Simply type all the keys and shift, alt, alt+shift combinations and then you can print out an overview of your keymap for easy reference. (Or make a PDF, or take a screenshot, of course.)
Works best in Safari on the Mac, but most keys will be detected correctly with other browsers / operating systems, too.
(This is Apple's "ABC - Extended" layout, formerly known as "US Extended".)
Permalink - posted 2021-01-29
►
I have a new mechanical keyboard on order, which lets you hot swap the keyboard switches. When you do that, it's a good idea to do a quick test to see if all the keys still work. There are many tools to do this, but I decided to make my own web-based one. I think it came out pretty nicely.
Full article / permalink - posted 2020-12-24
▼
I have a new mechanical keyboard on order, which lets you hot swap the keyboard switches. When you do that, it's a good idea to do a quick test to see if all the keys still work. There are many tools to do this, but I decided to make my own web-based one. I think it came out pretty nicely.
You can see if the keys work by typing them one at a time, or (usually) by running your finger along each row.
In addition to that, you can also see how much key rollover your keyboard supports, i.e., how many keys you can type at the same time. Higher end keyboards usually support "n-key rollover" (NKRO), which means that any combination of keys will be recognized correctly. This is useful for some types of games.
Old keyboards usually don't support any additional rollover, so they can only correctly recognize arbitrary combinations of two keys. (This limitation doesn't apply to shift/control/alt or command/windows.) Additional keys may or may not be recognized. However, it doesn't really matter too much if you can't type Z F6 . For non-gamers, what matters is that when you type quickly, it can happen that one finger hasn't released the previous key yet while another finger is already pressing the next key. Turns out that on many keyboards that don't support real 3-key rollover, you can still type three (or more) keys at the same time, as long as those keys are all on different columns. Which means: you type them with different fingers. After all, how are you going to type E, D and C at the same time, as touch typists type all three of those with their left middle finger?
A common additional limitation (to avoid more complex USB communication) is a 6KRO limitation.
What the rollover tests (for 3 - 7 KRO) do is test combinations of all the regular alphanumeric keys and most punctuation and then tell you if it looks like you have full key rollover, enough for touch typing or no real rollover for that number of keys. You can of course also just press as many keys as you like at the same time and see if they register.
So have a look and let me know what you think.
Permalink - posted 2020-12-24
Last week I recorded a remote guest lecture about IPv6 for the Computer Networks course at the Hochschule Augsburg with Rolf Winter. It's a 63 minute Youtube video, with mostly me talking about IPv6 and Rolf interjecting with questions now and then. Have a look over at Youtube.
And these are my slides.
Permalink - posted 2020-12-22
It's interesting to see how much has stayed the same over 40 years, and also how some keys have been moved around, as well as the differences between Apple's keyboards and the standard PC keyboard.
So I drew the layout of 18 keyboards to easily compare IBM, Apple, Digital, Sun, Amiga, Atari and third party keyboards over the years.
Permalink - posted 2020-12-17
An article I wrote for the Noction blog looking at possible attacks using the BGP community attribute.
A while ago, RIPE Labs published the two-part article BGP Communities – A Weapon for the Internet. That may have been a bit of a shock for those of us making good use of BGP community attributes as an important tool in our BGP arsenal.
Conclusions:
This community-based attack is definitely something we need to be prepared for and defend against. But does this warrant considering BGP communities “a weapon for the internet”? That seems a bit extreme.
But:
Treat your BGP communities with respect, you don’t want to encounter their dark side.
Permalink - posted 2020-12-07
A while ago, we discovered that there is no one perfect programming language. But is there one perfect sorting algorithm? I started thinking about that after seeing this Youtube video: The Sorting Algorithm Olympics - Who is the Fastest of them All. You may want to watch it first before continuing to read this post, as I'm going to give it away in the article.
Read the article - posted 2020-11-22
older posts
- newer posts
