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When was the last time you used the CAPS lock key? Not by accident, on purpose. Did you ever think to yourself “whew, having that key really saved me”? Maybe you were writing dialogue for TV, HBO, or SNL. Maybe you were working for NASA or the FCC. Maybe you just had an MRI. Did you or anyone else reach for the CAPS key?

The CAPS key is constantly getting in my way. Left of the letter “a”. Not just any letter but a vowel, and the second most used at that. As a fast typist I hit it often enough that sometimes I wish it were another letter “a”. To help me with what seems to be my second most missed key. Why didn’t they put it out of the way, say next to the “q”?

At first I was thinking we can put it to better use. Make it the “u” with the two dots over it. Or the “e” with the backwards slash. They’d get a lot more use if they were more readily available. Or maybe assign it “LOL” so we’re more inclined to lighten things up.

But let’s face it, ours has become a lower case world. URL address links are all lower case. Excessive use of CAPS is considered yelling. Capital initials aren’t even used in e-mail addresses. If it wasn’t for the ongoing use of acronyms we’d likely be declaring capital letters an endangered species.

So if you believe in evolution and the morphing of fins into limbs then you should notice there is no CAPS key on the iPad keyboard. Sure, you can double up on SHIFT (word typed with the shift key), but that just shows adaptation as a precursor towards losing it. Of course I am way ahead of them for I have been removing the CAPS key from my laptops for years. Darwin would be proud.

If “they” can remove PLUTO and change the makeup of an entire solar system, why can’t “we” remove a key and change the keyboard. If not at least leave it up to the user to decide. Let’s put personAL Back in the personAL COMPUTER!

Damn, there’s that CAPS key again…

This entry was posted on Friday, October 12th, 2012 at 11:28 am and is filed under iCIT. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.