??????

[SteveT]

All wiyht. Rho sritched mg kegtops awound?

[OutToLunch]

Bonus points for figuring out which had gone where and managing to log into the PC though

[Friez]

Students tend to switch keys around on the keyboards all the time, although I've yet to see a combination that truely impresses me, such as converting a qwerty to a dvorak.

[MK-2]

ours just try and spell out rude words. most imaginative one ive seen here (remember we're not talking about einstein here.....unless you count the dog in back to the future!) is them swapping the numpad keys so 789 is 123, basically reversing the order.

subtle enough not to be noticed at first glance

[tmcd35]

I've one laptop redone to ABCDE... Not very original but you got to wonder what the teacher was doing while the student was spending the best part of an hour pulling the keys of and then remembering his (or her?) alphabet?

 

I'm with Friez - dvorak - would seriously impress me. If they actually got all the keys in the right place for a dvorak keyboard I'd be very tempted to leave it and tell windows it's got a dvorak keyboard rather than painstakingly return it qwerty.

[smitjeh]

We had 1 laptop with no keys at all and the teacher said it was down to wear and tear!?!?!?!

 

We've had WAN*ER once in place of QWERTY, that made me chuckle.

[srochford]

Of course, for proper IT people, what it says on the keycaps doesn't matter at all - we just touch type (which is just as well because several of mine have worn away. I'd guess I ought to start saving up for a new keyboard but times are hard :-( )

[apeo]

We had 1 laptop with no keys at all and the teacher said it was down to wear and tear!?!?!?!

 

LOL nice try by the teacher...

 

Must admit i like the subtle ones, like replacing just 1 crucial key like moving Del key with the key next to it.

[enjay]

We've got a wireless keyboard which likes to turn NumLock on, so UIO becomes 789, JKL is 456 and ,./ is 123. People wonder why their passwords fail on that, until they notice the funny logon name.

 

I do agree that swapping just two keys is the best way to go, as it could be a few minutes before anyone noticed. Rude words is good for the quick giggle though. Anyone had a student spell out their own name in the relocated keys? :-)

[mark80]

Best one ive seen was at our school just before christmas

 

The little darlings replaced the funtion keys with the word "CU*TFLAPS" obviously replacing the * with a U, tbh you got to admire the fact they came up with a swear word with that number of letters

[Joanne]

Of course, for proper IT people, what it says on the keycaps doesn't matter at all - we just touch type (which is just as well because several of mine have worn away. I'd guess I ought to start saving up for a new keyboard but times are hard :-( )

 

We got wireless logitech mice and keyboards for £12 from our supplier!

 

I hope times really aren't THAT hard!

[tech_guy]

At my last place we had someone take all the keys off and put them back on upside down.

[Andrew_C]

As I can touch type (sort of), the first time I was given a German laptop to fix, I got in a right mess before I noticed that I was typing b0lix.

[tech_guy]

We've got two Chinese teachers on an exchange visit for six months and it's does your head it at first with Windows XP in Mandarin on their laptops - setting up BB at their rented accomodation was interesting!

[TechMonkey]

I was giving a presentation on a borrowed spanish Vista laptop. Doubly interesting not knowing the lingo or Vista! Learnt some spanish though (since forgotten )

[K.C.Leblanc]

I've always mean to plant some cress in some keyboards durring the holidays, I never get round to it.

[Ryan]

"CU*TFLAPS"

I'm trying really really hard not to laugh really really loudly at that

[joe90bass]

I've always mean to plant some cress in some keyboards durring the holidays, I never get round to it.

 

With the amount of cr@p that ends up in the keyboards it'd probably grow quite nicely! Not too sure that watering it would be good for the keyboard though.....

[SpuffMonkey]

When I was a student - some lads got a ladder to the local National Westminster Bank (as was) and rearranged the big plastic shop sign letters to read Nation Bestial W@nk - which made us smirk - plastic letters removed and name was painted on shortly after..

[enjay]

We've got two Chinese teachers on an exchange visit for six months and it's does your head it at first with Windows XP in Mandarin on their laptops - setting up BB at their rented accomodation was interesting!

 

Simple answer - two laptops. Take your English one along, find the icons/buttons/boxes you want to click on your laptop, then click the ones in corresponding positions on the Mandarin one (I've had to do that with a French computer in the past)

[Friez]

Simple answer - two laptops. Take your English one along, find the icons/buttons/boxes you want to click on your laptop, then click the ones in corresponding positions on the Mandarin one (I've had to do that with a French computer in the past)

 

That's the classic method for resolving any sort of language related issue. We occasionally have students fiddle with our printers and change the language settings on them.

 

That said, I do know the Kanji for 'English' so if they attempt Chinese/Japanese their plan will be foiled!