In this blog, we will be looking at some features commonly found on laptops. This mainly will focus on keys found on laptop keyboards, but some other related items will come up as well. To begin, let us look at one button that is most likely to cause you a headache trying to diagnose network issues: The Airplane mode button. This button, once pressed, turns off all wireless connectivity for the laptop, that means no wifi, no bluetooth, and no cellular. (More on those later)
Well, I guess it is later, so let’s talk about the specific wireless buttons. Some laptops will have buttons that turn off specific forms of wireless connections, so instead of turning off all of them, you can pick and choose. So if you need to use bluetooth headphones but want to save battery while using a hardwired ethernet cable, you can turn off cellular (If your laptop has that function) and wifi, so that it isn’t trying to find those, sapping your battery.
If you have a 2nd monitor that you want to connect to, you will have to first off, plug in the cable (hdmi, vga, display port) ((more on those in a later blog perhaps?)) and if your computer doesn’t automatically do it, you’ll have to set up the screen settings as you want them. The main things the button toggles between are 1) Display on Laptop only, 2) Display the same thing on both screens, 3) Extend the display between the 2 screens, and 4) Display only on the connected monitor.
Now for a quick run down of the easy to grasp buttons:
Is your sound too low? Too loud? Well in that case, you want the Volume buttons! They can make things louder, quieter, and even mute it entirely!
Watching a movie / listening to a song? Want to see that part again? Want to skip to the next track? Well then, look no further than the media option buttons that allow you to fast forward and rewind, all from a single keystroke.
One really interesting key that isn’t brought up a whole lot is the keyboard light key. Now, not every computer has one, but if you use your computer in the dark a lot (Like watching a video or something like that) but need to type, it is hard to see the keys you need to hit sometimes. In cases like those, you can hit the keyboard light key and the keys will be illuminated, whether that is via a back light shining up, or a normal light shining down from on them, it makes it far easier to type, especially if you are not in the correct posture to type normally.
To finish off, let’s discuss the screen orientation button. This is only really useful if you are moving your laptop around and need to flip the screen or if you are connecting to external monitors that are differently oriented. This button allows you to flip between portrait, landscape, and the flipped versions of those, so you can make “down” whichever way you need to to fit the monitor you are using.