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The Golden Rules Of Windows
Friday, February 05, 2010
If in Doubt Press Enter
You are confronted with a dialogue box containing more options than you get when ordering breakfast in North America.
What to do?
Tap the Enter key.
Lest you misuderstand me, let me go further.
If you have doubts about what to do, don't begin to click randomly with the mouse; if you do, all bets are off.
Don't click the Enter key with the mouse; if you do all bets are off.
Take a deep breath, lift your hands from everything ("Step away from the mouse, sir!"), and then use the index finger of your right hand to tap, just once, the Enter key.
Why does this work?
Well-designed GUI forms and dialogue boxes (that is, all dialogue boxes and GUI forms except those in a downloaded game such as "Sex Goddess of the Midnight Vampires") arrive pre-loaded with the safest options, and the Enter key selected.
When you tap the Enter key (without muddying the waters by random clicking), you accept the wisdom of the program designer, who knows more about the program than you.
The Enter key will always take you forward.
It will sometimes take you some place you didn't expect to go.
It will never take you someplaces you didn't ought to go.
P.S. I am sometimes asked "What if the dialogue box is talking about deleting all your files?", to which I reply 'What is it you don't understand about "delete all your files?".
Remember:
If in doubt.
Tap Enter.
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Toronto and Mississauga, Sunday, December 05, 2010 3:11 PM
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