Helpful Capslock Tip

from the March 2005 Newsletter

The following is gratefully borrowed from the February 2005 Senior Net Newsletter: Surfin' the Web with John Cook. It's Internet-related in that there are still quite a few help desk calls where customers report password errors only to find that the problem is their Caps Lock key.

Here's a neat little tip to start of the new year... How often do you find that you have inadvertently turned on the Caps Lock key by mistake? Happily, there is a way to activate an audible signal to warn you when this happens. Hold down the Num Lock key for five seconds. You will hear a beep to let you know that the signal is activated, and a dialogue window will appear as well ([click Okay]). Now your computer will make a high or low tone beep whenever you press any of the Num Lock, Caps Lock or Scroll Lock keys. To turn it off, just hold down the Num Lock key for five seconds again.

Helpful Capslock Tip (2)

from the April 2005 Newsletter

Last month we featured a tip gratefully borrowed from the February 2005 Senior Net Newsletter: Surfin' the Web with John Cook. By holding your Num Lock key down for five seconds, you would be able to set your keyboard to make a sound each time you hit your Caps Lock key. This is a great feature for those of us who often turn Caps Lock on without realising it, which can lead to problems with passwords etc.

A number of people wrote in to say that either the feature didn't work for them, or that it ceased to work once they had re-booted, and they had to set it up anew each time they re-started their computer. It seems there is an alternative way to get this feature to work which may solve both problems.

Getting your keyboard to warn you when your Num Lock, Caps Lock or Scroll Lock keys are pressed is called using the "Toggle Keys." You can turn this feature on permanently by going through Accessibility Options in your Control Panel. The process is as follows:

Access your Control Panel (Start button/Control Panel for Windows XP, Start button/Settings/Control Panel for other Windows versions).

Access your Control Panel (Start button/Control Panel for Windows XP, Start button/Settings/Control Panel for other Windows versions). Click Accessibility Options and an Accessibility Options dialogue box will pop up.

dialogue box will pop up. On the first tab of this box, down near the bottom, put a tick in the Use Toggle Keys box. This should turn the feature on permanently for you.

Click the Settings button and the Settings for Toggle Keys box will pop up. Put a tick in the Use shortcut keys box. This will solve the problem for those of you who found that the feature could not be turned off and on by holding the Num Lock key down in the first place.

That should sort things out. It's quite a useful feature to have on all the time, and it is surprising how many times during the day you will accidentally turn your Caps on, and hear that little sound.