Technical Assistance Needed

February 18th, 2008

OK, I have two computery questions I can’t find answers to – does anyone know why either of these things happen and how to stop them?

I use Firefox and usually have multiple tabs open. When I am writing something (usually in WordPress) and I want to insert a special character via ALT+(some key combo) the browser starts flipping between tabs instead. It sometimes inserts the character so that when I navigate back to the tab with WordPress open it’s there and sometimes it doesn’t even insert the character, just makes me jump around – which is annoying. The only way to stop it is to close all the other open tabs. I’ve looked at shortcuts for FF, and none of the tab-control ones even USE the ALT key. I’ve also turned off the macros in BetterGmail, thinking they might be the issue, but that doesn’t seem to be it either. If I have more than one tab open and I try to insert a special character, I get the crazy jumping.
When I am typing on my laptop I will frequently look at the screen only to find that my cursor has (for no fathomable reason) relocated itself, and I am now typing in the middle of the previous paragraph. This happens in many applications (Word, IM, forms-fields in web pages, etc) and it makes me fecking nuts. Is it something to do with the configuration of my keyboard? Is my hand inadvertently brushing something that says “Cursor, please go and reinsert yourself randomly somewhere else?” And it’s always in the middle of another word too, so it’s not like I am hitting “home” or “end” or anything. Is this some special bonus feature that I can turn off somehow?

Any help would be appreciated!

Filed under: geekIntel | Comments (4)

4 Responses to “Technical Assistance Needed”

Nightsun33 on February 18, 2008 3:38 am
Wheee…. First Post :-P

#1 Don’t know about this one. Sounds like some weird clash between program and operating system.

#2 Could be the return of my hated part of a PC laptop, the “use trackpad for clicking” part. It could be some part of your hand brushing the trackpad, and triggering the “press the LMB here” command. I think that most trackpads use the synaptics driver for the clickable trackpad. If it’s not available in control panel, you may need to find and download a driver for the laptop for disabling this horrid feature.

I hope this helps :)
SuperBadGirl on February 18, 2008 7:14 am
Welcome! Thanks for de-lurking ;)

And that sounds about right for that second problem, when I consider how my laptop is configured. I will hunt and destroy that feature when I am next downstairs, and see if that helps. Thanks!
Dimreaper on February 18, 2008 11:04 am
Looks like I was beaten to it – I had the same problem with my laptop (before the gfx chip dies in it rendering it useless) – the stupid touch pad would get caught with my sleeve and send the cursor to some random point on the screen.

Also, you must type the way that I do – a fairly fast rate, but I have to look at the keyboard most of the time so I don’t miss the keys.
SuperBadGirl on February 18, 2008 12:23 pm
Yup, I especially have to look on my laptop, since the keys are already in wacky places (especially the backspace and delete keys, I can never get used to them being so stupidly placed on laptops) and “feel” differently under my fingers than my regular keyboard keys do.

I haven’t checked out the settings for that yet, but I will later.