adventures of a las vegas dullard

[spatch]

First person to answer "Why doesn't IE on a Mac recognize that if I'm in a text entry window and I hit the HOME key, chances are I wanted to go to the beginning of the text line and NOT the beginning of the page?" without using the words "microshaft" or "internet exploder" or any tiresome "use some other browser" bullshit wins the privilege of not being socked in the snoot. I don't feel like explaining or justifying myself to zealots. It's just that I can't do what I want with what I've got, and I'm rather ... mystified. Some developer never did much online writing, that's for sure. (-1, I Am Tired)

I stayed up most of last night on the 20th floor of the Sahara, window open and Stratosphere blinking ahead of me. Had a lot to write about, but now that I'm actually in front of a computer I don't have anything to transcribe because, well, the paper's all back in the room. Hopefully being read by the housekeeping staff. If they can decipher my scribbly late-night handwriting, more power to 'em. As it stands I feel like the biggest dullard in Las Vegas right now, not having gambled or clubbed or even bothered to throw away money on anything except food.

There were some ideas percolatin in my head about what to do while I'm here. Unfortunately the Young Electric Sign Company has its neon sign boneyard open "by appointment only" and getting an appointment involves making a minimum $50 donation and hanging around on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. So it goes. There's a group that's taken a few of the signs from the boneyard, refurbished them, and stuck 'em around Fremont Street if you wish to take a free walking tour, but it involves hanging around Fremont Street at night.

I am going for Pho though. You cannot deny me my weekly bowl of beef noodle soup, no matter how hard you try.

There was a loudmouth tourist on my flight out. Lord I can't figure out who I was more embarrassed for: him, or the rest of us. He was on his second or third vodka tonic (eh?) and was loudly explaining to his seatmates why he loves Vegas.

"CAUSE IT'S SIN CITY, BABY, I LOVE IT, THERE'S NO RULES, YOU CAN DO WHAT YOU WANT, IT'S AWESOME, I CAN'T WAIT TO HIT THE BEE JAY TABLES, AND AFTER THAT I'LL GET THE OTHER BEE JAY IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN, YEAH, YEAH, LOOK AT HIM, HE'S NODDING, YOU KNOW HOW I ROLL, BROTHER, HEY BABE CAN I GET ANOTHER ONE OF THESE, YEAH, BOY THEY SURE KNOW HOW TO PICK 'EM ON JETBLUE DON'T THEY, DO THEY LET YOU OUT OF THE AIRPORT HONEY? DO YOU WANNA PARTY WITH US? I BET YOU'RE A PARTY GIRL, YEAH, I WENT TO BODY ENGLISH LAST TIME I WAS HERE OH MAN I HAD A BLAST, I COULDN'T GET INTO PUR OR RAIN THOUGH, I'M NOT SURE WHY, BUT I'M GONNA POUND EM BACK LIKE NOBODY'S FUCKIN BUSINESS NO MATTER WHERE I AM, YOU KNOW, OH YEAH, HE'S WITH IT, YEAH WE'RE GONNA PARTY IT UP, NO RULES IN THIS TOWN, NUH UH, IT'S LIKE OH SORRY COMMISSIONER, I DIDN'T KNOW SHE WAS YOUR DAUGHTER..."

I sat in my seat, headphones over my ears, and silently said little prayers like I hope you get fucking taken for every cent you've got, you bastard. I hope they roll you right outside Cheetahs. I hope you "roll, brother" to some strip mall and end up gettin that Bee Jay from someone named Coco, and I hope she rolls you, brother, for all you've got.

But that's just how I roll, brother.

Comments

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

First person to answer "Why doesn't IE on a Mac recognize that if I'm in a text entry window and I hit the HOME key, chances are I wanted to go to the beginning of the text line and NOT the beginning of the page?"

It's because it's on a Mac. "Home key to go to the beginning of the text line" has never been a widespread standard in Mac applications, as far as I know; the usual behavior, enshrined in the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines and such, is that Home and End go to the top and bottom of a page. I think this was established before Windows came up with the standard that they go to the beginning and end of the current text line.

These days, Windows (and Linux) users are almost always tripped up by this when they use Macs, so I wouldn't be surprised if Apple went to the Windows behavior someday soon. But I'll be sad because I'm used to the Mac behavior and it always trips me up when I'm using some other OS and can't get to the top of the page with Home.

(You're now going to show that I'm wrong, I'm sure, by listing a long string of Mac apps that actually do the Windows behavior, which I never discovered because I never think of trying that.)

[elvisclooney.livejournal.com]

The original MHIG was also written for (and probably) on a Macintosh keyboard that did not feature a standard cursor pad and the whole help/del/home/end/pgup/pgdn cluster. Sure, Apple also had the Extended Keyboards I & II, but realize that the de facto 101-key keyboard wasn't standard equipment on a Macintosh until the Apple Design Keyboard. Not to mention the original Apple USB keyboard that was introduced with the iMac (and in turn forced upon the non-ADB G3/G4 PowerMacs) looked more like a laptop keyboard than anything else. It wasn't until shortly after the Apple Pro Keyboard was introduced that the "101" key lineup (108 technically) was readily available for the Macintosh Masses.

However, keyboard shortcuts are never really published for the masses -- Win or Mac. So, to help: command-up arrow == Win "Home" (beginning of text document, command-down == Win "End" (end of text document). Command-left/right arrow == beginning/end of line. Option-left/right arrow == next word. Also, somewhat unique to IE for the MacOS, double-click a word to select the entire word, triple-click for the entire line, quad-click for the entire paragraph (that may have changed recently, however). Safari, however, will only do up to the triple click, but it selects the paragraph.

[malconstant.livejournal.com]

Under OS X, there's an easy fix to make the Home and End keys work like Windows/Linux/Palm/et cetera. Key bindings are stored in a text-based configuration file that is easily edited. I did it years ago, but I can't remember the details as I haven't had to re-do it. For a while, I was doing most of my text entry on a Palm (via a Stowaway keyboard) and became used to it.