Episode: 2399
Title: HPR2399: Using Super Glue to create Landmarks on Keyboards
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2399/hpr2399.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 02:18:33

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This is HPR episode 2,399 entitled, using Super Gluta Create and Marks on keyboards.
It is hosted by NotAmit and is about 11 minutes long and can remain an explicit flag.
The summary is, using Super Gluta Create and Marks on keyboards.
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Hello, this is D.O.D.D.
Let me record another episode for Hacker Public Radio.
This will be a pretty quick episode.
I mean, it fits along the lines.
You know, can foul and episode on how to differentiate between the right and left headphones.
Just a little bit of background up until recently.
Well, I work as a mainframe programmer.
Traditionally, well not traditionally, I guess, almost always.
A lot of the commands on the mainframe like PageUp and PageDown and Exit are done with the PF keys.
Well, you'd probably call them the F keys.
We call them the PF keys because there used to be a keyboard where they were at PF on them.
Anyway, and up until relatively recently, I did all my work using a normal keyboard.
And normal keyboards have islands, I guess, of the right word, but anyway, they're separations between the F4 and F5 keys and the F8 and F9 keys.
And then also usually after F12.
So they kind of serve as landmarks and markers so you can tell where you're at.
Without those, it's hard because for one, it's so high up that it's, at least for me, my fingers tend to be less accurate.
And also depending on if I happen to be on a different keyboard, sometimes the position of those keys isn't always the same.
But just plus, since it's farther away from the home role, you can be off a little, you'd be a little bit less accurate.
And that can be a problem because sometimes, if you mean to hit the key next to the one that means Exit, which by the way is Exit and Save and Exit,
and you hit Save and Exit by mistake when you don't want to, that could, you know, cause some pain, let's put it that way.
So anyways, on a normal keyboard, it usually has a problem because like I said, you have those lands or landmarks or islands, whatever you want to call them, in between the islands would be the wrong word.
But anyway, you have those in between F4 and F5 and F8 and F9 keys, so you can know where you're at.
Similar to the bumps on the F and J keys.
But recently I started working on laptops instead of keyboards, just normal keyboards.
And the problem there is one, laptops seem like every laptop has a different layout.
And I don't, I use it by, I use to pay about $20 to $50 from the laptops, so I'm not real, can't be choosy.
But the one pretty normal thing on most of my laptops is there's no separation between the F4 and F5 and F8 and F9 keys, so I don't know where I'm at, I'm making a lot of mistakes.
I do have one keyboard that has the dead keys or the little islands in between them and that one's nice, but most of my laptops don't.
So I was making a lot of mistakes.
And also I have this little logic tech wireless keyboard and it doesn't have the landmarks either.
So I've been thinking about ways to to put landmarks on there.
And I see you can buy some sticky things that you can put them on there, but
it really seemed to be what I was looking for.
So what I did on one of my, one of my laptops, I put some tape, not on the keys, but above the keys.
And as, in that worked okay, but the problem was, my finger had to go all the way up to the top and so it wasn't very good.
So anyway, ideal came to me the other day.
I thought, well, what if I take a, put a little drop of super glue on the keys and I can use that similarly to how the F&J keys are.
And you might need them for, for other keys, but, but so that's anyway, that's what I thought about.
And so I can't really put that in between the keys.
So what I decided to do was to put these nubs on for F8 and F12 keys.
And so far, I've done that on two laptops and two laptops in this Logitech wireless keyboard.
So far it's working out pretty good.
So let's see.
I learned it a little bit through trial and error, even don't seem to be a pretty easy concept or pretty simple concept.
So let's see, one thing I recommend and what I did was I cleaned the keys with alcohol just to make sure I don't know how good super glue is on dirt, but I did that.
And then the other thing that I did was, I didn't do this first, but I practiced on a keyboard I didn't care about.
And the first time I tried it, I didn't, I forgot what they, we used to call something like this in the medical, but I think we called it lipping, but I didn't lift the glue.
So I just put it on there and squeezed it and a lot of glue came out and it kind of messed up.
I didn't really want that. So what I recommend if you try this first squeeze out the glue on cardboard or something until you get it towards fully in the nozzle so that whenever you actually do squeeze it out, what you want to do, at least what I thought would be the best was to try to make it a little bump kind of like what's on normally on the five key.
On some phone or it's a little circular enough and set up a long line.
And also you want to do, at least I think what works best is get the fast drying glue super glue because you don't, you kind of want to dry your old fast, you don't want it to have time to kind of spread out because you want a little enough.
And so just, so what I did was I was able to do that and get the kind with the long fin, you know, nozzle and then just squeeze out one drop.
And the first time I did it, what I did was I put the dots in the center.
And the problem, I mean that worked, the problem there and again was my finger had to go all the way up to the center and since those keys are, you know, pretty high up anyways.
I really wanted to go to the lower half to know where I'm at.
So first I did on the center on one and then I changed and I put the dots at the bottom of the, in the bottom of the key.
So that way my finger just, just has to touch the edge and then it can tell where they are.
And I picked my, oh yeah, I think I already said, but I picked a F4, F8 and F12 keys.
I could have a disease, I picked that so that way the F12 would be the end.
What I could have also the F5, F9 and then the key on the right of the F12.
But anyway, so that seems to work out fine.
And yeah, and I really didn't have any issue of that.
So anyways, if you have that same issue and you're looking for a cheap easy way to add nubs on there, you could try.
I've been using it now for a little while and so far the nubs haven't come off.
I haven't tried necessarily hard to get them off, but I use it pretty frequently.
And it has reduced the number of mistakes that I make.
And so, yeah, I guess there's not much else to say to that.
And if you got any better ways, because I'll probably do this with, I'll probably need this for a lot of my computing going forward.
I think probably laptops are in my future more than desktops.
So I'll probably need to do this until the end of time.
Well, that's all for today.
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