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Photo of a Mac keyboard on a PCWith Macs now controlling 14% of the US market share (up from 9% in 2006), it’s clear that the world is quickly going Mac.

This is especially evident here at FreshBooks. When I joined last year, we were a strictly PC/Windows shop. Since then, we’ve added 6 iMacs to the grid — and more are on the way.

Resistance is futile

I, for one, welcome our new Mac overlords. To help kick-start the indoctrination process, I’ve begun using an Apple keyboard with my Windows box here at work. Sure, the buttons don’t match up perfectly (where’s the print screen button?), but with a few easy steps, you can re-map your Windows keys such that you’ll hardly notice.

Introducing AutoHotKey

AutoHotKey is freeware software for Windows XP that lets you create easy-to-write scripts that define alternate key mappings in Windows. You can do the same by hacking the Windows registry yourself - but that’s just plain silly.

The script

After you’ve installed AutoHotKey, download this script and run it (either by double-clicking or right-click -> “Run Script”). This will load a set of pre-defined rules that will make your Apple keyboard operate like a Windows one — but way sexier.

Here’s the rules I’m using:

; Swap Windows (Command) and Alt keys
; These button locations are reversed on Mac keyboardsLAlt::LWin
LWin::LAlt
; Map F13 to Print screen
; Mac keyboards don't have a print-screen button!
F13::PrintScreen

To have this script run every time Windows boots up, save it in your Startup folder (Start -> All Applications -> Startup).

That’s it! Happy typing.

7 Comments (add comment)

Apr 3/08
12:33 pm
Dave says:

Funny enough, I prefer using a PC keyboard with my Apple.

Apr 3/08
12:50 pm
Joe says:

Oh wow - my wife is going to love this. She uses a Mac at work - and a PC at home - and she has equal likes and dislikes about both.

We keep this approach at our IT services company as well - we like to consider ourselves platform agnostic ;)

However, my wife prefers her Mac keyboard for it’s compact size and feel - but hates having to rethink the keys when she comes home - this will help big time. Thanks!

Joe-

Apr 3/08
1:22 pm
Ian says:

I’m pretty much an all windows user. However, I’ve done programming and web hosting in linux in the past and I like linux. I’ve never had an opportunity to really work with a mac since i refuse to buy a mac. They may look really nice and the operating system might be really nice, but frankly I dont understand how people get suckered into buying hardware with limited/no upgradeable parts. I still dont understand why people would buy an iphone, no matter how cool the interface is, with no memory expansion slot and no user replaceable battery.

If someone gave me a mac to work with, I would gladly take the chance to become more familiar with the mac OS. But i doubt I would ever pay for one.

Apr 3/08
1:36 pm

Dave: have you tried the new keyboard? It’s amazing.

Ian: you get used to it. :) I used to be a complete tweaker. Building my own machines, reading HardOCP et al daily, slipstreaming RAID drivers and hotfixes into my XP CD, overclocking, soft mods, constant little upgrades, hated Macs… the whole nine yards really.

Now I’ve never seen the insides of my machines. And when I say “you get used to it,” I should really say, you wind up liking it a lot better this way. :)

Apr 3/08
10:04 pm

MmmMmm… pretty soft Mac keyboards. Still a designer working on PCs. Maybe some day I’ll run both, but till then, having a swanky keyboard is a bonus. Though it doesn’t have to be a Mac keyboard at all.

Apr 4/08
2:36 am
Kerry says:

I absolutely LOVE using my little Apple bluetooth keyboard whenever I have a chance. I keep it in my laptop bag in the mini-file-storage, it is thin and sleek, portable and delicious.

When I pace back and forth in front of multple monitors, typing furiously, I feel a bit like Jonathan Pryce, evil technology baron, in whatever that totally forgettable Bond flick was (Two Days After Yesterday This Movie Will Still Be Awful?)

Apr 26/08
10:53 am

[...] use AutoHotKey, Eric F. Savage shares an alternate way to get extended functionality. Ben Vinegar also has an article along the same [...]


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