Prague is lovely, cobbled underfoot and Baroque-d above, full of local fun things you can eat and drink outdoors for not much money.
The Golem hasn’t haunted me–nor have the ghosts of Franz Kafka (who lived here) and Tycho Brahe (who died here (Did you know that Brahe had a silver nose to hide his normal nose, mostly missing after a duel? (But I digress.) ) .)
This post is my complaint against Czech keyboards! They seem to have hidden their exclamation points–and when you are trying to send email from a smoke-filled Internet cafe, it is irksome to sit staring at an almost-familiar keyboard that is missing one thing I almost always need!!
Fortunately, my little sister responded to my cry for help with enough !!!!!!!!! so that I can copy and paste them all day long. What a good sister!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bless you, Marie, and thank you all for listening.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Frank Paynter // Jul 8, 2003 at 5:01 am
So Prague is the kind of place you can go for baroque?
2 Douglas Arellanes // Jul 8, 2003 at 7:59 am
I don’t know if this’ll help, but for the next time you find yourself faced with a Czech keyboard, you can switch to a US keyboard by clicking on the blue CS square on the lower left of your screen. An option to switch keyboards to US should appear then.
3 Sidney Markowitz // Jul 8, 2003 at 7:04 pm
Googling for “czech keyboard layout” came up with this page that shows how to get a ! by using the Shift key. I would tell you which key to shift-press to get a ! but I have no idea what to call that symbol :-)
Anyway, from the pictures on that page it appears that the Czech keyboard is really four keyboards in one, using the Shift, CAPS, and ALTGr keys to get the extra three layouts.
4 ji_bo@y... // Jul 9, 2003 at 2:37 am
Re: Betsy
First of all, why don’t you ask somebody in the cafe? I don’t believe you wouldn’t find an English-speaking soul there to help you…
Second, as you probably don’t need to use Czech letters, the only thing to do is to switch the Czech layout off. Ctrl+Shift or Left-Alt+Shift should do it.
Third, even with the Czech layout on, the exclamation mark is available! The four keys below your right hand plus one key to the left should be jklů§ (instead of English jkl;’) but with the Shift pressed they are JKL”! … so it’s pretty easy.
Re: Frank (baroque)
Yes, you can find incredible mix of architectural styles in Prague – all of them very close to each other – see e.g. http://www.prague-info.cz/a/prague/pama/styles.html or http://www.apartments.cz/prague_en.html. (Prague was lucky enough not to be destroyed during WWII.)
Re: Douglas (keyboard switching)
Clicking a CS square is an option. However, the CS square may or may not be shown down there). Then you need to go to Control Panel -> Keyboard to find which key combination switches between English and Czech layout.
5 ji_bo@y... // Jul 9, 2003 at 2:40 am
Sorry, I meant “the four keys below your right hand plus one key to the RIGHT”.
6 Zoe // Jul 10, 2003 at 2:58 am
Wow Betsy – I’d say you’ve gotten enough keyboard advice to last you forever. It actually came in handy on this Chinese keyboard to switch back to English…
I really enjoy reading your blog – it always felt weird at school when I should have been calling you up instead of reading your posts, but now halfway around the world I have a newfound appreciation for the art of the blog bringing people together. Definitely makes me look forward to Northwood! You and Frank have fun in Prague – Diane says she wishes you were in Vienna instead!
Love from me xxx
7 Betsy Devine // Jul 11, 2003 at 5:45 am
Wow, you guys are the greatest! (Note !, my very own from the keyboard.) Zoita, I look forward to seeing you _and_ Diane in NH soon.