{“One slip of the pinky too many within Microsoft Word finally caused a colleague to ask me how to disable the Mac keyboard’s Help key.
Those who work with Word know that, by default, when you press the Help key — located darned close to the Delete key — up pops Li’l Mackie (or whatever name the obnoxious little creature goes by). If you’ve disabled the Use the Office Assistant option found under Word v.X or Word 2004’s Help menu, pressing this key brings up the Microsoft Office Help window. Either can be unwelcome when you meant only to press Delete.
I suggested that said colleague turn to Michael Kamprath’s “,”. Using this tool — the free “lite” version allows you to create up to 20 hot keys — I created a hot key, triggered by the Help key, that played a 0 second pause (essentially creating a key that did nothing). I targeted the hot key to Microsoft Word and issued a proud mew of satisfaction when I pressed the Help key in Word and nothing happened.
Today’s bonus fun fact: The pinky finger is thusly termed not because of its hue (it is, after all, no more pink that its neighbor digits). Rather, pinky is derived from the Dutch word for the little finger — “,”. “}