User who handled life-or-death situations struggled with the SHIFT key

Welcome to another Friday and therefore to a fresh instalment of On Call, our weekly reader-contributed column that shares your tech support stories. This week, meet a reader we’ll Regomize as “Roy” who toiled at a company that did work related to tissue donations and organ transplants. “The on-call duties were a bit hair- …

[tiggity]

Locale dependent description too

see title

[Neil C Burns]

Re: Locale dependent description too

very much so, Us Brits have " on our 2 key and the AT symbol is shared next to the hash key also. '@ and #~

[Anonymous Coward]

Keyboards are Not Just Locale-Dependent

Before the IBM PC-layout keyboard was the 'communications terminal' keyboard layout.

American Teletype™ ASR-33, and higher-numbered units (-37, -43, etc.) also had a double-quote on the shifted '2' key.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

Yes I’ve been there with OAP relatives, where I’ve had a go at assisting them over the phone. So we’re typing in the password for some rarely used site and they’re telling me it isn’t working.

"How is it not working?"

"Well I can’t type anymore because the password box is full"

"How is it full?"

"It’s got all *s going across it and they don’t move when I type."

As they weren’t living too far away I went round and they were reading the password out of a book where they’d written it down. It wasn’t actually a bad idea as it was written in a novel, on one only half filled page. The issue was that they had written Capital A, Lowercase E, Capital N etc. but were then typing all of it, so Capital A, Lowercase E, Capital N, Number Six etc. As a result they were overwhelming the password field quite quickly. Once I explained the problem they looked at me and said that this is what getting old does to you - never get old.

——

So there was an HR complaint made about an employee in the long distant past when I worked somewhere else. I remember Windows 95 was all the rage and the internet was the hot new thing. One of our colleagues was summoned to the HR department. They were told that a complaint had been made about pictures of women who were not fully clothed were on his computer. This was against the rules on using your computer for porn and he was adamant there was no such thing on his. The HR lady said we will go and investigate your machine, what is the password? He told us he replied that the rules stated that you were not supposed to give your password out. He was told that doesn’t apply to investiations, now what’s the password? He said he didn’t know it, and was threatened with greater punishment if he continued in this obstructive manner. Of course she says that’s total crap obviously he knew the password as he used it several times a day open the machine. He said that in all seriousness he couldn’t remember what it was but he could type it on a QWERTY keyboard easily through muscle memory. So an IT support bod, the HR lady, our boss and him walked back into the office, I sat next to the guy so got to see the rest of this play out in realtime.

He’s told to log in which he does by touchtyping on his keyboard very quickly and is then told to move away. The IT support guy did a search and the only thing he found that was remotely dodgy was a fairly low resolution picture of two presumably German woman at Octoberfest both wearing a very tight pair of short shorts and a top that possibly enhanced their assets. This was in an email sent by the ex boss of the department about a possible new client who wanted to open an Octoberfest type beerhall in London. That’s all that’s found which, wasn’t a surprise given the guy was the least likely candidate to have anything dodgy like that on his PC. He was practically a monk in his daily routine, he was also gay which we all knew about and he’d had his partner join us for a boozing session after work on numerous occasions. HR lady apologised saying that they had to take complaints very seriously but in this case a mistake had been made. Speculation as to who it was who’d made the complaint was then naturally rife in the department. A lady who had only been with us a couple of months and had abruptly resigned was deemed the most likely candidate. She’d never really got on with anyone, never came to any social occasions and was telling everyone on her last day that she was leaving for a far better job than the crap one she had there. Boss revealed in the pub that he wasn’t told who it was, just that a complaint had been made. He did reveal that the person we all had in mind had just just had their probation extended shortly before she quit. He couldn’t say why that was as it was confidential and no amount of buying him drinks was going to change that.

The obvious next thing to do was substitute his keyboard for an AZERTY one we had, and watch as he couldn’t log in after lunch the next day.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

never get old

A friend from church has a score years on me, and health problems to suit. He points out that while getting old is a bitch, it's better than the alternative (not getting old) !

[JimboSmith]

Re: Locale dependent description too

One of my siblings offspring told me one day when they were very young that I must be very wise because I was quite old. I let that pass but more recently another of them said I was getting on a bit and my reply was

“Did you want to remain a recipient in my Will or just have the executor pass on my best wishes to you?”

I was then told that like a fine wine I was maturing beautifully, the sad truth is I’m over 50 and feel like it.

[lglethal]

Re: Locale dependent description too

to steal from the late great Bill Hicks:

"Have you noticed how, despite the increase in the cost of living, it remains so popular?"

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

>Capital A, Lowercase E, Capital N

One way to deal with minimum password length requirements

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

>The obvious next thing to do was substitute his keyboard for an AZERTY one

Had one boss who used the keyboard pattern method, then got a new laptop

[Antron Argaiv]

Re: Locale dependent description too

You have not truly lived until you visit a country* that uses a slightly different key layout (for me, it was US->Quebec), and tries to type an email to your boss on one of their keyboards.

* Yes, I realise Quebec is a province of Canada, not a separate country, but I'm enough of a diplomat not to bring that up with them

(nice people, great food, and somewhat colder than New England)

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

>Yes, I realise Quebec is a province of Canada, not a separate country, but I'm enough of a diplomat not to bring that up with them

A swearier, angrier version of Canadians - but we tolerate love them

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: Locale dependent description too

> * Yes, I realise Quebec is a province of Canada

Soon to be renamed "Frenchy America."

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

Quebec and Louisiana unite to form an incomprehensible north-south barrier splitting America in two

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: Locale dependent description too

At least the food should be good.

[lglethal]

Re: Locale dependent description too

ukk dont get me started on different keyboard layouts.

My current work laptop features a German keyboard, and is installed with the majority of things in the German language (which is fine as I work in Germany), BUT the very first login into Windows assumes the keyboard is in US. After that first login, everything operates as per normal with a german keyboard (including all subsequent pasword entries!) . Since one of the letters in my password is in a different spot on the US keyboard. Pretty much every day, I fail the password on the first try before I remember that frigging US keyboard change.

IT dont seem to know how to fix it, nor care particularly to find a solution. So I'm stuck with it for now.

And dont get me started on the French keyboard, which is just plain weird!

But the most difficult localisation problem I've had recently was actually on a visit to Hong Kong, I used my Visa at a store and then was asked to put my pin in. The number keyboard was not your standard 0 at the bottom and then 1-3, 4-6, 7-9, but a random mash of numbers. The 3 was in the 0 position! It is really hard to put your pin in without muscle memory overriding it... I have heard that it's a security feature to prevent someone grabbing your pin, but f%&k me was that hard to do...

[blu3b3rry]

Re: Locale dependent description too

When my partner upgraded their laptop last year I inherited their old one. Being German they had naturally bought one with a QWERTZ keyboard....and my German is atrocious, so I switched the language to UK english in settings upon blowing away the W10 install for a copy of Debian. It's definitely a good way to learn touch typing!

Additional fun and games at work of late as we require field service guys to enter a (individually generated) password when servicing one of our products. The underlying OS has its language set to UK english and assumes the same for the keyboard layout. The settings are hard-coded and cannot be changed, as they're in a closed off and headless part of the system that users cannot access.

Service documents describing the password entry steps now have a very long table of what all the alternative symbols are for various keyboard layouts around the world so you can enter the password correctly!

[MiguelC]

Re: Locale dependent description too

I sometimes use a laptop with a Spanish layout. As I'm used to touch type in a different layout, I use that in Windows, ignoring what is written on those bloody little keys.

The important thing with such a setup is remembering not to look at the keyboard, or the brain will mix it all up!

[Terry 6]

Re: Locale dependent description too

Or any setup. I've learned to my cost that once you start to look at the keyboard the touch typing just goes TU.And it can be quite insidious. I don't know when mine became semi-useless. It just happened.

[TDog]

Re: Locale dependent description too

Now try it after you have had a stroke, have limited proprioception and are generally grumpy by nature...

[andy the pessimist]

Re: Locale dependent description too

I was contracting in france. When picking up the laptop i said i was english. The unscrewed the laptop keyboard and fitted a uk keyboard. It worked great.

The tester software used excel. Because the local was french it just didn't work. Once i chaned the locale to usa it worked.

[Anonymous Custard]

Re: Locale dependent description too

Excel always used to cause fun and games between various customers (spread all around Europe, but most especially in France).

The joys of some countries using commas in numbers (for thousands, millions etc) and trying to get Excel to inhale raw data files without either having to pre-process them to clean things up or just having Excel choke on them (or even worse, only screw up on some cells but not others). Getting it to understand that 1,000 is a number, not a text entry.

But as others have mentioned, such keyboard variations overall are a great advocate for being able to touch-type...

And similar boundless joy when having to VPN or otherwise remote connect into various overseas installations. Never has an on-screen keyboard been such a boon.

[Uncle Slacky]

Re: Locale dependent description too

Even better, a French "CSV" file is actually semicolon-separated.

[find users who cut cat tail]

Re: Locale dependent description too

That's pretty normal when you use comma as the decimal separator – as the entire continental Europe does. Occasionally someone calls them SSV or something, but it is hardly less confusing because few know what it means. And anyway, a ‘CSV’ found in the wild can be separated by tabs, spaces or whatever else was at hand… Do not trust the extension.

When you see 3,141, it can be any of these:

two numbers 3 & 141

an approximate value of π

1000× an approximate value of π

The joy of international number formatting.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

It's a pity the ASCII chaps didn't think to make an unambiguous field separator character that couldn't be confused with anything else.

If they were really feeling helpful they could have added unit and record separators as well

[DJO]

Re: Locale dependent description too

.If they were really feeling helpful they could have added unit and record separators as well

ASCII 28 (1C) FS - File Separator

ASCII 29 (1D) GS - Group Separator

ASCII 30 (1E) RS - Record Separator

ASCII 31 (1F) US - Unit Separator

Just because hardly anybody ever uses them, it doesn't mean they don't exist.

(Yes I know they do not have glyphs so are "tricky" to use when for display)

[Tron]

Re: Locale dependent description too

In the UK it is common for large numbers to be written with commas, say 29,500 but I would never type the comma when typing such a number into a computer. Do people really do that?

I appreciate some people use a comma as a decimal point. Surely financial software has been able to autotranslate that from day 1.

[Bob Royal]

Re: comma seperated digits

My spreadsheet is happy to put "," between each 3-digit group in a big number.

But then, it is Calc from LibreOffice.

[Ramlen]

Re: Locale dependent description too

Did you keep it as it seems some of your keys aren't working...

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

[Assuming Windows 11-ish]

Your Welcome screen locale is evidently wrong.

Settings->Time & language->Language & region->Administrative language settings

Best to go through both 'Copy settings' and 'Change system locale' to make sure everything is set correctly. Note that the 'Copy settings' bit looks like it'll do everything from the first tick box, but it doesn't. Tick both options.

[andy the pessimist]

Re: Locale dependent description too

I think it was windows 7 on the laptop. I think i only changed excel's locale.

[doublelayer]

Re: Locale dependent description too

I had assumed that they might not have the privileges needed to change that setting. If that's the case, it wouldn't be hard to have IT make the change, but it would be one of those situations where the inconvenience of accepting it as it is is so small that maybe the inconvenience to making the request and having IT question it is bigger, especially as it all comes at once.

I've experienced a related problem, this time on Mac OS and my fault or at least my responsibility because the machine was mine. I had multiple keyboard layouts enabled, and Mac OS kept the one I was using active even after it locked. Problem: my password had characters in it that didn't appear at all on that keyboard layout. There's a switch in login options which lets you put a keyboard layout selector on the login screen. It would have been a good thing if I had set that. Fortunately, it returned to the primary one when forcefully rebooted, but I still ended up losing unsaved files.

[phuzz]

Re: Locale dependent description too

I don't know if it works at the login screen, but Windows key+Space switches through installed languages.

My work laptop has an international layout keyboard, and defaults to that layout, even on an external keyboard, every time it locks, grrr.

[Jedit]

"a security feature to prevent someone grabbing your pin"

So rather than have the numbers in a normal place and you covering the keypad with your other hand or some object to hide the way your fingers move, instead you have to leave the keypad visible and look for each digit individually. Brilliant. Are you sure that it's not a feature to allow someone to steal your PIN?

[JMcKeand]

Re: "a security feature to prevent someone grabbing your pin"

Ubiquiti UniFi Access Readers have a 2.7" touch screen with a resolution of 1280 x 286 pixels. When you use PINs on the keypad the numbers are presented as a 2x5 matrix. There is a setting that presents the numbers in a random order. No muscle memory allowed.

[collinsl]

Re: "a security feature to prevent someone grabbing your pin"

Where I used to work had something similar on it's keypad readers - the 3x4 button pad had a 7-segment display under each button and every time you scanned a pass for entry it did a little "randomisation" sequence accompanied by an appropriately bloopy sound effect, then you had to look and punch in your PIN on the random placement of digits given.

[doublelayer]

Re: "a security feature to prevent someone grabbing your pin"

I would much prefer your design. However, from non-touch-typers I know, there will be people who won't like any keypad where they can't see the keys as they type. I would hope that more people have memorized the typical layout of a numeric entry system than the letters on a QWERTY keyboard, but I think that probably explains why they don't cover the keypad.

Randomizing the digits, though, I think must be an experiment in what mild frustration does to people at scale. It certainly won't help with anything related to security.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "a security feature to prevent someone grabbing your pin"

"It certainly won't help with anything related to security."

Sure it will - for a device with a fixed PIN (door access, for instance) you can't guess the PIN based on the wear on the numbers or fingerprints on the screen. If you know which 4 numbers make up the PIN, it takes a maximum of 4!=24 guesses.

[doublelayer]

Re: "a security feature to prevent someone grabbing your pin"

How is that? If these are physical keys, then the four you press most often will still show wear whether they're in the normal places or not. The only way to avoid that is to make them move around, but for static keys, that doesn't work. So if this is a keypad, it doesn't help.

On a touchscreen, you can move them around randomly, so that starts to be an option. But on a touchscreen, the danger is, as you say, fingerprints on the screen, which can easily be wiped away. So even there, it's a very minor benefit. Of course, since this was a pin keypad on a payment system, there isn't a common pin so that advantage doesn't apply in the example, but even in a single number system, I don't think it's the advantage they claim it is.

[Fred Daggy]

Re: Locale dependent description too

Belgian and French are wierd.

But for merry hell on earth, try a password combination that involves the use of the Turkish " i ". Its in the same place as a US/UK keyboard " i " but different character. The regular " i " is moved to beside the " L " key.

It's so subtle, it looks slimilar, but not the same. Endless fun debugging that one.

Remember folks : If in doubt, use the on-screen keyboard.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

Belgians and French are weird - fixed that for you

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

Technically, they had it right the first time. Belgian is a language unto itself, a mutant amalgam of Dutch and French. Similarly, "Swiss" is also its own language, German infected by French.

And if you really want to get freaky, Romanian is Latin that's been colonized by Bulgarian (as opposed to Spanish, which is just Latin that's been modernized within itself)...

[goblinski]

Re: Locale dependent description too

...IT dont seem to know how to fix it, nor care particularly to find a solution...

Possible fix for the log on screen defaulting to a language different from the local one:

- See if you have a US keyboard layout as an alternative layout. Remove it at least temporarily

- Make sure German is currently selected

- Go to Control Panel > Region > Administrative > (You'll need admin creds to do that one) > check the checkboxes at "Welcome screen and system accounts" & "New user accounts" (if you want new user accounts to not inherit US as well

- Restart. See if it works. Re-enable US as a secondary keyboard layout if you need it

The log on screen will usually default to the language which was set when the account was created, not to the language that was chosen after.

[John 110]

Re: Locale dependent description too

I bought a "previously loved" Lenovo laptop. It arrived with a US keyboard. Not a big deal I thought, as all the important keys are in the right place, and I usually have to hunt for the less common ones anyway.

Then I discovered that the crappy little return key on a US keyboard is much harder to hit than the nice chunky one on my UK keyboards.

[DavidRa]

Re: Locale dependent description too

The keyboard thing should just be a case of setting the default system locale correctly.

Any IT department which cannot figure that out should be the first against the wall when the outsourcers come. But I think you knew that already.

[JulieM]

Re: Locale dependent description too

Varying the disposition of the numbers on a PIN pad is actually a sensible design, especially in countries where people are not likely to be wearing long sleeves.

If you doubt this, wear a short-sleeved T-shirt and get someone to stand behind you, recording a video of your arm as you enter numbers on a keypad while holding your other hand in such a way as to block the view of your typing fingers.

[doublelayer]

Re: Locale dependent description too

If the keys don't move, then that video works the same way as one of a normal keypad except that the attacker behind you would need to know the unusual layout of the keypad. Fortunately for them, they're behind you, so when you're done, they can easily find out that new layout. This only kind of works if it's a touchscreen which randomizes the numbers every time, but then it's harder for you to type them without looking at the screen, meaning they have more possibilities to capture your movements and the layout.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

a lab I used to work at had close links with Korea and we used to get staff come over for a year or so. They would bring their laptops or use our devices with the Korean Language pack now that was entertaining! At least with the Latin alphabet you have a basic clue what the dialogue might be saying!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

The number of places I've worked in the past where they don't set the locale properly on the install image then forget to change it was too damn high.

[Caver_Dave]

Re: Locale dependent description too

I needed to remotely access a customer's test equipment via their VPN.

They had carefully sent all the relevant things I needed to know via different methods (one part of the secrets by email, one part Teams, etc.).

I could not log in and it took me a little while to realise it was a locale issue!

I only realised when they talked me through it and said "shift ..." when that character was on a completely different key on my keyboard.

The tech on the other end of the call (in a country that has 4 official languages) was very used to locale issues and thought that I was very ignorant to have not thought of it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Locale dependent description too

We linked up with a small company in France, and to save money our management decided to cancel their local IT support and get me to remotely support them from UK.

First problem we had was when I was informed by our British MD who was visiting them that a Windows 10 workstation couldn't access their Windows Server server (I wasn't told which version of Windows Server). I discovered these were the only 2 machines they had, a workstation and a server. I was asked to RDP into the workstation and sort it out.

The workstation was running Windows in French with a French keyboard. I don't speak or read French. I did manage to log in, and through a mixture of Google Translate and recognising some Windows dialogue boxes, I was able to determine the problem wasn't the workstation.

It turned out the server also wasn't running Windows Server, it was another Windows 10 workstation they had dedicated as a network server, stuck in a corner with no monitor or keyboard attached, also running Windows in French.

I had to get our MD to plug a keyboard and monitor into the "server" to see what was going on there as I couldn't RDP to it. It turned out the machine had somehow corrupted its HDD and a number of Windows system files were damaged.

The local IT support were reinstated as I didn't have a passport at the time so it would have been weeks before I could go out for an onsite visit.

[David 132]

"Capital Two"?

Clearly the user in question had beaten the end boss of Mavis Beacon and unlocked a typing superpower, as explained by XKCD.

[TooManysecretsx]

Re: "Capital Two"?

ahh yes Mavis beacon

Took a typing course in the late 90s as filler for lessons in sixth form.

Said to the teacher can i just do the test at the end and just mark me as here. (They tested my typing in the first lesson and it was up to speed)

So yeh an extra hour of freedom (And still passed the test at the end)

(Learned to type on a BBC Micro. Commodore plus 4, Acorn Arc and Amiga)

[Andy Non]

Re: "Capital Two"?

I did similar in the 70's. While doing my 'A' levels at a technical college, attended a weekly typing class amongst all the young ladies training to be secretaries. Learning to touch type was a skill very much used over my career as a software developer.

[Potty Professor]

Re: "Capital Two"?

I used to be in the Royal Observer Corps from 1966 until we were stood down in 1991. As part of the training I was sent to RAF Cosford to take a Touch Typing course. I passed with a speed of 25 WPM, but the facility has faded over the intervening years. I am afraid I tend to look at the keyboard now, and when I look at the screen I find to my horror that it is full of gibberish and I have to do it all again.

I also have several devices with numeric keypads, and there are about four different layouts, so looking at the keypad is essential.

[Albert Coates]

Re: "Capital Two"?

Fans of the famous typing teacher should watch Seeking Mavis Beacon.

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: "Capital Two"?

I guess I'm missing something in the story (okay, reading comprehension have never been my strong suit) or there's a key (pun intended) detail missing, but if they typed 'capital-2', wouldn't that produce the '@' character, which I assume is what was in the password.

Calling '@' a "capital" 2 doesn't change its meaning unless we're dealing with Schrödinger's Keyboard.¹

________________

¹ Or maybe Heisenberg's Uncertainty Keyboard?

[dave 76]

Re: "Capital Two"?

I guess I'm missing something in the story (okay, reading comprehension have never been my strong suit) or there's a key (pun intended) detail missing, but if they typed 'capital-2', wouldn't that produce the '@' character, which I assume is what was in the password.

It's not always the @ symbol above the 2 on a keyboard, it can be other characters like " if you have a keyboard from another locale

[Philo T Farnsworth]

Re: "Capital Two"?

> It's not always the @ symbol above the 2 on a keyboard, it can be other characters like " if you have a keyboard from another locale

That's true, of course, but not in the context of the story, where the teller of the tale specifically asked whether 'capital-2' meant the '@' sign.

I remain puzzled.

[Aleph0]

Re: "Capital Two"?

My reading of the story is that the user thought they could type that "capital-2" without using the Shift key, since they had Caps Lock activated in order to type the previous three characters in the password.

[MattieD]

At least they knew about the Shift key

One thing I've noticed* becoming more and more prevalent over the past few years is the number of people who don't know you can use the Shift key to get capital letters. They turn on Caps Lock, type their letter, and then hit Caps Lock again to turn it off.

I'd suggest this is down to predominately typing on a mobile phone keyboard and is therefore something that only affects the gen-zero kids, but I've seen it across the ages. Anyone over 40 would likely have learned to type at school on either a computer or a typewriter, so you'd think they'd be au-fait with using Shift to type capital letters.

* - this could just be confirmation bias, I'm aware that people do it so I'm noticing it more - rather than an actual increase in Shift-o-phobia.

[JT_3K]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

I see this regularly (UK based) but primarily its peck-typists in the 45yo+ category that usually tell me proudly they're "not very good with computers" at some point in the interaction. Thankfully it's a rare day I have to do support now so I see much less of it. I always sigh inwardly when I see it as I assume it means I'll see a lot more of that person during their tenure.

[that one in the corner]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

I learnt on a typewriter - and rather miss the SHIFT-lock key; CAPS-lock is a new-fangled computery thing and with the increase in odd characters needed in passwords these days...

And what is with CAPS-lock being *above* the SHIFT key? On our typewriters, the lock was always below, so you pressed SHIFT to lift the mechanism then curled a finger to press the lock. Mutter mutter, youngsters, mutter.

Anyway, I've got a good, *old* keyboard still in use, CTRL above left-SHIFT and CAPS-lock on the bottom row, but mapped out to something equally pointless, WIN IIRC. Who knows, it never gets pressed. OTOH, locale be damned, trying to use the "same" layout on the laptop is hard enough: why does the paste buffer only ever contain one capital-V, where is the string I just copied? In fact, where *is* that string? Why is there a 'C' - bugger.

[phuzz]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

I ran into this problem several times because some users were having trouble getting past the LUKS password screen. The issue was that they were using Caps Lock to type upper case letters, but the LED wasn't illuminating, so they didn't know what state it was in.

It turned out that the developer has decided that the Caps Lock LED is a 'security vulnerability', because it could allow someone else in the room to gain some information about your password. Somehow ignoring that anyone who can see your caps lock light can probably also see the rest of the bloody keyboard too.

[l8gravely]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

As a long time emacs user (40 years now!) the first thing I do on all my computers/keyboards is map CAPSLOCK to Ctrl like god intended.

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

I just pull the CAPSLOCK key off, it's hurt me enough

[Vincent Manis]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

I always remap Caps Lock as Compose.

[Terry 6]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

I do that on my Windows machines too.

To avoid THIS happening. wHEN I DON'T want it to. (OK I faked i this time)

[John 110]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

@Terry 6

Protext on my Amstrad CPC and my Amiga had a function where you highlighted the tEXT and hit the function key and it fixed it for you. I miss Protext...

[Aleph0]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

At one point I had grown tired of retyping stuff after mistakenly pressing Caps Lock, so I replaced that single switch on my keyboard with a "clicky" version in order to instantly be made aware that I have pressed that key.

Since my mechanical keyboard isn't of the hot-swap variety I had to purchase and learn how to use a soldering iron (Pinecil FTW), but it was worth every penny.

[PRR]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

> ...map CAPSLOCK to Ctrl

I "map" CAPLOCK keycap to an old ashtray above the PC. I hardly ever put it back on; but maybe someday I have to give a keyboard to a friend so I save the keycap.

Yes, I favor editors that have case-swap function. I don't use excess caps but sometimes I get text which needs to be UN-SHOUTED.

[Terry 6]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

A lot do. Maybe the mobile phone is indeed the underlying reason, but a big part of it seems to be the inability to use two keys together. Caps Lock, letter Caps Lock is sequential.

[Tron]

Re: At least they knew about the Shift key

I am some way over 40 and we never had anything approaching a typing lesson at school. It was either a cartridge pen or a ballpoint. Computers were the preserve of the few of us who did computer studies on chalk encrusted PETs. I learned to type by typing, endlessly, later - thesis, books etc. There is a time and a place for the shift key and the caps lock key, depending on what you are doing. If I'm cataloguing a book, holding it with one hand, typing with the other, and trying to cope with dodgy eyesight and limited desk space, both are used as required.

[goblinski]

in my book, zero of the non-IT people aged above 40 know what Shift does.

Caps are obtained with Caps Lock, that's what it's for, it locks Caps. If you need to enter caps for a password - you just lock and unlock Caps Lock. Come on now! It has a little light !!!

[The Organ Grinder's Monkey]

My Lenovo X270 doesn't have a caps lock light on it, but the X220s do. Infuriating as a look-at-the-keyboard typist. They put status lights on other things, just not that one.

[NXM]

related problem

I had to tell a nice young lady at the insurance what my car reggie number was.

Me: Delta tango six three etc etc

Her: (typing noises) d-e-l-t-a-t-a-n-g-o...

Me: No, I'm using the NATO phonetic alphabet.

Her: What?

[KittenHuffer]

Re: related problem

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?!?

[Albert Coates]

Re: related problem

Lima Oscar Lima ---------------->

[that one in the corner]

Re: related problem

Why Tsunami Four?

(from the phonetic alphabet that brought you "P as in Pterodactyl, L as in Llantrisant, E as in Eye"...)

[Antron Argaiv]

Re: related problem

"D like in Delta, T like in Tango..."

"...A like in assh*ole?"

Sorry...it's a mite difficult being a USAian right now. Not all of us voted for The Orange Menace...

[Excused Boots]

Re: related problem

"Sorry...it's a mite difficult being a USAian right now. Not all of us voted for The Orange Menace...”

Don’t worry, we know. It’ll be fine, eventually, probably.

[A.P. Veening]

Re: related problem

Sorry...it's a mite difficult being a USAian right now. Not all of us voted for The Orange Menace...

The real problem is that not enough of you voted against him. And yes, I am blaming the non-voters for that as they were the largest group at over 90 million.

[Terry 6]

Re: related problem

Not just the US. This voting pattern of "I hate X but Y is less than perfect, so I won't vote" is going to kill us all.

[Giles C]

Re: related problem

For uk postcodes you have to go phonetics, my mums postcode ends with 6PB nobody ever hears that correctly even in person or on the phone.

[Anonymous Coward]

"HOW GODDAMNED HARD WAS THAT TO SAY IN THE FIRST PLACE!?"

When I was a youngblood, the other interns and I got stuck doing rounds of help desk; two to a shift. My shift partner that day got a call from the head secretary of a department asking "How do make a capital letter T".

She then spent the next 20 minutes of her life trying to tease out what this secretary actually wanted to know. Surely there's no possible way she want's to literally know how to make a capital letter T on her keyboard. To her credit she stayed more patient than I because the caller get more and more angry and abusive. At one point the user was screaming over the phone so loud I could hear it on my side of the room.

Tired of the abuse, my shift mate says, as sarcastically as possible, "I dunno, hold down shift and press T? Did you try that yet?"

<model_m>*click* *click*</model_m>

"HOW GODDAMNED HARD WAS THAT TO SAY IN THE FIRST PLACE!?"

And with that the user slammed down their receiver and my mate and I just stared at each other trying to figure out if we were being pranked.

To this day I don't know what was going on with this user. This was the mid-90s and she had been working as a secretary at this org for decades, so she'd have come up when typewriters were the standard. IIRC, she even had a Wheelwriter on the other half of her desk.

While we diverged careers, I still see my old co-intern now and again, and we still joke about "The T Incident".

[Stevie]

Bah!

A colleague once told me how some "clever" SAs working at a Sperry site called a new operator and instructed him to type "Shifted 41" at the production mainframe console.

For some reason they fired the operator, but not the pranksters.

In Sperry parlance, to "dollar-bang" an 1100 series system is to force immediate shutdown.

[A.P. Veening]

Re: Bah!

For some reason they fired the operator, but not the pranksters.

And soon after they started to wonder why nobody applied for the open job of operator anymore.

[Scene it all]

Back in the early days of graphical user interfaces, I knew some people who did "human factors" studies of problems people had using computers. They found that verbal accounts of "what did you do?" were not reliable so they set up a video camera and recorded test subjects trying to use the computer. One problem was that they could not open files. The user manual said "Put the cursor on the icon of the file you want to open and press the button." The video revealed that the user interpreted the word "on" to mean "on top of", that is "just above" the file icon.