See
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171534(v=vs.110).aspx[
^], for the best ways of handling keyboard input.
As to your second question, you need to remember that
string
s are immutable; i.e. cannot be changed. You need to store the result of the method that is changing it, like:
data = data.TrimStart('/');
data = data.Substring(1);
A look at the documentation would have made this clear.