Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

About a year ago, I installed the Dvorak keyboard layout on my system so that I could start learning it. I started, then quit, but I want to keep the keyboard layout installed because I might decide at any point that I want to start learning again.

To toggle between QWERTY and Dvorak on a PC, you press Ctrl+Shift at the same time. As one might expect, I have accidentally toggled between them many times. Once I figured out what was happening, it was an easy fix and actually a nice occasional reminder that I still want to learn Dvorak.

BUT. I’m working in Adobe InDesign (CS1 on my PC) right now, and in order to resize an image while keeping the ratio the same, I have to hold down Ctrl+Shift while moving the cursor. So I’ve inadvertantly switched between QWERTY and Dvorak and hundred million times. Not a huge deal, just annoying… until I tried to cut some text using Ctrl+X which, under the Dvorak keyboard, is actually Ctrl+Q.

Which quits the program.

A confirmation box appeared and, before I could read it, my muscle memory clicked “No” as my brain was realizing that the box was asking if I wanted to save changes before quitting. Whaaaaa? SHIT!

My internal organs stopped working for a moment as I watched InDesign close itself and I tried to remember the last time I saved my file. DON’T REMEMBER was the answer, which was not a good sign. I bit my lip and reopened the program… and it appeared as though I’d saved my file about an hour before I shut it down.

So I lost an hour’s worth of work. And I can’t blame anyone but myself. I should probably uninstall the Dvorak keyboard while working in InDesign, huh? And just reinstall it when I’m good and ready to learn it.

There’s a little bit of irony involved in this whole thing, too. When I first started playing around with Dvorak, I was dismayed by the fact that it would seriously screw up my reliance upon left hand hotkeys (Ctrl+B, Ctrl+V, Ctrl+C, Ctrl+X, Ctrl+F, Ctrl+T [Firefox, Baby], Ctrl+A, Ctrl+S, Ctrl+Z [omg what would I do without Ctrl+Z]). But I NEVER intentionally use Ctrl+Q.

When your resume and email address are searchable by employers, another type of spam pops up. Here’s a real email that I got today from “Duffy Jacob,” whose sender email address is different than the email address listed in the email.

Company is currently looking for a Sales Assistant! Selected individual will demonstrate ability to think on his/her feet.

Duties may include but are not limited to the following: managing sales processes and reporting, Responsible for providing feedback to the marketing group concerning communication needs, product development and pricing.

We offer excellent salary, commissions, benefits and 401K with a first year potential of $60,000-$70,000.

If you are interested in knowing more about these positions please send your resume to$ If you are interested in joining us, please contact us position.to.increase.income@gmail.com

Okay, it really should just be filed under targeted, Are You For Real spam. This type of scam spam may not be Snopes-able, but there are so many things wrong with it that I can’t believe anyone would actually fall for it. And yet, we know that someone out there probably will.

Sigh.