Look out for misplaced z’s in my typing

A week or so ago, we all got new computers here in the editorial department. In many ways, it’s exciting to have a new piece of technology at your disposal. There are “bells and whistles” to discover and an expectation of faster speeds and better overall operation.

However, there are also those little quirks that come with any new gadget. You might wish that you could have all the same settings that you had with your old computer, but that’s not always the case. Change is a constant when it come to technology, and designers and programmers don’t exactly care what each individual user would like to see in the latest version of the product. Simply put, you are at the mercy of engineers who decided what features needed to be added and what ones should go.

For the most part, I’m impressed with the general performance of my new machine, and consider it a significant improvement over the computer I had been using for the last 10-plus years. Still, there are some things that are going to require some getting used to.

The keyboard, for example, has a smaller, sleeker design, which means less room for my clumsy fingers to make mistakes. My old keyboard was big and bulky by comparison, but it provided plenty of room for my gangly digits to roam freely as they reached for the right keys. I find myself feeling like I did when texting first became a preferred method of communication, and I had to train my fingers to improve their dexterity. To be honest, I still struggle to get my thumbs to hit the right spaces on my cell phone screen.

The real adjustment I need to make comes from a keystroke I used to rely on to work in our layout program. When you’re working on one of our pages, you have to be able to zoom in and out of each story and headline so you can see what you’re doing. With the old version of the program, you simply hit Command plus the space bar to conjure up a little magnifying glass that lets you zoom into a specifi c article, caption or headline.

Now, this same combination of keys is used to summon Siri, the voice-activated digital assistant that asks “What can I help you with?” I’ve inadvertently called upon Siri so many times, I’m surprised she hasn’t just given up on trying to help me. Fortunately I’ve discovered that typing the Z key will produce the magnifying glass I’m looking for, but I have to be careful when I press it, because it could just end up adding the letter Z to whatever I’m writing. More than a few times already, I’ve ended up typing a string of zzzz’s in random locations. If you happen to see that letter in an odd spot, there’s your explanation.

So, I’m thankful for my new computer, even though there is an adjustment period. That’s life in the 21st century.

OUT FOR A WALK

KEVIN O’BRIEN

EDITOR