Greg's 08 MacBook Pro makes a strange noise. Now it even autotypes all by itself! Leo says it sounds like a stuck key. He should go through all the keys just to see if one of the keys is sticking a bit. It's common as keyboards get dirty.
Rocko wants to know if there's a simpler keyboard for someone who has motor control issues or are vision challenged. Leo recommends going to Living Made Easy, which is a British company. He should also check a local independent living resource center as well, as they could help him out. Hypertec is a good company that offers larger button keyboards. Rocko should also check out BigKeys.com. Fry's and Walmart are known to carry large key keyboards as well.
John uses Windows, but he has an iPhone 6. The one thing he doesn't get is why Apple computers don't have a delete key. Leo says that Apple wants to get rid of older keys from the early days of computing, including Print Screen, Pause/Break, and even the Delete key. Apple actually got rid of the Delete key a long time ago. John will have to press CMD/Backspace to duplicate that function.
Mark has a teenage daughter who has a Windows 8 laptop she bought two years ago. They upgraded to WIndows 10, and now they're having issues with the laptop's keyboard and trackpad. They tried reinstalling the OS, but that didn't work. It does work with an external keyboard. Leo says that indicates a hardware failure, not the result of upgrading to Windows. Leo says that Mark can look in the Device Manager and see if there's any red X's by the trackpad and keyboard. It could just be a bad driver, but then again, they reinstalled the OS and the problem persists. So it has to be hardware.
Kim has a smartTV and she wants to add a wireless keyboard. Leo says most smart TVs support Bluetooth keyboards. Kim also has a non-smart TV in her guest room and it has blue lines running through it until it warms up. Leo says thats due to a poor solder on the panel that has to warm up to connect and conduct properly. It's not worth fixing though. So she should just live with it. Will it break soon? Leo says probably not. It's just an annoyance.
Tim has an old Toshiba Satellite laptop and the keys on the keyboard have stopped working and it's spreading. If he upgrades to Windows 10, will that fix it? Leo says it could be a physical flaw. He should try plugging in a wired keyboard. If it's software, the keys won't work. If they do, then he'll know it's a hardware issue with that keyboard.
While most of Apple's announcements on September 9 were things we had expected, the iPad Pro's 12.9 inch size has opened people's eyes. When Apple showed it off with the Apple Pencil, it showed promise that it could be a device used for something more than just media consumption. iPads have been great for watching movies, TV shows, reading books, surfing the web, and browsing magazines, but the fact that this is more like a full computer makes it more productive.
Max isn't a fan of the Android Emoji's. He thinks they look hideous. How can he use the ones from the iPhone? Leo says that emoji's are very popular, and there actually is a standard based on unicode. Each OS draws that differently though.
Guy wants to change his keyboard to an ABCDEF type keyboard. Leo says that's not a good idea because QWERTY is the standard everywhere. But Leo can see why it would be beneficial from an accessibility point of view.
There is a site called AppleVis which talks about an ABCDEF keyboard for iOS devices and Apple just opened up iOS8 for third party keyboards. So it's only a matter of time before someone writes one.
Mel is having trouble with his desktop trying to play a Scrabble game. Leo says that it may be some stray "clicks" from the mouse preventing him from continuing, or the submit button may be stuck. Changing out the mouse could solve the issue, or changing the battery in the wireless mouse. Replacing the keyboard may also be a good idea. Sometimes keys can get stuck.
