techblog 

I recently noticed that my work machine (a G4 PowerBook) and my home machine (an Intel Mac Mini) differed in that the Restart/Shutdown dialog was navigable via the keyboard on the former, but not on the latter. By this I mean that pressing the tab key would allow you to move between the buttons so that you could choose the required button with the keyboard alone.

At first I suspected this was some odd quirk about Intel machines, but having done some research it is just down to the fact that keyboard navigation is partially disabled by default. At some point I must have turned it on for my work machine. You can rectify this by visiting the “Keyboard and Mouse” preference pane, going to the keyboard shortcuts section and selecting “All controls” rather than “Text boxes and lists only” at the bottom.

Why is this the default? Seems strange to me.