Ahsaniqbalkmc

So, I checked my wrist while typing and it merely touches the table. The weight is not placed on the table. And when I try to type a little faster, then the wrists are in the air. And as you said, the force on the keys (while I press them) increases significantly when the wrists are elevated, as is evident from the enhancement in the noise produced. On the other hand, while the keyboard is placed on my legs, the wrist firmly rest on the legs i.e. the weight of the wrists is on the legs. Even when I try to type faster, a significant portion of the weight is still on the legs. This certainly contributes to less noise produced while typing with the keyboard placed on my legs. Furthermore, it might also contribute to the enhanced comfort level when the keyboard is on my legs as compared to when it is on the table.

It definitely is one of the more practical choices but as I have mentioned in my first post, you need to find a good keyboard first. Plus, only a good keyboard won’t do much good if you are still hammering the keys like ****. As it has been repeatedly mentioned, rubber keyboards are excellent for noise reduction but they don’t have a good typing experience. The only other option (other than the normal mechanical keyboards) that I can think of is virtual keyboard. But again, they don’t have a very good typing experience and one will have to sacrifice much speed and accuracy to use them. So the only practical option would be to find a good mechanical keyboard with special features for noise reduction. Some ideas have been already mentioned like: Rubber (or other soft material) coating on top of the keys to reduce the noise created by fingers hammering the keys Rubber (or other soft material) padding beneath the keys to reduce the noise created by keys hitting the body of the keyboard. Placing the keyboard on a surface that would dampen the sound I have tried to search for available keyboards that would have these features for noise reduction, but I haven’t been able to find one. In fact, I was amazed at the very scanty amount of products available with noise reduction in mind. So maybe ultimately, I will have to mod my keyboard myself to achieve best results. By the way @manu, you seem to be good at searching things, so why don’t you try to find a product and let as all know about it. Keyboard replacement is actually an option and a very good one, but only if you find a good to keyboard to replace with. And if you do find a good keyboard that does actually reduce the noise produced, and then you just change your typing style a bit so that you don’t hammer the keys….. I don’t think much else would be needed. Wow… we are getting deep into the concept now. Come on physics people say something…… That frog example is a bit extreme and nobody can argue against what you said. But this is not what happens in more than 90 percent of the cases where there are issues of minor adjustments. I must say here that the region of our bodies that has suffered the most (because of technology) is the back. But I was more interested in the position of the wrist and that is what I want to talk about. So the problem with defining one posture as the accurate one and then enforcing it on everybody is that every individual is structurally different. There are minor differences in the structures of the bones, the attachment of the muscles in individuals and these differences eventually translate into different positions of comfort for different individuals. And in some cases, the defined correct posture might prove to be damaging for some individuals. So I think the bigger aspects of the posture should be defined but the minor adjustments should be left for the user himself to decide. That’s true. But this is more common with sitting jobs. People in jobs involving physical work (where the body is used within its natural limits) don’t have much problems with their posture because there muscles are being used alright and their relative strength and size remains in balance. On the other hand, jobs involving hours and hours of sitting cause severe posture problems because of the simple fact that human body is not meant to be in sitting state all the time. The problem gets even more sever when the person doesn’t take part in any physical activities at all. He goes to office and sits there. He uses the elevator to go up and down. He uses his car to move around (A typical case in western society). My opinion is that people don’t sit straight when they sit in one place for long periods of time. And its natural. A normal healthy person cannot stand straight if made to stand for many hours. Even lying straight becomes difficult after many hours of lying. Our bodies need us to move about every now and then, change our position, do something physical. That’s our anatomy…. So yes technology has played a huge part in destroying our postures but the work load and certain kinds of jobs have helped technology implement its side effects. I think you should get a setup that better suits you. During busy days (like during exams or when I need to do lots of work on my computer) I end up sitting like 10-14 hours on the same chair. But fortunately, my back is fine and my posture is on the better side too. Maybe because I play physical games (football, cricket) a lot… But yes, it becomes difficult and tiring sometimes to sit for so much time…. To biggest problem with me while sitting is that my buttocks start to burn after a couple of hours and then I have to stand up and not sit for some time. Other than that I don’t have any significant problem with sitting. And I am more comfortable with the keyboard on my legs as compared to on the table. Maybe it has something to do with the height of my table or the way I am used to using the keyboard but that’s how it is. If I try to hard and type for long time with my keyboard on the table, my wrists start to burn and ache. But this doesn’t happen with the keyboard on my legs. So maybe the natural way for me to type is with the keyboard on my legs…. Or I have developed the wrong posture for my wrists… I don’t know….. Man… She is flexible. Really flexible… There is a strange thing coming into my mind. Its kind of foolish but I want to say it……….. Would she be a great typist?? OR more properly…. Does flexibility have anything to do with typing speed??? I know that the flexibility of her legs or back or shoulders don’t have anything to do with typing but what about her wrists and fingers. They would also be more flexible than a normal person. Would this in anyway benefit her if she were a typist not a model…..??? But that would not be “getting accustomed to the sound of the keys”. If would still be “getting used to the movement of your fingers and the fell of the keys”, which is what normally happens. But I agree that one key at a time is a good approach. Especially with keys that pose a problem and that have high error rates. Now this is a good idea to improve tying efficiency. It would be like learning to play the piano where the feedback of whether you have pressed the correct key doesn’t appear on screen in terms of an alphabet but is heard by your ears in terms of a specific kind of sound. It is well known that learning through both eyes and ears is more efficient that learning only through eyes or learning only through ears. So that should help in improving the efficiency of LEARNING TO TYPE. However, can it help in increasing the typing speed? I don’t think so. Because once you get used to your keyboard and reach a certain level of expertise, you top thinking about the keys and movements of your fingers. It happens naturally. You just think about the work and the fingers move automatically. Like they say “Your thoughts flow on the screen”. When the keys would produce a certain sound, it would also lead to the same level. In fact, at higher speeds, it might even get difficult to perceive the sound of individual keys correctly…… Your thoughts !....

There are many things that I don't understand about vnc, and I think the best way to move forward would be to first try the vnc myself. I will then post any issues or other things worth sharing....Hope it all goes easy for me....

Ok.. so I have removed the “laptop-mode-tools” (by using the command “sudo apt-get –purge remove laptop-mode-tools”) and then I rebooted the system and now everything is working fine. The hiccups and periods of no response have disappeared completely. So it confirms that the real culprit was laptop-mode-tools. However, now I need to know why was it causing the issue. And because there is some much needed improvement in the battery life, I would really like if I can get the laptop-mode-tools (or some alternative) to work with the mouse/keyboard issue fixed. So some input on this would be appreciated.. I would give a try to Jupiter and see how it performs for me. I don't know if there are any power saving tools built into the linux mint 14. If there are any, I don't see them and I don't know how to use them.I haven't given a try to the Fedor 18 but before I downloaded it, I went to the official website to get some quick knowledge about it. And the power saving tools were presented there as the one of the main feature of fedora 18. Because the laptop-mode-tools does improve the battery timing, so I have to say that if there are any built in power saving tools in the linux mint 14, they are not very effective (they may be effective but they certainly aren't doing everything that can be done). I will try to look into the documentation of the laptop-mode-tools and see what I can find there. However, it is easier for me if an Xisto member (who has previous experience with similar issues) posts a reply. This would save a huge effort on my part. I am not very good at modifying the configuration files. Maybe there is some setting to turn of the power saving modification for the usb ports. This way all the other power saving features of the laptop-mode-tools would remain active and the issue with usb keyboard/mouse would also be resolved. But as I said, I am not good with editing configuration files, so it would take me considerable amount of time to learn how to correctly modify the configuration file of laptop-mode-tools. And I just don't have time these days................. I tried top, but I would again say that simialr to “ps -aef” I wasn't able to understand a significant part of the information presented. So again, I would have to invest considerable amount of time in learning to understand the output of this command and then usefully manipulating it.However, since the culprit has been found, so killing programs is not the main goal now. But still, it would be very useful to learn how to use these useful commands properly.... xkill was really great. It would definitely help me kill the windows which have become unresponsive (which by the way happens very seldom in linux in comparison to windows)... However, what about programs and processes that don't have a window. How can xkill be used to kill them....

Well, you actually gave me a medal when you liked the post... It really is encouraging.. In my case, it depends more on the mood. Sometimes, I enjoy the NOISE of the keyboard, while at other times I would wish to type in a more silent way.. However, the real thing for which I tried to reduce my typing noise was not to disturb others. I may like the noise of typing (sometimes) but others would never like it because they are not involved in typing and its just some annoying noise for them. So the real goal of keyboard noise reduction for me is to reduce or cease (if possible) the annoyance caused by my typing especially during late hours. Actually, at times, I feel more comfortable with the keyboard placed on my legs. In my current setup, when I place the keyboard on the table, it is comfortable when I am sitting with my back straight. However, after an hour or so of sitting in this position, I really get tired. Then I would lean back a little and assume somewhat lying position on my chair. Now, in this position, typing with my keyboard placed on the table is not very comfortable. Instead, typing with my keyboard placed on my legs become more comfortable. That being said, I feel comfortable with the keyboard on my legs even when I am sitting straight. Maybe its because I have become accustomed to typing in such situation..... I have to ask here that what is the best posture. I have this opinion that there is no such thing as BEST (like on thing for all). Instead everyone has his own BEST thing. And this might apply to the posture as well. One kind of posture that is best for one person might not be best for the other. So I think that it depends more on personal preferences. But I would still like to know what is the best posture (in principle). As I have mentioned in the previous post, its quite impractical (at least for me) to wear gloves while typing. But hey.. its still an idea. And who knows... someone might find it useful in his special circumstances.... Rubber keyboards (at least the one I tried, or the ones similar to that one) don't have a good typing experience. And there is no comparison between them and the mechanical keyboards (the commonly used ones). However, I haven't have the chance of getting my hands on some high quality expensive rubber keyboards. Maybe they have a comparable overall experience. But I would like to stay with mechanical keyboards because I am used to it and I like typing on them.... Sometimes typing does really get loud. There was a keyboard with me many years ago (at the time when I didn't know how to touch type) and it was loud. The buttons had typewriter like sound to them. Imagine such a keyboard with a typist who types at about 60 wpm and who hits the keys hard (instead of just pressing them). This would be some considerable noise and it would surely silence an entire room. But fortunately, my current keyboard isn't that loud. However, I would still like to reduce the noise..... Again, this isn't a very practical idea, as I have mentioned in my previous post... But I would say again that it is still an idea and someone might find it practical for his particular situation.... This is what I do when someone is asleep in my room and I am still working. The biggest annoyance for me in this style of typing is that my attention is diverted. A significant part of my focus shifts to the movement of the fingers (i.e. it is not very natural for me). Typing speed is also not very good for me with this style of typing. Maybe I need to do some practice to get proficient with this style of typing... Well, this is getting over my head now... In my case, I don't feel any perceptible difference in the sound of different keys pressed (except maybe the sound of space key is different). Like it is the same “tuk” sound produced when I press the N key as when I press the S key (or most of the other keys for that matter). So I really don't understand the theory... Maybe you can explain it in a bit more detail @velma. Unfortunately, I can't play music on speakers (other than my headphones) when someone is asleep near me. It would be adding to the total disturbance caused by me. But it may work when people around me are not asleep but just doing their own stuff. At that time, the noise of the keyboard can be nulled by the louder sound of pleasant music...

Well, the process of getting the list was easy, but honestly it was difficult to understand. The most important thing for me to know is the name of the program that is running, but in the list that opens after entering the command you mentioned, there is no such thing as the name of the program. The nearest thing to the name of the process is given under the heading “CMD” which I don't even know what it stands for.. So @yordan, can you help me understand it so that I can manipulate it usefully. Plus, are there any alternatives. Something more similar to the task manager to the windows operating system. Linux has a large community of developers and there are all sorts of programs available for it. So it is very likely that someone would have developed a task manager similar to that of windows task manager for non-expert linux users. Well, linux does have its own games but most of the famous titles are not available for it. Like for example, I play Fifa 12 and 13 a lot and none of these two games can be played on linux. As you said, it is debatable that why the games are not available on linux. Most likely, it is not linux's fault because I think that it is strong enough and stable enough to run most high quality games. Instead it seems to be caused by combined effect of less interest of hardware manufacturers in the linux OS (most graphics cards drivers can get better if the manufacturers put effort into it) and less interest of game developers in the linux OS (which probably is because most consumers don't use linux). I think it has become kind of a cycle. Game developers don't put effort and money in making their games compatible with linux because they think that there aren't many customers who would paly the games on linux. On the other hand, gamers don't go towards linux because most of the times the games they like can't be played in linux. So some serious steps need to be taken to stop this cycle. Steps like bringing steam engine to ubuntu will certainly help. Actually, by “Fixing problems in Linux”, I meant to say “troubleshooting common problems and errors and ability to make necessary adjustments for better experience.” And yes, fixing linux's problems is not something I can do (I simply don't have the technical skill to even properly understand the problems). I can just notify the community about the problem. However, sometimes, there arise some errors which are not innate to linux but arise because of faulty installation of wrong configuration settings or some other mis-behaviour on user's part. And to get a better experience, I think a user needs to know how to deal with such issues. And the issue described in the first post of the topic is a good example of this..... My laptop is HP DV6 3040us. The processor is AMD Triple core (AMD Phenom II N830 clocked at 2.1 GHz). It has 4 Gigs of Ram and 500 gigs of 5400 rpm hard drive. The graphics are ATI Radeon HD 4250 with 320 MB or dedicated memore and upto 1.5 gigs of shared memory. The cpu architecture is 64bit so the linux mint 14 version I am using is also 64 bit. I have updated the OS using both the GUI updater and apt-get (using command “sudo apt-get update”). My understanding of the command “sudo apt-get update” is that all it does is loads the latest repositories for the apt-get command so that the latest packages can be installed using this command. I don't think that this command updates the OS, simply because the time taken for update using this command is not large enough. So maybe you can tell me how to update the entire system using the apt-get or apt-fast command. Yes the issue is still there even if I start the OS with power cable plugged off. Well, I think this is the real culprit. I remember installing laptop-mode-tools. I have seen improvement in the battery timing after installing this package. And I think it is reducing the power provided to the usb ports. Can you talk more about the laptop mode tools. I will remove this when I get time to see if the issue persists and report back later. I also remember installing some keylogger utility, which never really worked but it is still installed. I will try to remove this as well and then see what happens. Thats what I was looking for (thank @MC). It is more like the windows task manager and is certainly more understandabale than the terminal command “ps -aef”.

Vnc seems to be a good idea but I have a few questions.. According to what I know, for vnc to work, the computers don't need to be directly connected to each other. However, it is essential that both computers are connected to the Internet. This might not be seen as a problem for many, but on slow internet connections, the performance really lacks. The display of the remote machine (the machine with the vnc server) on the current machine (the machine with the vnc client installed on it) is not very fluid and there are a lot of hiccups. So the experience might not be very satisfying and sometimes even unusable. As a reference, my current internet connection gives a maximum download speed of 100 kb/s. Now distribute this to two computers so when both are using the connection at max level, they get the average speed of 50kb/s. This will be the case if I remove all other devices that use my connection, which isn't a very practical option but still I may be able to do it.. So will the vnc work fine with this kind of speed. The other thing that I want to discuss is the second montior. Normally, vnc is used so that two computers can be handled from a single display (according to my understanding). But in my case, I have the extra monitor for the second computer and I just need both computers to work with a single mouse and keyboard because of usability issues. If my concept about vnc is right.... vnc will render the display connected to the second computer (with vnc server installed on it) useless, because the activities of the second computer will be displayed in the vnc client window on the first computer. One way to fix this would be to return to the normal dual-monitor setup (that I described in my first post). In this way, I would keep the vnc client window open (likely in fullscreen mode) on the secondary display and thus the entire setup would closely resemble the vmware virtual machine setup (also described in my first post). I think this should be ok for me. But the problem of usability with my current internet speed persists. Kvm switch seems to be a good idea but I don't know how would it work with two displays and one mouse + keyboard. But it is the option of least priority because I would like to create my setup without investing any money (or investing very little amount). If the network usb hub does support mouse and keyboard, and if the connected mouse and keyboard work fine (i.e. there are no hiccups or other performance issues) then it is a good way to go. But again there are two issues in my case. First I don't want to invest any money to create the setup as it is more of an experimental thing rather than what I really need. And boy.... 60 pounds is significant amount of money for me. The second issue again would be: how this setup would work with my second monitor. I really don't have any experience or sufficient knowledge about the network usb hub so maybe someone here can help me understand how it would work with two computers each with its own display..... I really didn't understand what you mean by “which again is still possible as there wasn't really a rule to what you could share”... Can you elaborate this a bit more @Mastercomputers......

Exactly.... the annoying message first appears when the I have been previously connected to the wifi and the the power goes off and the wifi router with it.... The message doesn't appear when I am not connected to the router before the power goes off (which is quite obvious)... And yes when the power goes off, there are no other wifi connections available to be connected to... So other connections cannot be a problem... Is this a known bug in the linux mint 14? I haven't spent much time googling the issue (because I can hardly find any extra time these days)... I thought posting on this forum would not only help me sove the issue but also earn me some mycents (double benefit)..... Where should I look for the drivers? The support site of the manufacturer of the laptop or the support site of the linux mint 14? I used to search for the drivers when I did fresh installs of windows in the distant past but lately I have developed this habit of just running the windows update whenever I do a fresh install of the windows. All the drivers are automatically found and installed through this process and I have never even thought of taking the effort to know what is the source of these drivers (windows' own database or manufacturer's website). The same goes for linux. I don't remember ever installing the driver of something manually in linux (except the usb wifi card I once used with my old desktop computer because the driver wasn't picked and installed automatically). Other than that, I don't remember doing manual install of driver for something. And unfortunately, so much time have passed since I had done this for my usb wifi card, I don't even remember how to do it now.. So maybe someone on the forum can guide me on this.. However, I must say that it is very unlikely to be a driver issue as the wifi is working just fine and there are no other issues except this popup message. Ya I checked the distrowatch website to see which distribution is famous nowadays (as I normally do whenever I look for a linux distro). And this time I have decided to give the Fedora distribution a try. In fact it is “Fedora 18 Gnome Desktop”. So let's see how it behaves and whether it can give me a better satisfaction than linux mint (which by the way is awesome except a few small issues).

Its good to admire one's own self @yordan, but I think sometime other people's opinion about you matter a bit more.....

If I sang good enough, I would not be sitting in front of my computer writing this post... Instead I would have been in the music industry.

I am absolutely sure that the pop-up is asking for the same connection (my router’s connection) and not anything else. As I said in the first post, the message in the pop-up says “passwords or authentication keys are required to access the wirless network NETWORK-NAME”. Actually the exact message in my case is “passwords or authentication keys are required to access the wirless network AHSANIQBAL”. Where AHSANIQBAL is the name of the wireless connection to which my computer is connected i.e it is my wifi connection. So it is clear that the authentication is for my router’s connection and not anyone else’s. If it had picked someone else’s connection, then the name of that connection would have been mentioned instead of mine. The problem is that I don’t want to go through the trouble of turning my laptop’s wif on and off again and again. As I have mentioned in the first post: when the power comes back and the router is on again, the connection establishes itself without requiring me to do anything. But the popup stays there and this is quite annoying. The power cut-offs are very frequent where I live. On an average day, the power goes for something like 7-8 times (for about an hour every time). This means that every time the power goes off, I will have to turn my wifi off. This is not very difficult. The more difficult part is to be present near the computer to turn the wifi on when the power comes back on. Normally, when I am asleep or when I am out, the computer reconnects automatically when the power is back on and my downloads and other internet related stuff resume automatically. But in this scenario, I will have to be present near my computer to turn the wifi on so that my downloads and other internet related stuff could continue. I am quite sure that no other connection is set to connect automatically. Plus there aren’t any other open connections available so this as well cannot be causing the problem. I have tried this but it doesn’t help. The issue is still there. I think I will have to do this if nothing else helps. But for the time, I will leave it as my last option. My neighbor’s wifi is there, but it is password protected and I have never connected to it. Plus the message clearly tells that it is trying to connect to my own wireless connection, so other wifi connections are not any issue. And as I have described my condition above, the cycle of turning on – turning off of wifi is not a good option for me. I need something automatic, that doesn’t require my presence all the time. Yes it does goes off and that’s when the message appears. In the ideal situation the authentication message shouldn’t appear at all as this is not an authentication issue. The OS should first make sure that the connection is even present. If it is not present at all, then why display the authentication message. But even if the message is displayed, it should automatically go off when the power returns and the router is back on and the connection is re-established. This doesn’t happen and instead the annoying message persists there and requires me to close it. I do loose my connection when the power cuts off (obviously) however, the connection is re-established when the power is back on, but the message still persists. So obviously, the message isn’t causing any issues with the connection but its presence is annoying and that is why I want to get rid of it. And the authentication message is first not displayed when the router comes back to work. In fact it is displayed when the router goes off. And when I close the message (while the router is still off), it would reappear. The message only disappears permanently when I close it after the router is back to work.

LOL…. That’s a good idea. And I should add to the notice “Even if you don’t like music, just put these into your ears to be safe from the TUK TUK onslaught” I am afraid that my case would also be similar to yours… Why not put a notice on the neighbors’ doors as well. “Keep earmuffs ready at all times or you will have to bear the singing of a world renown singer” he he

I have mentioned this option in the first post of this topic. These leather / rubber / silicon keyboards appear to be great for noise reduction but significant compromise on the typing experience is likely to be involved. I have used one such keyboard (which I borrowed from my friend). The quality wasn’t very good and I am sure that there would be better quality keyboards available. However, the typing experience on that keyboard was way weaker than my current mechanical external usb keyboard (which by the way is also quite cheap). The keys in that rubber keyboard were spaced far too apart from one another and the feedback of the key-press wasn’t good at all. Overall, my typing speed reduced significantly and the experience was not pleasing at all. So I can easily say that I will have to sacrifice a significant share of my typing speed and joy to gain the noise reduction advantage of these rubber keyboards. @mastercomputers, I don’t know why but your post makes me think that somehow you felt offended by what I said about the ideas of gloves. I hope that I am wrong. I certainly didn’t mean to offend you. I just wrote what I thought about the idea in a straight forward way. We do have some good discussions going on, in this forum. I have learned quite a few things from these discussions and I feel that there is much more to learn from you. And I respect you for this. So don’t feel offended because I didn’t mean to do so. In my opinion, the main thing that we want to achieve by wearing gloves is soften out the impact between fingers and the keys. This softening will surely reduce the sound produced when fingers strike the keys with force. This same effect can be achieved by other ways. For instance, some sort of thin foam, or cloth or other soft material can be made to stick to the upper surface of the keys (the surface where the keys come in contact with fingers). In this way, the sound produced by the fingers hitting the keys would reduce because fingers would now hit a soft surface (which doesn’t produce much sound) rather than a hard plastic (which does produce significant sound). This idea might be very effective in reducing the noise, but my personal opinion is that it is not very practical for normal daily use. People like simple things. They may try out complex stuff once or twice but it is very hard to do it on regular basis. In addition, creating such a bag (as well as selection of suitable material) might not be a simple task. The material should be able to significantly reduce the sound passing through it. And the design should be of such quality that typing experience is not affected. The ease of use should also be taken into consideration while designing such a bag. So in my opinion, this idea is practical only for cases where extreme noise reduction is desired and where the users can take a bit extra effort. Ha ha ha…. @MANU I don’t think you read my first post correctly. It is not me who is annoyed by the noise of the keyboard. It is other people around me. So your idea is not going to help at all. And as @yordan has mentioned, I might start singing (without ever noticing myself) and this would add to the annoyance produced by my late night work. However, I think that your idea would be the best in a scenario where the user himself is annoyed by the noise of typing. I think of it as the best idea because there is no extra material or effort required (I am assuming that everyone has headphones available to be used). Plus instead of the annoying noise of the keys, the user will now hear pleasant music (which in most cases is better than no sound at all). So if I ever find myself annoyed by the noise of the keyboard, this would be the first thing I am going to try.

Thanks for the complement @mastercomputers. I also got a notification that you liked my post. It really is encouraging. I agree that the distance traveled by the keys, when fully pressed, is different in different keyboards. I also agree that keyboards in which this distance is greater tend to produce more sound than keyboards in which this distance is smaller. After reading your post, I tried to see if there is any difference in the sound produced by my usb keyboard and my laptop's own keyboard. The keyboard that I use most of the times is a mini keyboard by a company called Dany. I don't know whether it is an internationally recognized company or not, but its quite famous in my country and does produce some good products that are not very expensive. The keyboard has a good design and keys arrangement, and I can type quite accurately and fast on this keyboard. The travel of the keys is also on the moderate side, i.e. it is neither very small nor very large. The overall typing experience with this keyboard is great and I am more than happy with it. The keyboard of my laptop (hp dv6 3040us) is quite different in terms of design. The keys are square and their travel is quite shallow. But the typing experience with this keyboard is also good. The only reason I use the extra usb keyboard for most of my typing is that I am not comfortable with the laptop's screen too close to my eyes. Also the trackpad creates considerable annoyance during typing. But I have to admit that the sound produced by the laptop's keyboard is considerably less than the sound produced by my external usb keyboard. Maybe its because of the shallow key travel. Or may its because of the placement of the keyboard in the laptop. So one possible solution for me related to this option is that I find a laptop's keyboard that is actually not fixed to a laptop, i.e. I get the benefit of low noise produced by the keyboard but at the same time I would have the ability to place this keyboard on my table at a distance from the laptop. That beings said, I am still not sure about how much noise would be produced when the keyboard is placed on the hard surface of the table instead of somewhat flexible laptop body. Gloves don't seem a practical idea for me. First of all, the temperature here in summer is on the higher side (touching the 50 degrees centigrade mark). Wearing gloves in such hot weather is strictly impractical. But because of my laziness, I won't be able to use gloves regularly even in winter. So gloves may contribute to noise reduction in typing but the idea is not very practical for me.... I don't know why but I didn't get which keyboard you are talking about. Maybe you are talking about the tablet from asus which has a detachable keyboard or the tablet from microsoft (microsoft surface tablet) which also has a detachable keyboard. But in both cases, the keyboard comes as a separate entity and it is certainly not cheap. So if you are only interested in the keyboard, I don't think its a good idea to go for these products. These keyboards might be brilliant but they are way to expensive to be used with a laptop because there are other alternatives available and at this price, you can easily get something better. So one addition to the available options for me is that I find a laptop's keyboard (preferably they keyboard of my current laptop) but with a setup that can make it work without being fitted in the laptop. There are laptop-LIKE keyboards available that behave as proper usb keyboards but I don't know whether a proper laptop keyboard can be made to work as an external usb keyboard. Hopefully someone will add to the practicality of this idea.

I don't know whether it is my typing style or my current keyboard and work setup, but there is a significant amount of noise while I type. Lately I am finding my self working in the nights, so the typing noise has become a problem. I would like to take some steps to get this typing noise reduced so that I don't annoy myself and other people around me. So what are the possible options. The ones I can think of are discussed below, but I don't know which one is more appropriate and practical so I am putting this up for discussion to hear your suggestions on the issue. Option 1: Change the keyboard: The first idea that came into my mind was to change the keyboard and look for something more quiet. So I did what most people would do: I googled....... I tried to look for keyboards that are manufactured with noise reduction as the main goal. Taking into consideration the shear number of keyboards in use today and the different types of markets they are used in, I first thought that there would be a huge number of noise free / silence keyboards but I was amazed to find that there are not much options there. However, thanks to the my little research, I found that there are certain types of kyboards that can help me achieve my goal. The most commonly used types of keyboards are mechanical keyboards. They are called mechanical because of their key-pressing mechanism and their design. These keyboards have hard plastic as their main component material and thus the keys are solid and make noise when they are pressed. There are two different types of noises produced by these keyboards. One type is produced when the fingers hit the keys. This kind of noise depends on the typing style of the user. The other type of noise is produced when the plastic keys get into contact with the plastic body of the keyboard. This is the kind of noise that cannot be completely removed from mechanical keyboards. It can be reduced by using rubber coating or other stuff but cannot be completely removed. The other type of keyboards is known by many names such as silicon keyboard, rubber keyboard, foldable keyboard etc. They are made entirely or rubber and can be rolled, folded, twisted etc. Their keys as well as the entire body is made of rubber so they effectively reduce both types of noises. The problem with these keyboards is that they don't have very good typing experience. They keypresses are not consistent and predictable and will get even worse with use. So fast typing is not very practical with these keyboards. Another type of keyboards, that are not very common are projected virtual keyboards. They are rather new-comers in the keyboard industry and claim that they are the future. A projected virtual keyboard is actually an image of a keyboard projected by a small device onto a flat surface like a table. So practically, there are no keys and no keypresses. Its more like typing on a tablet i.e you just press on a flat surface. I have never used a projected keyboard but from my experience on typing on smartphones and tablets, I can say that the biggest drawback to this type is that there is no feedback and the user has to look at his fingers every now and then to make sure that they are placed correctly. So accuracy would be an issue with these keyboards and they would also require some getting used to. They are also quite expensive and they silenceness is also a question mark because some noise would still be produced when the fingers hit the flat surrface where the keyboard image is projected. Option 2: Make modifications to the surface where I place my keyboard: Normally, my keyboard sits on a wooden table and in this case, the noise produced is significant. However, when I place it on my legs, the noise is reduced. So it clearly demonstrates that I can achieve some noise reduction by placing some soft material (foam, rubber, cloth) etc beneath my keyboard. However, I would call this a secondary addition to the noise reduction because even if I place the keyboard on my legs, the noise produced by fingers hitting the keys and the keys hitting the body of the keyboard is still there and still very significant. Option 3: Change my typing style: Sometimes when someone is sleeping while I work, I tend to reduce my typing speed so that my fingers would move more slowly and the hitting force on the keys would reuce significantly. I have to admit that the amount of noise produced is significantly reduced. However I don't like doing it because it makes me more conscious about my fingers. The flow of my typing is somewhat lost because more often than not my attention is on my fingers' movement. These were the options that came into my mind. However, my personal opinion is that I would have to involve all of the above options to achieve maximum results. Fist of all I need to find a keyboard that really does help in reducing the noise without hampering the typing experience and efficiency. Then I need to make some adjustments to my work environment and finally I need to make some adjustments to my typing style. What do you folks think? I am looking forward for your opinions on the best keyboard for noise reduction as well as other things I can do to achieve my goal.

I have a dual monitor setup for my work where there is an extra montior attached to my laptop in extended mode to give me extra viewing space. In some scenarios, this might not add to the productivity but I have to say that in most situations, it does greatly improve the overall productivity and efficiency of the work and saves quite a bit of effort and time.Recently, I got an extra computer that I want to use in a specific way. I want to create a setup where the experience is same as my dual-monitor setup but the programs running on the seocnd monitor use the processing power of the second computer instead of my laptop.In other words, I would like to create a setup where two computers (each with its own monitor) are connected in such a way that they can be operated by a single mouse and keyboard.The harder and foolish way of operating two computers with a one usb mouse and one usb keyboard would be to perform attach/detach cycles on need basis that is connect the keyboard to one computer and do some work there and when some work needs to be done on the other computer, detach the keyboard from the first one and attach it to the second one. This would be very foolish, boring and effort taking way of doing it. So I am looking for something more practical and enjoyable.The ideal scenario would be that the two computers, each with its own display are connected to each other by some way (maybe a cross-link ethernet cable, or an ad-hoc wifi connection or some other way). And there is some sort of software that tells second computer to use the input devices connected to the usb ports of the first computer. The same software also makes necessary arrangements for the displays so that they behave as if they were connected to the same computer in an extended mode.The practical imagination of the above scenario would be the dual-monitor setup (an extra monitor connected to the first computer) where a guest Virtual machine is running in full screen mode in the extra monitor and the host machine's desktop can be seen in the primary monitor.Let me explain this practical imagination scenario in a bit more detail so that you folks can understand. Suppose that I have an extra monitor attached to my laptop in extended mode. So basically I have a primary monitor (the laptop's own screen) and the secondary monitor (the extra monitor that I have attached to the vga port of the laptop). Also suppose that I have vmware installed on my system and a virtual machine created. I would start the vmware virtual machine, move the vmware window containing this virtual machine to the secondary monitor and make it full screen. On the primary display, I will have the desktop of the host OS, which would occupy the primary monitor completely. On the secondary monitor I would have the virtual machine in full screen mode so in effect, the desktop of the guest OS would occupy the secondary monitor completely. Now I can move my mouse from the primary display (host OS) to the secondary display (guest OS). Same is true for my keybord i.e. I can use to type in bot the host OS and guest OS depending on where the focus currently is.I want the exactly same behavior in the scenario where instead of the virtual machine, there would be an actual computer and the display won't be connected to the first computer directly. Instead it would be connected to the second computer. The computer would be connected to each other.Have anyone any idea how such a setup can be created. Is it even possible ?? Any help, suggestion or constructive criticism is appreciated.

That's good news for me. As I have written on several other posts of mine in this forum, I have been trying to tame the linux beast. There is a huge collection of helping material online but sometimes, the problem is very minor and requires detailed instructions. Combine this with the fact that the user is not very literate with linux OS and you can easily understand why online helping material isn't always that helpful. In contrast to the online helping material, discussions are always helpful because the problem the attention is exclusively on the specific problem a user is having. Furthermore, it is also helpful for the community because the material is there to be read by others as well. So I am assuming that your guides and the discussions related to them would be a great service for the linux community. And this would also be great for linux newbies like myself, because there would be a lot to learn. So I am looking forward for your guides as I can clearly see there is a lot to learn from your posts. I am also planning to put forward my problems that I am currently having with linux in as much detail as possible and I hope that you would also take time to answer those.

Great tutrorial @mastercomputers ! I have a question that is not directly related to the minimal install of fedora 18 but is more about the use of terminal to operate the linux operating system. It has happened with me in the past that I would go on with installing a linux distribution onto my system but something strange would happen during the installation (which I have never got the chance to get aware of). I should make it clear here that I don't know what is this something strange and I have never witnessed it. But because the end result is not what is expected so I am assuming that something out of the ordinary and out of expected would have happened during installation.Whatever the reason, the end result in these cases is that when I restart my computer after the installation is complete, all I get is a full screen command line which is expecting me to input some commands (as I could tell from the blinking cursor). I don't remember the exact case, that is during which distribution's installation this happened (and I certainly don't have time to retry all the distros that I have installed previously) but I remember the situation and it got into my mind after I read your post.So I get a terminal screen which is expecting me to enter some useful commands. Common sense dictates that all the components for the graphical interface are installed but somehow they couldn't manage to start automatically. I am saying this because all the distros I have tried had a proper graphical user interface and none of them were minimal installs. So the components required to present the graphical interface should be present. But because they didn't start automatically, they need to be started manually, but for this to happen some commands are needed.So do you know of any commands that can be used to start the graphical user interface. In addition, a detailed tutorial about how to manage such a computer will also be very helpful.And last but not the least, it would also be great if you talk about what could be causing this issue i.e. failure of automatic starting of the graphical user interface.

I have discussed some of the problems I am having with linux in other topics on Xisto. One of the minor problems that can easily be overlooked but are still annoying is the wireless connection authentication popup that appears after wireless connection is lost.The actual problem is that when I connect to the internet through wifi, and when power goes off and the router is turned off, a popup appears. The title of the popup message is “Wireless network authentication required” and the message says that “passwords or authentication keys are required to access the wirless network NETWORK-NAME”. And then there is the textbox to enter the password for the wireless network.This clearly means that the OS thinks that the wireless network is present but the password is not correct and that is why connection fails. So it displays a popup to correct the password.The more annoying aspect of the message is that when you close it, it reappars after some time and keeps reappearing until the connection is established or wifi is turned off. Moreover, when the laptop is kept on for the entire night when there are many episodes of power cut offs, there is a huge number of popup messages on the screen (probably equal to the number of episodes of power-offs.)I said above that the issue can be easily overlooked because the connection is not affected by it. Once the wifi router is on again (when the power comes back), the message which appeared previously is still there but the connection establishes automatically and the internet starts working. However the message is still there. In fact every morning a significant number of messages is there each of which needs to be closed separately. So its quite annoying.In contrast to this, in windows 7 there is no such popup message. When the network gets disconnected because of powering off of the wifi router, all that happens is that the network disappears from the available network lists. There is no popup displayed to the user. And when the router is turned on again, the wifi automatically connects without the user ever knowing. I am looking for a similar experience on linux. As I said above, everything else with the network connection is fine. There is just this annoying popup message that I need to make disappear permenantly.

I have been using linux mint 14 for about a month now and I am quite satisfied with it. I always wanted to get into the linux ecosystem and for that I have tried a number of different linux distros but always had one issue or another that made me eventually go back to windows 7.With linux mint 14, most of those issues never occurred. Some of them are still there, for instance no gaming, but I have learned to overlook these and now I can say that I am using it quite comfortobly.Despite that, every now and then, a small issue would arise, that I won't be able to fix and hence my linux experience is spoiled. I try hard to stick tightly to linux but sometimes the issues become so annoying that I have to go back to windows 7 for some tasks. I completely understand that it is not linux's fault that I cannot fix these issues. With time, I would gain sufficient skill to overcome these minor issues and then I would be able to enjoy the true power of linux.One such issue that I am currently unable to fix is rather strange one. So let me first explain the issue. When my laptop is plugged into a power source, everything works just fine. By everything I mean the input devices like keyboard and mouse. However, when the power goes off or when the power cable is plugged out of the laptop, strange things start to happen. The mouse pointer will start to hang (not move even when I keep the mouse moving), and the keyboard will stop taking input after every few seconds. That is, the mouse and keyboard will work normally for about 30 seconds but then there comes a period of about 5 seconds when the keyboard buttons won't work and the mouse pointer won't move. After these 5 seconds, everything will start working normally again.The interval between normal working and hiccups is not consistent. And it is more consistent with the mouse than the keyboard. For example, when I start typing a long document, the keyboard will start behaving normally after a few periods of no function (the periods of no function would disappear). But when I stop using the keyboard, the periods of no function occur more frequently and predictably. The thing with mouse is a bit more worse. No matter how consistently I use it, the periods of no function would still appear and they are more frequent and predictable than the periods of no function that occur with the keyboard.To add further to the problem, these issues happen only with usb connected devices. The laptop's own keyboard and trackpad don't have these issues. Only the usb mouse and usb keyboard have this issue. And to make it further clear, none of these issues were there when I had freshly installed the linux mint 14 onto my system. So most likely, I have installed something that is causing the trouble.Now if I were on my windows machine, and such a thing would happen, I would quickly assume that some program is running in the background that is interfering with the normal functioning of the keyboard and mouse. So I would quickly open op the task manager window and try to find out any unusual program that is running in the background. If I find such a program, I would kill it. Another solution would be to uninstall any recently installed program that could have potentially started the issue.The problem here is that I don't know how to open a task manager (or equivalent program) in linux. And further more I don't know how to kill a specific task running in the background. What I mean to say is that I need to know how to get a list of all the programs and task running in the background and then selectively kill some of them.Furthermore, I also don't know how to get a list of all the installed programs. I do know how to delete a specific program using the terminal (sudo apt-get –purge remove program-name) but for this I need to remember what programs I have installed and what names they use. The task would become much easier if there is some way of getting a list of all the installed programs and then selectively uninstalling some of them.Hopefully, this approach can solve my issue. But if anyone else has something else in mind that can help me solving the issue, I will be more than pleased to know...

The code I had used is: #include <stdio.h>int main(void) {int x = 1;while (x <= 10) { if (x == 5) { continue; }printf("%d", x);x++;}return 0;}As far as my understanding is concerned, I should have got values 1, 2, 3, 4 just fine. The trouble should have started when x becomes equal to 5. However, there is no output in the console so it must have something to do with eclipse. Before eclipse, I was manually doing all the compiling and editing in separate programs. The setup was that I would first use a text editor like "kate" to create a program. Then I would open up a terminal window and manually edit the GCC command to compile the program. And then enter the command to run the program. With eclipse, the overall process is extremely specified. There is a very sophisticated text editor window with great error notifying features. Thus the number of syntax errors in programs basically reduces to 0. Then after the program is created, all i do is press ctrl+b to build the program. If there are errors in the program that I might have missed, I get notified about here. After building is complete, I just press ctrl+f11 and the program runs in the console. So everything is done without ever having to leave the eclipse window or without the need of any additional program. It saves quite a lot of time, but more importantly it saves me stamina that is just eroded by repetitions of gcc commnads in the terminal windows. So over all, I am very happy using eclipse, but I need to know why the output of this program is not according to my expectations.

Completely agree with that. Some people call it a monopoly to earn more money. Others say it is how the system works. Older things won't work in new environments. My personal opinion is that backward compatibility between recent versions of windows should always always be present. Like when windows 8 came out, it should have been completely backward compatible with windows 7 programs. But that's how I think, and certainly microsoft's professional don't think similarly. Wow.... so ideally if you were a windows-only user, you would have a separate computer for every major windows release: 95, 98, 2000, xp, vista, 7 and now 8. You must have a huge collection of old computer lying around in your home. Good for experiments and learning though.... But everyone can't afford this. I certainly cannot. I used my previous computer (a pentium 4) for about 5+ years. I have this trend of buying one thing and then holding on to it as long as it works.

Do you think that the process ntvdm.exe could have been named properly as "NT Virtual Dos Machine" (with spaces included in the name). I don't have any practical experience with programming but what I know is that names with spaces can cause trouble while using command prompt in windows. Maybe the old way of naming programs without spaces and long names has continued....... That's a good example of confusing names. Mis-spelled names always arise suspicion. But according to my knowledge, DOS has that 8 character limit. Windows (I has used it since windows 98), didn't have that 8 character limit for file names. So can you please clear me on this. Being open-source is one of the biggest powers of linux. It may have its downsides as well, but the benefits far outweigh the shortcomings. Everything related to a free linux distro is accessible by everyone. So community support is better here. However, because there is no (or I should say: less) money involved, so quick developments seldom occur. It keeps developing at its own pace. I always wanted to be a keyboard user and I always wanted my mouse to collect dust. But I haven't been able to achieve that. I am pretty good with the keyboard but it is only as far as typing plain smooth english. I am not good with numbers and punctuations and even worse with function keys and keys like END, HOME, INSERT etc. Maybe I have never tried hard enough. My personal opinion is that if you are sufficiently good with the keyboard, it saves you quite a lot of time. Navigation etc are faster as compared to using a mouse. What is your opinion on that?

So are you comparing linux with windows here. I mean do you want to say that naming conventions for windows are bad as compared to linux?? And I agree completely that many windows programs have extremely obscure names. It just makes you conspicuous. Even some of the system processes have strange names.... (sorry I can't remember the names exactly and I am currently on linux so can't get them either). But I don't know of any standard or any good naming convention, so I can't give a comparative statement. I used to assume that programmers always use such obscure names, maybe because they are just accustomed to it. Malware installation without permission has not happened with me (I am considering a malware to be different from a virus). The presentation of installation agreement is very very obscure so sometimes people don't notice it and the malware get installed. But if sufficient care is taken, then it won't get installed (at least my experience is that).

Are there any driver issues with windows 8. Some of my friends have started using it but I am a bit reluctant because there are some complains as well. For instance, on one of my friends' computer, the Fifa 12 games keeps crashing in windows 8 while it works perfectly fine in windows 7. So maybe I will wait for a while upgrading my windows 7 to 8.And since the topic is "which OS do you use", so I have to say that I am currently using Linux Mint 14 Nadia and I am quite impressed. There are a few hiccups I have came across but it is still usable. However, in time I should learn to be able to fix issues with linux with same proficiency as I fix issues in windows 7.