Reasons not to leave your laptop unlocked around cats, #243

[brooksmoses]

I went to unlock my laptop this morning, and when the screen came up, the login dialog box was upside down. (Also, caps-lock was acting rather strangely, and it took a few cycles to get that right.)

There is something really quite unsettling about having one's login box upside down on the screen.

After I got logged in, I eventually figured out that somehow something had happened to change the display driver settings to rotate the screen 180 degrees. I have no idea what the magic key sequence is to do that, but apparently our cats managed to hit it....

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

If this is a Dell, mine does that on Ctrl+Alt+Down Arrow. Which is *REALLY DISTRESSING*, since that changes virtual desktops on the same laptop, in Ubuntu. Ctrl+Alt+Up Arrow will make it right again.

[brooksmoses]

Thank you! Yes, it's a Dell, that indeed does the flipping.

[oneironaut.livejournal.com]

We have Dells at work, and I like to do this to people who have walked away from their computers but will be returning soon. (Because if I don't abuse my coworkers, I'll go insane.)

[aedifica]

Not all Dells, though--this is one, and that didn't do it. (Yes, I had to try it immediately!) I'm running Vista on this, do you have XP or what?

[brooksmoses]

XP, yes, on a Latitude D630 laptop. The settings that adjust it seem to be in the proprietary parts of the Intel display driver, rather than in the standard Windows display stuff, so it may also be specific to Dell laptops with Intel graphics chipsets.

[aedifica]

That would make sense. I'm on an Inspiron 1420 with NVidia graphics.