Assigning “Lock Computer” to “My Favorites” buttons on Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard

I just put my Ergonomic 4000 keyboard through the dishwasher and I'm happy to report it works perfectly.

Here's what I recommend:

• Use the top rack
• Face the keys downward
• Use little/no soap
• Remove before drying cycle

After the washing, I shook it out as best as possible and then let it sit in a hot room for three days. After plugging it back in, everything worked great.

I did have a bit of white soap residue on the palm rest that I was easily able to remove with a wet sponge.

First select a Microsoft keyboard in: System > Preferences > Keyboard > Layout > Keyboard Model. The 4000 isn't listed, but try the 'Multimedia keyboard' or something that sounds reasonably full-featured. They keys may just work. Try them, and change keyboards if they don't.

Then, you can try to customize things by the regular means (which in Ubuntu/GNOME is unfortunately not centralized, and can be tricky).

1. On the same tab, check out the options in "Layout options"

2. Customize more things in System > Preferences > Keyboard shortcuts. The options that are pre-defined here are pretty easy to set, you just select them and then press the key or key-combo you want to assign them to. This will be your most-used place for setting those keys.

3. Gnome has a more cryptic tool, run from the command line as 'gconf-editor' which can assign key-combos to things that aren't in the standard Keyboard shortcuts dialog. You'll have to google on how to use this.

Hope this helps.