Invisible wrote:
> This user called me over because she has somehow rotated the display on 

> Somehow, she did it.
> 
Actually, KRandR does it quite happily. I've just had fun rotating my 
desktop by 90 deg increments and as an encore mirroring it vertically 
then horizontally and rotating it once again (I've got to get a life)

John

-- 
"Eppur si muove" - Galileo Galilei

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On 28-Aug-08 16:17, Invisible wrote:
> Eero Ahonen wrote:
> 
>> People who have no clue about computers and know it are a lot wiser 
>> with computers than people who have no clue but don't know it. Last 
>> group tries to fix everything themselves, while only doing things worse.
> 
> I have just got back to my desk after another support call from one of 
> our lab staff.
> 
> I've seen many things - people who accidentally removed the taskbar, 
> deleted a print queue, stuff like that. But even today, after working 
> here for 5 years, users are still finding new ways to surprise me.
> 
> This user called me over because she has somehow rotated the display on 

> Somehow, she did it.
> 

My wife did that once. Try ctrl-alt-shift up (or down or sideways).
If that works, disable that shortcuts in the advanced settings of your 
monitor.
Shortcuts are handy if the monitor physically can rotate, if not they 
are annoying.

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Gilles Tran wrote:
> Really, never understimate people who have no clue when it comes to mess 
> with computers. Some time ago, all it took to get a BSOD on my old 
> laptop (that had been BSOD-free for years) was a friend of my wife, who 
> wanted to chat on Yahoo and somehow managed to plug/unplug the modem at 
> exactly the wrong moment. Not that they are guilty, but they do certain 
> "dangerous" things that more geeky people wouldn't dare to.

Well, in this case, he would have to mess up the download itself, and 
the only possible way is to just shutdown the computer without letting 
it finish it's tasks. But my dad doesn't do that, he tells it to 
shutdown and then lets it do its job.

> BTW, was your Dad's Vista upgraded to SP1? Certain vendors were still 
> selling machines with pre-SP1 Vista and I know from experience that it 
> did have issues with automatic upgrades.

Hm, AFAIK, it was already installed, the Laptop is only four weeks old 
or so. But I'd have to check.

You'd figure it would be a stupid idea to sell hardware with outdated 
software, but then, how long are laptops kept in stock and catching 
dust, until they're sold?

I'm just glad it got fixed. Lately, my dad calls me at least twice a day 
because of some software he didn't yet install, but needs. I didn't like 
Vista that much on first sight, and since my PC is running fine with XP, 
I never upgraded - and my laptop is a Mac. So I didn't come to terms 
with all the querks and how to tweak it to my liking. Then along comes 
dad, with no real clue, and expects me to work some magic. *sigh*

Regards,
Tim

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Tim Nikias wrote:
> Well, in this case, he would have to mess up the download itself,

Well, downloads can get broken, and when you talk about all the packets 
ever downloaded over the internet, a 16-bit CRC doesn't necessarily do 
the job. But you'd hope such a thing gets checked more completely once 
the downloads finish. :-)

Of course, if you screw things up, and (say) don't double-check the 
configuration is right before you change it, it can get messed up. Hard 
to say what happened without more details.

-- 
Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)

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andrel wrote:

> My wife did that once. Try ctrl-alt-shift up (or down or sideways).
> If that works, disable that shortcuts in the advanced settings of your 
> monitor.
> Shortcuts are handy if the monitor physically can rotate, if not they 
> are annoying.

Yeah, I've seen monitors that do. But the Dell monitors at work don't 
rotate like that...

As it is, I managed to open the video options window and manually adjust 
the setting. The hardest part was operating the mouse with its axies 
transposed - the user thought I was God-like for pulling that off! ;-)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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> The hardest part was operating the mouse with its axies transposed

Couldn't you just rotate the mouse to match? It might be a bit awkward to 
hold at 90 degrees, but at least it should be easy to control.

> the user thought I was God-like for pulling that off! ;-)

Hehe, reminds me of when I had to download and reinstall the graphics card 
driver on a Japanese laptop.  I managed to locate and download the driver 
from a Japanese website, uninstall the old one and put the new one on there, 
all without being able to read a single word of Japanese.  The owner of the 
laptop was suitably impressed that I could apparently "translate" phrases 
like "do you want to restart now?" and "are the new display settings ok? if 
not will revert back in 15." :-)

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>> The hardest part was operating the mouse with its axies transposed
> 
> Couldn't you just rotate the mouse to match? It might be a bit awkward 
> to hold at 90 degrees, but at least it should be easy to control.

Hmm, would that actually work? And how do you press the buttons?

Anyway, it's not _that_ hard to do this. (Ever played a flight simulator 
where the Y control is inverted?)

>> the user thought I was God-like for pulling that off! ;-)
> 
> Hehe, reminds me of when I had to download and reinstall the graphics 
> card driver on a Japanese laptop.  I managed to locate and download the 
> driver from a Japanese website, uninstall the old one and put the new 
> one on there, all without being able to read a single word of Japanese.  
> The owner of the laptop was suitably impressed that I could apparently 
> "translate" phrases like "do you want to restart now?" and "are the new 
> display settings ok? if not will revert back in 15." :-)

Hee... I did this with a machine that was running a German copy of 
Windows 3.11. (This was in 2006 by the way...!) I can't remember what I 
was called in to do - probably just install the right language files - 
but I succeeded at any rate.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>> Couldn't you just rotate the mouse to match? It might be a bit awkward to 
>> hold at 90 degrees, but at least it should be easy to control.
>
> Hmm, would that actually work?

Yes.  I used to use that trick the whole time in some puzzle game where it 
rotated the pointer response to make levels harder.  So long as it doesn't 
invert just one of the axes you are ok.

> And how do you press the buttons?

For a rotate left 90 degrees, use your thumb and 1st finger to click, for 
right 90 degrees I used my left hand, for 180 degrees I think I used both 
hands to hold the mouse and then my thumbs to click. [if there was anyone 
else in here they would be wondering what the hell i was just doing with my 
mouse!]

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Invisible wrote:
> 
> Anyway, it's not _that_ hard to do this. (Ever played a flight simulator 
> where the Y control is inverted?)
> 

I'll have to confirm - does inverted Y on flight simulator mean that 
pressing the UP key or pushing the joystick actually makes the plane go up?

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

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scott wrote:
>> The hardest part was operating the mouse with its axies transposed
> 
> Couldn't you just rotate the mouse to match? It might be a bit awkward 
> to hold at 90 degrees, but at least it should be easy to control.
> 
>> the user thought I was God-like for pulling that off! ;-)
> 
> Hehe, reminds me of when I had to download and reinstall the graphics 
> card driver on a Japanese laptop.  I managed to locate and download the 
> driver from a Japanese website, uninstall the old one and put the new 
> one on there, all without being able to read a single word of Japanese.  
> The owner of the laptop was suitably impressed that I could apparently 
> "translate" phrases like "do you want to restart now?" and "are the new 
> display settings ok? if not will revert back in 15." :-)
> 
> 

I once installed the German version of Windows ME on a computer with a 
French keyboard.  I've never used ME before or since.  Not as bad as 
Japanese, but still, kinda crazy with the different position of some 
keys in each language.  BTW, I don't know French or German.


Tom

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