Gordon Woolf's Blog

The strange case of uP and dOWN

What is the most annoying key on your keyboard?

For me, and maybe for you, it is the CAPS LOCK key. It seems to get in the way whenever I intend to hit the Shift key. If I'm lucky I may be in Word or some other program which allows me to highlight the mess which results and hit the command to change case, but in others there is no option but to delete and type the phrase or sentence again.

In Word 2010 you go to the Home tab and then in the Font area click on the Aa button to select from a wide choice including lowercase, Sentence case, Capitalize Each Word or tOGGLE cASE.

The CapsLock is a remnant of the old typewriter keyboard that has continued to exist to this day and has survived the many changes in computer keyvoards over recent decades which has seen the number of keys and the positions of some of them go from 83 on the original IBM PC to 104 for the US, Australia and most other countries, though many European layouts have 105 and some in Brazil and Japan have 107 and 109 respectively.

But there is something you can do about that caps lock key, and even about the strangest key, the one labelled SysReg. SysReg is also named as PrtScn, which doesn't actually print the screen but does put a screen dump or image into memory ready to be pasted in an image editor program such as Paint ot even Photoshop.

So, how do you get rid of CapsLock? 

The answer lies in Windows Registry Editor. In Vista and Windows 7 you can search for the local machine code control keyboard layout and replace the scancode which activates when you press the CapsLock key. It then involves entering a sequence of around 20 hex codes.

But there are easier ways. For example, go to:
http://www.randyrants.com/2006/07/sharpkeys_211.html
and download SharpKeys

I went for the MSI version. When installed, press the Add button, select the "Special Caps Lock" with code 00 3A and change it to the default which is "Turn Key Off". You could also change it to another version of the Spceial Left Control key which may be more helpful in reaching many control key combinations.

Think carefully before selecting to write the change to the Registry (you do have a back up of that, don't you?). Then you need to reboot to see it take effect. Though the program says for Windows systems up to Vista, it does work with Win7 too.

You can also download another program, KeyTweak, from http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/
I've read equally good reports of that but have no practical knowledge.

There are other websites you may find helpful, such as How-to-geek at:
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/disable-caps-lock-key-in-windows-vista/

That page includes a downloadable set of .reg files to do what I've just done or to a Shift key or to swap the Caps Lock with the Scroll Lock key that may be sitting up there on the right between SysRg and Break. Did you even know you had those? Break dates back to the teleprinter and telegraph. It was a way for operators at each end to know that outlaws or bushrangers had not cut the line. When did you last need to know that?

This article appeared first in the November issue of PC Update, the magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group. It may be reprinted at no cost under Creative Commons conditions with Attribution.

The biggest typo of all

A typo is a typesetting error, and Typo is a book about the biggest typesetting error of all time. The Full title is Typo: The last American Typesetter or how I lost 4 million dollars. And actually, on the cover the subtitle is typeset as “...or how I made 4 million dollars” but made is crossed through with the common handwritten correction mark for delete and above it is the insert mark and the word “LOST” is written in. That has led to the book being listed on Amazon as Typo: The Last American Typesetter or how I made & Lost 4 million dollars. It is appropriate that such an error creeps in. This is a true story in as much as it is author David Silverman’s account as one of the two people who borrowed to buy the Clarinda typesetting company at a time when the industry was going bad. He and mentor Dan Coyne were sure they could save not only Clarinda but by taking over the rest of the industry in the US and combining work in the US with outsourcing to Manilla they could stave off the disappearance of US typesetting to India. It almost worked, and might have if they had not had to deal with publishers and their own staff. This is not just a book for people in the printing and publishing industries -- it has lessons for anyone who runs a business and especially anyone who has ever moved in to an existing enterprise as “the new boss”. I can sympathise as David deals with situations such as the internal financial controller who just refuses to introduce new systems and makes sure that anything new does not work. As the new manager of a newspaper I had an office manager who almost every night, as I found out later, was phoning the owner to ask “has Gordon the right to do that” and similarly making sure new methods always  seemed to fail. David faced the same reluctance to sack anyone, let alone people he suspected were refusing to co-operate in any efficiencies. And there were inefficiencies galore. A woman was employed to check every laser printout of an online file with the original printout from the publisher because years ago laser printers would sometimes substitute Courier for some typefaces. Then the printout pages were numbered with one of those old fashioned numeric stampers because a printout could be dropped on the floor and they’d have to recollate, despite that having happened once in several years (and would take maybe an hour or two to put right). Even worse, should that woman be away, a senior typesetter would take over her job leaving them one down in the only department which might have been making money. The IT technician certainly installed the new 100MB network cables, but connected only four wires at each device, so that the system continued to run at 10MB (a new tech was amazed that it had worked at all). A fireproof storage room contained Syquest disks from the 1970s while current backup tapes lay on the floor outside. A fireproof filing cabinet was empty save for a key which did not fit anything they could find. The litany of these things covers three pages which every company tech and director should read even if they ignore the rest of the book. (Do a search on “rubber bands” in the look-inside section on the book’s Amazon page). Such items from David’s experiences make for a laugh but I’ve seen such things and I’m sure they are true for many, many businesses today. Then there were the publishers who refused to send work if it might be outsourced to Manilla despite being almost sure that other typesetters they did use are subcontracting to India. There’s also a slowly dawning realization for David that although their Manilla office seems to be the only section making a profit, it is still a high cost operation compared to India. You’ll know so many of these people: the salesman who persuades a client to phone threatening to take away their work if the salesman is sacked who David has to tell has not given them any orders for two years. The meals booked as expenses which turn out to be meals for one. The manager who keeps a van driving daily between offices long after all urgent work has gone electronically. But all these problems surfaced only when it was too late. In the early stages the new owners were intent on the big picture, increasing sales -- unable to get from an ancient accounting system the facts such as that for every extra book put through the typesetting system at even the most efficient of their US offices was losing money. The only profit source seems to have been corrections because of high fees and a hit-or-miss system which meant that invoices bore little relationship to the actual work. Typo: The last American Typesetter or how I lost 4 million dollars, by David Silverman, published in the US by Soft Skull Press, 2007 and in Australia by Scribe Publications, 2008. For more info and extracts including videos see http://agman.com/