Friday, May 9, 2008

Slim Aluminum wireless keyboard even works on Windows!

Ever since it was debuted on the Apple online store, I've been lusting for this.
I already have the original white bluetooth wireless keyboard, which has served me very well.
However, on my frequent trips to the local Apple retailers, and while in the UK Apple store testing the Macbook Air, I fell in love with the tactile feel of these keyboards. Its small, tiny footprint means it hardly takes up any desk space. In fact, it looks as if its been embedded into the desk! I no longer need any of those soft gel wrist rests now.... the desk now becomes one giant rest! Its that low!
Hooking up to my Mac Mini was no problem at all, once you load up the Bluetooth Connection Manager.
And just out of curiosity, I tried pairing it with a USB Bluetooth dongle on Windows XP SP2. It worked!!!!

Well, upto a point. I took it to work and just loved how it saved so much more space on my desk. Then something struck me as I tried to lock the keyboard - Where's the CTRL-ALT-DEL??? Yep, Macs have no need for that (well, they do... its CTRL-ALT-ESC i think, to Force Quit unresponsive apps). But the Delete key Macs recognise is the equivalent of Backspace, on Windows keyboards. After much researching via Google, it turns out the problem is solved by running this little application called SHARPKEYS.EXE. Its a small app that makes a tiny change to the registry, mapping one keystroke to an action. In this case, I mapped the left Command key (defaulting to be a Windows key) to now be the Delete key. After a quick reboot, it works just fine!

I still can't get the Fn key to be recognised, but I suspect thats because its a special key for Apple, and as such requires specific keyboard drivers usually only acquired through Boot Camp, and its resultant driver disc. It's not a deal-breaker, so I'll keep it at this for now.

FYI, if you fancy going down the same route, download SharpKeys from here: http://www.randyrants.com/2006/07/sharpkeys_211.html
Alternatively, you can try AutoHotKeys, which apparently does the same: http://www.autohotkey.com/

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi,

So initially I need to login with a windows keyboard, using ctrl-alt-del and then swap to a mac keyboard and run sharpkeys or something similar ? This will then allow me to map keys so ctrl-alt-del works on the mac keyboard ?
Cheers,
D