What to Do If Your Computer Screen Turns Upside Down

I got an unexpected phone call from a dear friend who was at her wit's end. The image on her monitor had turned upside down. She had already tried to reboot with no luck, and tried some random banging around on her keyboard before she called me. She explained that the top was now the bottom and, if she moved her mouse left, it went right. She was at work and couldn't just give up on this. She works for a small company, so she couldn't just call the help desk for advice; I'm the closest thing she has to an IT department.

Before she revealed what had brought this on, my first thought had been that she might have one of those monitors that was built in such a way that you could physically turn it to be portrait view or landscape. She works in an office where they like to play tricks on each other and this one seemed to be right in line with something one of them would do. Just turn the monitor 180 degrees, instead of the usual 90 degrees required to change the view. No, she said, her monitor is not one of those. She had dropped something on her keyboard and it was just a freak accident that had started this.

We did find a solution to her problem and set it right again. It has to do with her version of Windows. I have Windows XP and it doesn't work on mine, but on the NT-based computers where she works it's really easy to do. If your computer is NT you can try it, but I have to tell you that you change it with the up and down arrows. Hold down the Ctrl and Alt keys. While you have them, hit the down arrow. If you're on NT, the screen should flip right before your eyes. To put it right again, Ctrl - Alt - Up.

This will not damage your computer or change your work. It's perfectly harmless, but if you don't know about this little trick it can be quite alarming. If the guy at the next work station happens to turn his back for a second you can flip his screen and have a good laugh while he tries to figure out what happened. Offer to help him out though, if he seems to be on the verge of hitting his monitor with a hammer or if he starts calling your IT department. It may be harmless, but I'm sure they would take a dim view of such goings-on during working hours.

I don't know if this works with any other version of Windows, and I don't know if there is anything similar in Mac. If you try it with anything other than what I just told you about I can't be responsible for anything that might happen.