I'm a Moron!

It's 1:23 am. I am sitting here with Sprinkles asleep beside me, except for when he is woken up by me giggling or exclaiming over what just happened to me. I have to share with the blogosphere -- he doesn't understand English. :-)

I've been spending a lot of time learning Photoshop over the past week or so. LaRae got me started looking at designs (DISigns) on a Disney message board, and while some DISigners will make t-shirt DISigns for people for their trips, I decided to try my hand at making my own. So I've got this handy trial version of Photoshop CS3 on my computer, and I'm hardcore learning the ropes. We're talking made my DISigns for t-shirts for EVERY day of my trip, stayed up numerous nights until 3 am, and dream about new things I want to try and do once I do go to bed. (Here's the link to my DISigns if you are interested... notice multiple albums. I AM NOT selling these designs. I am using them for MY personal shirts. I do not produce them in mass, nor do I sell the shirts. Just thought anyone reading this should know... lol.)

I have finished my DISigns for our Disney trip in January. (I want to make my shirts before summer is over, so they'll be ready before I start really working again.) Tonight I'm just playing around in Photoshop while watching TV. I'm big on keyboard shortcuts, so I am using them but not paying super good attention. I finally figured out how to make Tinkerbell "sit" on my name without lots of trouble, and I go to type my text layer of "Joanna" and the "J" and the "O" will not type. No space, no nothing... will not type. The lower case "j" and "o" are showing as "1" and "6" though. Hm... I try it again... still not working. I figure Photoshop has a glitch, so I open Word. Nope, still not working. (Mark it -- time is about 11 pm at this point!)

Panic is starting to rise! (I bet some of you have already figured out the issue, haven't you??) I decide to try to type all the letters on the keyboard (upper and lower case), and the 7, 8, 9, -, u, i, o, [, j, k, l, ;, ', m, ., and / are not working. They are however typing numbers instead of some letters and making my cursor jump about the page. (Oh yeah, some of you really just figured it out, eh??)

I am in full on panic mode now! I am envisioning taking my district-issued laptop to the hell that is summer tech support. They do a great job, but in the summer time, if you have a laptop issue, you might as well kiss your laptop goodbye because work orders take a while! Can I stop and mention that I am actually really tech-savvy? I am good with computers! I pick up computer stuff really fast! So I decide I can fix this on my own. Granted, I can't just try restarting because my logon uses a lot of those "missing" letters, so I start doing virus/malware and spyware/grayware scans figuring that one of the fonts I downloaded might have had a virus. Well that's taking FOREVER, so I decide to search on my control panel, figuring that somehow the key assignments for my keyboard have been messed up. Keep in mind: I can't really type; all I can do is click with my mouse!

Ah, the panic! I am in a cold sweat. I have sat up completely on the couch - this is serious...no more lying about! I am trying to think of ANYONE who might be up at midnight (mark it!) that could possibly help me... no one comes to mind. I decide to persevere.

Wait! I recall and find the character map. I use it to slowly "type" out my search query for google, and I search for an explanation of what has happened along with a solution for how to change my key assignments back. By 12:30 I still have not found anything. I am honestly spazzing HUGELY internally! In my mind's eye I am running circles waving my arms about my head -- in reality, I'm sitting on the couch frantically typing and clicking away whist exclaiming to Sprinkles that his mommy is a moron and has broken her computer! I'm also betting that my computer will come back from tech support minus a lot of files I need, so I'm really starting to panic that I have to fix my computer myself!

Eureka! As I'm speed reading around 1 am I see something about keys with letters that have numbers on the front or something... What?! I look at my keys -- moron! Your keys on a laptop have the ability to "number lock" them to have the number keypad. I never use this feature because I have a USB number pad that I plug in for entering grades and such. If you haven't guessed it by now, at 1:20 am I pressed one simple key, the one that says "NumLk" on it and turned off the number lock thus enabling me to type normally again. Yep. I'm a moron. Right as I pressed that key, my virus scan popped up to tell me I did not have any malware, viruses, spyware, or grayware. Hurray! My computer is safe and usable!

So here I sit fully awake (because that freaked me out) and feeling stupid. Sprinkles is asleep draped over the edge of the arm of the couch. He woke up for a bit after I laughed (a bit maniacally) when I figured out the issue. He doesn't really care. Oh well. I guess it just goes to show you that the biggest problem on your computer can be something super simple. :-) Or that for a smart girl I can be sort of dumb sometimes.