The keyboard issue is because the RPi is not configured by default to use US keyboard layouts. Have you gone through the Raspberry Pi configuration? You can go through it again by entering the following at a terminal prompt:
sudo raspi-configIf you are using an older Rasbian distribution, (pre-loaded card) you might want to upgrade and update Raspbian to the latest version. To do so just do:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgradeand wait a few minutes for the upgrade to finish, then restart your PI.
To make OSPi run in the background, there are some lines to add to your /etc/rc.local startup file. Those instructions can be found at the end of the Readme.txt here: https://github.com/rayshobby/opensprinkler/blob/master/OpenSprinkler%20Pi/software/demos/interval_program/README.txt
Good Luck!