Mac OS plist problems with keyboard and screen capture?

[scripting]

From the blog: I reported a problem with my Mac keyboard configuration, now I can't do screen captures. As I do more searching on each of these problems what's implicated in both cases is a problem of corrupt plists. I don't know very much about these files, but I do understand what they're for. It's possible I did something that blew out some of these files. I've started a thread to ask for help getting to the bottom of this.

The keyboard problem is this -- I want to map Ctrl to Cmd and vice versa, but the change won't stick. I switched the keyboard, rebooted the machine, problem persists. The problem appears to be with the setup of the Mac.

The screen capture problem -- I do a screen capture with Cmd-Shift-4, switch into the Preview app, and the New From Clipboard command is disabled. It's still there after a machine reboot, and the problem isn't only in Preview, I can't paste into the browser either.

I've read lots of support queries but I don't have either of the plist files people keep pointing to.

I've looked in my user-level Library and the system-level one.

[bobkummerfeld]

Have you tried re-launching the paste board app (pboard)? Just type "killall pboard" in a command window. That has fixed occasional problems I have with the clipboard.