto-setup. I created a partnership on AS and resynced the data and I got the bluetooth to re-discover my PDA< ->headset bond (my PDA has a love-hate relationship with my headset, or vice-versa, but that’s another story. Suffice to say, if you have a O2 Xda II mini and a BT headset how about getting in touch so we can compare notes).

Anyway, all seemed fine and dandy again until I tried to use the onscreen keyboard. It had gone strange and there was no space bar or backspace key. Some of the keys had changed.

changed

normal

I hunted everywhere for a place to change keyboard type. I posted some queries on forums dealing with these devices and did search after search to find any leads to the problem, all to no avail.

I’d given up temporarily on the issue and reverted to using the transcriber more. Then the other day I was waiting somewhere, for someone or something and was passing the time trying to see what was up with the PDA keyboard issue. And I stumbled on the problem, well the solution to the problem.

Turns out that the “Use gestures….” option was checked for the keyboard and this changes the layout of the keyboard! The option can be found on your PDA under “Start -> Settings -> Personal -> Input -> Keyboard“.

It basically uses stylus direction movements for backspace, space, shift and newline. Since gestures are used it removes these keys and rearranges the keyboard layout. How reasonable, how straight forward, how clever…..how on earth is one suppossed to know?!

Now, don’t go saying I should’ve read the manual. Or referred to the manual. I can find no reference to it in the manual. That, in part, is why I’m telling you about it. Hopefully if anyone else ever has the same problem and goes searching the net for a solution, they might find this. If there’s even a slight possibility that the problems I had could help someone else find a solution, then I can possibly redeem some sanity I lost through it….the thought keeps me going anyway!