Anyone here use the Caps Lock key?
 

For capitalizing letters, that is.

Believe it or not, I've actually seen people use it. Especially the hunt-and-peck typers who painstakingly trigger capslock on and off for each capital letter.

Any other silly keyboard habits you've spotted?

I've seen people constantly use the delete button instead of the backspace button. It boggles my mind. I'm sure that isn't too strange, but it's the only thing I've got.

Oh, and I've seen people use the numbers on the number pad (is that what it's called?) on the right of the keyboard. That just seems waaaaay unnecessary to me. Similar to Deoxy, I've seen people who have a scroll button on their mouse not use it, but they use the page up/down buttons instead. :gonk: :confused:

Mainly the use of the up and down buttons to scroll instead of using a scroll button, dragging the bar down instead, or using page up or page down for longer pages. Another one I can recall is seeing someone use the File --> Exit option to close an application instead of hitting the X.

Only when Acronyms are up and about would I use Caps Lock. Other than that other weird computer habits include using the mouse to clicking on the bar to scroll down with a mouse with a scroll wheel (at first I thought it was because the mouse was retarded) or right clicking on files and pressing "Open" instead of double clicking. Speaking of which I also once saw an old lady using a computer and she actually had to use both hands to complete a double click. Not that I'm making fun of her or anything but it was awkward for me to see it.

One of my friends uses the capslock button to capitalize his letters. Needless to say, he the a painfully slow typer.

I use it if I know the whole sentence is going to be in caps, and I type like a mad-woman.

I never use the caps lock key myself. Even if I'm going to type an entire paragraph in all caps, I always press and hold the shift key.

But doesn't that mess up your hand postion? I mean, you're holding down the shift key with your left pinkie, I would imagine. What if you have to type an "a" or a "q"? HOME KEYS, FRIEND. HOME KEYS.

Wait, I just typed that without using the caps lock. Forget everything I just said.

My pinkie always rests on the shift key. My ring finger types "a" and "q".

Do you guys actually type with the "correct" hand formation? I'm a pretty fast typer, but I move my hands freely around the keyboard and type with random fingers.

Umm is it true what you are saying there or is it just a joke? So instead of using the SHIFT key they just have the time to press CAPS LOCK twice everytime they have to type a capital letter? Btw, I totally hate people who don't use either and write shit like " hello my name is cindy from usa. i like sports and i believe in god ". Good lord, they should be sent to prison.

My mother doesn't know how to type an "@" ("shift and Q doesn't do it :("), although I told her like a hundred times.

Yuo'd reach your maximum typing velocity if you used the proper fingers on the proper keys. Unlike what Bigblah does.

I use the shift key to do my capital letters, its a habit I've got and I love it. Saves so much time compared to pressing caps lock all the time.
I've not noticed anyother trends of other people though. Should really pay more attention.

I never learnt the correct formation either, but I still manage over 100 WPM.

I learned the proper way to type, but it's just not something I need. I don't need super-speedy typing, I just need to be able to get by. I never look down at the keyboard, and I can potentially type faster than I can think. Since I'm not a copy-typist, I'll always be drafting on the computer rather than copying a manuscript which means that there's no point at all in me reaching the higher speeds.

My boss frequently dictates to me over the phone while he's driving in to work, so I have to be able to type as quickly as a person talks. I have no idea how fast that is, but it's damn fast, and thank goodness I learned the proper hand position or I'd never be able to do it. Didn't you guys have to take a typing class, or is that just us old people?

That is actually extremely practical. I used to use the numbers at the top of the keyboard, but after 6 months of using an AS400, the numpad is much more efficient.

In elementary school we did a typing program that taught us the correct way of typing, but other than that, I have no other typing training.

All I did was play Typing of the Dead :(

I have that game. Maybe I should start playing again to brush up on my typing skills.

I use the Shift keys unless I somehow know ahead of time that I'm gonna be typing more than a sentence in all caps. It does slow me down a bit, but for forum posts like this I'm not concerned about typing as fast as I can.

I really do need to start using the number pad now that I have a desktop (and use one at work, where I type phone numbers a lot). I'm a fast typer, but using the number row practically reduces me to hunt-and-peck as far as speed goes.

I use the Caps Lock key when I'm on the phone and can only use one hand. As for something actually kinda silly thought not entirely related, I only discovered Alt+Tab a couple months ago. :(

Don't feel too bad... I just found out about alt + tab a minute ago. :(

Teach me. I type stuff with random fingers.

I think the scrolling mouse thing is painfully slow compared with Page Up and Page Down, or even Home and End. I use those keys extensively at times. I rarely use caps lock. :(

I type with random fingers too and I can go over 100WPM. I did take typing classes in school as a kid (Haha fuck the '90s) but in the end I just adopted my own way of typing and it works pretty well for me.

I used to have a friend that capitalized Every Word Of Every Sentence, but he told me he had gotten over it. I imagine it would be painful to read. But really, the only real quirks in typing I've seen is shorthand among teens, and thats not a quirk so much as it is mental retardation.

Yeah, same here. On my Powerbook though, the Page Up, Page Down, Home and End keys are only accessible through the "Fn" modifier and hence I've had maybe 2 or 3 people ask me why I use the arrow keys to scroll down on pages.

One other quirky habit I've seen is from my cousin who is trying to learn how to type and when he gets stuck typing, for example an essay, he'll kind of just tap the backspace and space bar alternately until he regains his thought momentum and continues. He used to be one of these "pick at the keyboard and hope I hit the right letter" kind of typists but he's slowly but surely picking up his skills.

I never use the Caps Lock key and the only time ever hit it is by mistake, and even then I don't know how I hit it :s

When I first saw my friend click before mistakes and use the delete key, I thought that was really weird instead of backspacing, althought now I use them 50/50 in conjunction with the home and end keys for sentences. I use home and end a lot and then holding down left or right instead of clicking where my mistake is then pressing delete or backspace.

I also think using insert is weird since it overlaps what you wrote before. It feels unforgiving but I haven't used DOS much so I don't know what people who used computers back then would think of it.

I use caps lock depending on the font. Comic Sans MS (and most comic looking fonts) look best in all caps.

I only use the left shift key. Dunno why. No love for the right one. If I've been Photoshopping for a long time, I tend to forget and try to use some of the same shortcuts in IE. Mostly I end up trying to hold dow the spacebar, click, and drag to scroll.

I guess that's the case for many people. I doubt I'll ever change to the numpad though, it's too much of a change.

One thing that I do that I never see other people do is push in the scroll button on my mouse and then move the mouse to scroll the page quickly or slowly. Does anyone else do this? It really is quite handy.

I'll use Caps Lock if I intend to type two or more capital letters, but otherwise I generally just hold down the Shift key. Other times I'll hold down Shift to type out an entire paragraph in all caps, then feel silly for not using the Caps Lock key. It's not really something I stop to think about.

One weird thing I've watched some people do is to hit the Backspace key repeatedly to delete several sentences. They don't highlight with the mouse or even hold down Backspace.

It's faster if you do a lot of numerical data entry, but if you do not, then there is no reason to switch I guess.

I get annoyed with that feature, because sometimes I click the mouse wheel down by accident, and I hate the way the whole page scrolls by in a quarter second. I wish I could turn it off somehow.

The keypad is much faster than the line numbers above the alphabet for repetitive numeric data entry. As for me, I do not use the caps lock key, despite tying in all caps at work in our system. My left pinky is almost always sitting on the left shift button most of the time. I also use the scroll wheel on the mouse, and never the arrow keys to scroll a webpage.

Does anyone here use the Dvorak layout of the keyboard? For the record, I've never seen those types of keyboards in my life (Qwerty keyboards with the tops of the keys moved around to fit the Dvorak layout don't count).

http://i173.photobucket.com/albums/w...sdood/fig1.jpg

:eye: That's the first time I've ever seen a non QWERTY keyboard. I don't think I could ever adapt to another keyboard with different placings for keys. That would seriously require you to just blank your mind and start anew.

Oh, and regarding the numpad thing, I've seen people using it just to input, say, 2 numbers. That's what I mean by waaaaay unnecessary. I can see it being put to good use for longer number inputs.

In my elementary school, we were taught to click on an icon then press enter to open it, instead of the far superior dual click.

Some of the smarter kids knew what was up, but the taught way was using click + enter.

Yes, I've seen plenty of strange habits that both aggravate and annoy me.

- Using the File > Exit instead of just clicking the red x
- Using caps lock instead of shift
- Clicking on the arrow on the scroll bar repeatedly to scroll down instead of just holding it or dragging down the bar
- Double-clicking everything, especially things that don't need to be, nor should be double-clicked
- Highlighting a particular letter and pressing delete instead of just backspacing
- People who insist upon using their keyboard for everything (though it can be seen as a type of skill... it's GAY and wastes time, especially when they do things that would take a mouse SECONDS to do as opposed to fumbling with all sort of different keys)

There's plenty more, but for the sake of making my list readable I included as few as possible.

I do that--now. I'm a manager at my one job, and our passwords are all numeric, so it's easier to use the numberpad. After a while, I just got used to it.

Now, what's odd is using the numberpad for the arrows--I have a friend who does that.

Whenever I save a file, I almost always go "File --> Save/ As" instead of Ctrl + S. I don't know why, but I just do. However, I do tend to use the other commands, such as undo, find, cut/copy, and paste via the control buttons more than I right click with the mouse.

Also, it's a habit now but I tend to double click on even single click items.

I used the Caps Lock key when I first learned to type. I hadn't really been paying attention in typing class, so I thought the Shift key was only for converting letters to symbols. I'd put on and take off Caps Lock every time I typed a capital letter and it was part of my normal typing routine.

It's not really a strange habit, but sometimes after playing WoW I find myself trying to use the W and S keys on my keyboard to scroll.

Scroll what? Those keys don't scroll anything.

I always use the numeric keypad for numbers but then, I'm an accountant so I do spend a lot of time typing in numbers. I tend to use the keypad left handed with my right hand on the mouse for navigation. I'm also a big fan of push-in-the-scroll-wheel scrolling. I use the caps-lock key if I'm typing more than a single word in capitals.

I disagree. Delete works if you're erasing to the right of the cursor. Backspace works if you're erasing to the left. Each has its own use :D

Personally my hands are in the correct position, and I can typically sustain TYPING IN CAPS FOR SHORT BURSTS by holding down the right pinky on SHIFT key, in lieu of caps lock. Obviously TYPING IN LONGER SENTENCES REQUIRE CAPS LOCK since the ring finger pulls double duty for letters P, O, L, colon, and apostrophe :p

Be that as it may, however, I've never been able to achieve anything more than 85 words per minute in Typing Tutor. Lucky Gigablah! I try anything remotely close to his speed, and I will end up with boatloads of errors.

Caps lock? No. Only to toggle run-always in Oblivion, or something like that.
http://capsoff.org/ The caps lock is outdated and should be removed...
Weird typing habits? Well I should dispel that one about using the numpad - it's much more efficient than using the top row, especially when putting in CD keys and stuff; you keep your hand in one place and can easily reach all of the numbers, leaving your eyes to look at the serial. =P

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I found possibly the most annoying thing that I do now when I'm reading articles or long texts on the webpage, is that I tend to highlight almost ever few lines as I read along, which is a habit of mine and I don't mind, but I have to be careful if other friends are also reading the same article on the same page as me during a class session or group work.

I never use the caps lock key to type out capital letters, I have always used the shift key. It is far easy than pressing the caps lock on and off for every capital letter that I want to type out.

I knew a guy that worked in an office that used the caps lock key instead of the shift button, he also "pecked" at the keyboard. It was a strange to thing to watch, I also noticed how many typos he always made as well.

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It's a habit for me to use the CAPS LOCK key. I hate the shift keys. I've just always done it, and it's faster for me to toggle it, hit my key, then toggle it again. I don't remember when I started, but a friend of mine pointed it out a few months ago. Heh

I use page up/page down/home/end keys for scrolling through long pages simply because the scroll thing on the mouse makes me cringe at times, plus I try to navigate my computor as much as I can without the mouse, since I use a laptop and my wireless mouse sometimes gets lost and the touchpad is just obnoxious at times. Also, I like the number pad, only cause I don't have to look at it to type a bunch of numbers, where the number keys on the traditional keyboard are tough for me.

Watching older people type is always funny. My mom was appearantly an ACE typer back in the pre-mouse days of computors and things, but now she looks kinda funny when she's doin her tupperware/whatever other lame stuff ordering online. She has mouse issues, lets just say that.

my dad uses caps lock during typing, (how slow)

other than that, I haven't really noticed anything weird with other people's typing or surfing habits.

Yes, now that you mention it, I think that's really why I do it. Despite not being a fan of highlighting text in real life, it's my e-highlighter version of being able to focus in on a particular piece. Large boxes of text generally just drive my eyes to skip the middle section and skim the top and bottom to get a general gist of the subject matter. However, highlighting even the middle portion of the text allows me to read it easier.

can i say...i resort to leaving it on and just use the shift key?

lol. yeah. j/k. hell, the shift key is for losers, and the capslocks is for momma's boys.

That's the whole point. They don't scroll anything. But they do move your WoW character.

I only ever notice there's a Caps Lock key when I undershoot the Tab key. I also almost always use delete rather than the backspace, although I can't explain why or how it began.

I've only ever used the number keypad and not having one when I got my laptop was one of the hardest transitions I've ever had to make. On my PC at work, because I'm constantly doing numeric data entry, it's a lifesaver as I'm still not accustomed to numbers along the top of the keyboard. However, because I'm so accustomed to the configuration of the number keypad, I dial a lot of wrong numbers because the keypad on the phone is in reverse.

Also, the old harpies at my job are mystified when I bust out the right click menu on the mouse. Seems as though they had no idea it existed. Plus, they're even more mystified when they see that I can operate a browser without the standard buttons on my toolbar.

"Uh, Jen... I can't go back on your computer."

"What?"

"You've got no back button."

"Sure I do. Just right-click the mouse."

"Do what?"

"Right. Click."

*clickclick*

"D'oh! Give me the mouse!"

I was also amazed that there was a woman at work who had no idea the function of the scroll wheel and constantly used the arrows on the scroll bar to navigate up and down. She thinks I'm a genius now. *shrugs*

I use the caps-lock key for #define CONSTANTS, but not much else. And I use the numeric keypad. I can touchtype on it, and its much more efficient at entering a lot of numeric values, which I do on a daily basis.

I never use the caps lock key, even when typing in all caps. I just hold shift the whole time. I use a ton of keyboard shortcuts for doing stuff on the computer. A lot of people tell me the mouse is always faster, but for example, after this post, I will hit tab, tab, enter, rather than scrolling down and clicking the reply button. I also constantly alt+tab between windows and ctrl+tab between various tabs in Firefox, so I don't have to move my mouse to the top or bottom and back to the middle.

As far as that highlighting text while reading thing, I stopped that quickly when I did it with some word documents. If you click already highlighted text and move your mouse, it'll drag the text around. Moving a few sentences is not an efficient way to read. To avoid that when I do need to highlight, I usually double and triple click text to highlight it now.

I actually use the caps lock key all the time, whether for stuff in all caps or just a single character. I just find it quicker to use than the shift key, and reserve shift for typing special characters.

However, I have an actual reason for doing this. At my job, I work with a computer language that requires me to shift in and out of caps lock all the type (due to syntax). So I guess over time the oft misunderstood caps lock key grew on me.

Haha I hold shift. :)
I tend to backspace slowly.
When I type out a sentence that I don't want, I don't hold it down. I just keep pressing it. XD

I never use it, and I sure do type a lot of stuff in capital letters! My pinky finger holds down the Shift key like a trooper. It has muscles on it as a result.

I think the only time I press the backspace key is when I do it by accident. Or in Doom 2 when its the toggle always run on and off. Otherwise, even if i'm typing a really long sentence, I still just hold down the shift

I have never used the key other than when I accidently hit it when typing. Actually, it annoys me quite a bit when I am trying to type something quickly, and the caps lock gets hit.