I recently received the new keyboard I bought for my “Small closet home server” project. I opted for a “compact” keyboard but with normal sized keys on it. So the manufacture had to remove some keys.
This resulted in removing among others the numeric keypad. Unless you work in accounting/administration you probably don’t use those keys often. And the times that you dot need them you can use the ‘normal’ numbers part or use the function (Fn) key on your keyboard.
It costs only 18 US Dollars, and I bought it from DealExtreme: here is the link , some pretty good reviews. Please consider that most stuff on there site is cheap Chinese garbage ;) free shipping included (amazing, I think that the Government stimulates export or something in Honk Kong by paying the postal fee).
Really a bargain if you ask me. In fact I like the keyboard so much that after testing (With Chinese stuff you have to do your own QC) it’s still hooked up instead of my regular keyboard. The much better quality Cherry G80 3000L with MX blue keyswitches (tikker the tik), for the moment i use this no-brand 78 keyboard as my main one. It’s stylish!
The problem, it has 78 keys (vs normal 104 keys US layout ones) and no insert key to be found. lets fix this!
I prefer to use opensource/free software for a simple task as this. And grabbed a copy of keymapper . I used this software a couple a years ago and it knew it would fit my purpose.
My initial idea was to create a new insert key by combining the Fn and Delete key (on the uperright of this keyboard). But you can only ‘remap’ one key to one other. Combing two keys to one key is a no go.
I’m not a member of the “i hate the caps lock key” society – 1.4 million hits – but looking at the board it was the only one i could mis.
I started the keymapper software and the built-in on-screen keyboard of windows and remapped the key:
Be aware that keymap has only support for boot mappings and not for user mappings in Windows 7. Meaning this change applies to all users on the computer and you need to reboot. Too bad development off this nice tool is stopped. :(
Restart to complete the (re) mappings and your done.
