The workaround is to click in the Google Document window, type a single letter and then backspace over it. This gets Google Docs attention, and menus and shortcuts work as usual.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Google Docs Keyboard Shortcut Problem Workaround
Google Documents sometimes ignores keyboard shortcuts. This happens when the computer shifts its attention to another program. For example, copy a block of text from a Google Doc, switch to another program and paste. Or hit the key command to have the text block read aloud. On returning to the Google Doc and selecting another block of text, the keyboard shortcuts may not work. In the menu bar, the copy command is disabled, as if no text was selected. Sometimes the menu command or even the keyboard shortcut works, but not consistently.
Workaround for Hotmail Keyboard Shortcut Problems
When I try to copy and paste something out of a Hotmail document, I get an error message that says "Hotmail was not able to complete this request. Microsoft may contact you about any issue you report." Same thing happens when I select a block of text and hit the key command to get my computer to read that passage aloud. Apparently Hotmail is unwilling to accept key commands from my computer while I am reading a message.
There are two workarounds. The copy and start speaking commands in the menu bar still work, so one can use those in place of the key commands. Alternately, one can hit the reply button. This opens a window including the entire original message quoted. Since this window expects you to be typing, it allows key commands.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Bin Laden, a bus and the Milky Way
Apparently there was something in the news about some guy getting killed in Pakistan. But the big news today is that a car hit the Streamline bus I was riding in from Belgrade.
Net results: Obama poll numbers have just got to go up. John Negroponte, G. W. Bush's UN ambassador, answered a question on NPR which included mention of the fact that some previous administrations had downplayed the importance of getting Bin Laden. Which previous administrations those might have been was not mentioned. Negroponte assured us that Bush never lost interest in getting Bin Laden for a single second. There was damage to a bus wheel and damage to the already damaged car which looked like it had hit some other bus before it hit our bus. I got to spend half an hour sitting in a sunny bus reading a fascinating article in Scientific American while the police did whatever it was they were doing.
What we know: Bin Laden and his people were hiding in a huge house very near a Pakistani military facility and Pakistan says they did not know it. We flew a helicopter strike force into that area meeting no resistance from Pakistan, and we say we did not tell them we were coming. The kid who hit the bus says he ran the red light and hit the bright yellow bus which was clearly illuminated by the sunlight coming from behind him because he was picking up something he had dropped on the floor. Everybody who hears this assumes that what the kid had dropped was his telephone. And, most importantly, matter constantly flows into and out of galaxies to an extent not previously imagined. We already knew that the heavier atoms in our bodies, everything above lithium, were formed by fusion reactions inside stars. Now we know that many of those atoms that make us up were probably formed in stars in galaxies outside our Milky Way. Bits of Osama Bin Laden now resting on the floor of the ocean came a very long way to get there, and will someday return to intergalactic space.
Net results: Obama poll numbers have just got to go up. John Negroponte, G. W. Bush's UN ambassador, answered a question on NPR which included mention of the fact that some previous administrations had downplayed the importance of getting Bin Laden. Which previous administrations those might have been was not mentioned. Negroponte assured us that Bush never lost interest in getting Bin Laden for a single second. There was damage to a bus wheel and damage to the already damaged car which looked like it had hit some other bus before it hit our bus. I got to spend half an hour sitting in a sunny bus reading a fascinating article in Scientific American while the police did whatever it was they were doing.
What we know: Bin Laden and his people were hiding in a huge house very near a Pakistani military facility and Pakistan says they did not know it. We flew a helicopter strike force into that area meeting no resistance from Pakistan, and we say we did not tell them we were coming. The kid who hit the bus says he ran the red light and hit the bright yellow bus which was clearly illuminated by the sunlight coming from behind him because he was picking up something he had dropped on the floor. Everybody who hears this assumes that what the kid had dropped was his telephone. And, most importantly, matter constantly flows into and out of galaxies to an extent not previously imagined. We already knew that the heavier atoms in our bodies, everything above lithium, were formed by fusion reactions inside stars. Now we know that many of those atoms that make us up were probably formed in stars in galaxies outside our Milky Way. Bits of Osama Bin Laden now resting on the floor of the ocean came a very long way to get there, and will someday return to intergalactic space.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)