Don't let the Caps Lock key RUIN YOUR TYPING

Photo by i_yudai on Flickr

Last week I received an email from James Potter, The LinkedIn Man putting me in touch with one of his connections who was looking for a software solution to a particularly annoying problem:

"As the world’s poorest typist I am desperate to solve the problem of hitting Caps Lock in error and looking at the screen 30 seconds later to find I have typed about thirty WORDS IN UPPER CASE, by mistake."

As this is something that's caught me out before, more often not involving Caps Lock but Num Lock, and finding that I've been moving around a spreadsheet rather than entering numbers into it, it seemed worthwhile writing up a solution offered within Windows itself, namely "ToggleKey".

This feature will cause your computer to beep whenever you press Caps Lock, Num Lock, or Scroll Lock. It makes a slightly different sound activating the lock and deactivating it. Here's how to enable it on Windows XP:

Simply click Start, and then Control Panel. On the window which opens you'll see "Accessibility Options". Double click that, and another smaller window will open - find the box near the bottom marked "Use ToggleKeys" and tick it. Click OK and you're done.

On Windows7, the steps are similar, but inevitably slightly different, and is documented on the Microsoft web site here.

Open House London 2012 - The Lloyd's Building

This is one of a short series of blog posts describing visits during Open House weekend in London, September 2012. You can find out more about Open House on their web site. Some events are turn up on the day and queue, and the Lloyd's Building is one of those, and is one of the most popular with visitors.

Fortunately the Saturday was a fine day with clear blue skies to start. As this is such a popular attraction the queues are long, and even if you arrive an hour before the opening time, you'll still be in a queue, so you should allow for this when planning your day. The event is well organised, having been run for a number of years now, and there's no pressure to move around at any speed. Although there are no guided tours, there are plenty of event staff around to help you with any questions you may have.

There is security on entry, inevitably, so be prepared to have your bags searched, and sharp objects will be removed (and returned to you when you leave). The contents of my backpack were queried, as the contents were my heavier boots, ready for the afternoon trip to Paddock in north London!

From there, the route is laid out before you, going up on to the main floor, and across it, with plenty of time to look at the Lutine Bell, the Nelson Exhibition, and the atrium, before heading out to the lift lobby to take one of the building's trademark external lifts up to the 11th floor.

The 11th floor offers spectacular views of nearby buildings, as well as across London, and being at the top of the atrium, you get a chance to look back down at the Lutine Bell way below you. Also on the 11th floor, the route takes you through the Adam Room [PDF].

On the other side of the building, the lifts take you back down, this time to the 3rd floor, where you get another chance to look down, and also across at the network of escalators which run up and down across the atrium. Indeed, these are the next stop on the route, and take you back down to the ground floor level, where you can complete your tour with a visit to the Coffee House for refreshments.

This is an excellent place to visit, with plenty of time to look round and take photos (some of mine are here), allow around 90 minutes including stopping for a drink on your way out.

Open House London 2012 - Paddock Bunker

This is one of a short series of blog posts describing visits during Open House weekend in London, September 2012. You can find out more about Open House on their web site.

Some events are turn up on the day and queue, but many are ticketed (although still free) and must be booked in advance. Paddock Bunker in Dollis Hill, north London is one of those.

Paddock, the Alternative Cabinet War Room, was built in 1939 to provide a backup command centre for the government during the Second World War. However it only hosted two Cabinet meetings, the first chaired by Churchill in 1940, and the second by Clement Atlee in 1941.

Although Churchill had been keen to establish a base outside central London in case the primary Cabinet War Room sustained heavy damage, after the first meeting he felt it unsuitable for long term use. He missed the second meeting due to illness. The facility was abandoned before the end of the war.

The bunker has remained largely intact and untouched since then, although it did suffer some flood damage some years ago, and is now owned by a housing association. It is open to the public during Open House weekend, with guided tours from Subterranea Britannica volunteers, who are enthusiastic and knowledgeable. Hard hats (provided on arrival) must be worn by all visitors because there are a few low doorways and other obstacles. The facility is now also quite wet, with standing water in places, so sensible footwear is a must.

This is a fascinating tour, is altogether different to many other Open House tours, and is highly recommended. You can see a few photos from the tour here.

You can learn more about Paddock on the Subterranea Britannica web site.

Computing in 1982 - August

The August 1982 issue of Your Computer contained all the latest from the world of ZX, BBC and Vic computers, as well as the new releases to the market.


However, the first thing which caught my attention was the editorial piece about networking. Some felt that networking computers was becoming pointless, as the main reason for doing this was to allow sharing of often expensive peripheral devices. However, the march of technology meant that these were becoming cheaper all the time, and so this networking would become unnecessary.

Not so, said the piece, as networks should now become larger scale, enabling communication between remotely located machines. This in turn would open up access to remote databases, with Sinclair suggesting that in future its software would be downloaded directly from a remote Sinclair database.

In describing the future for networking of computers, this piece was absolutely spot on.

London 2012 Recorded in Super Hi-Vision 8K HD

I was in London for the Men's Marathon, one of the last events of the Olympic games, and fortunately was early enough to secure a good spot near St Paul's Cathedral.

As the athletes ran 3 laps of a course through the city's streets, there was plenty of time to become accustomed to proceedings. First, the "Forward Command Vehicle" drove through, with another car close behind. Then, after a slight interval, the media truck with the official timing display.

Behind that, however, and slightly ahead of the athletes and their camera bike entourage, was another vehicle, carrying some rather interesting equipment, and on one of the passes I managed to see a logo "Super Hi-Vision" and remembered that there was a plan to record and broadcast in 8K High Definition.

I was lucky enough to see examples of the future of High Definition at Essex University a couple of years ago. On the third lap, I managed to catch the vehicle on a video I took of the leaders running through.

Currently, our HD TVs at home have a resolution of 1920 x 1080 pixels, which is referred to as "2K". 8K HD has a resolution of 7680 x 4320 pixels. The Olympics project is a joint venture between the BBC and NHK.





You can find out more about these developments and how the future of TV might evolve on the BBC R&D Blog (including a great picture of Super Hi-Vision installed in the Broadcasting House Radio Theatre), and in these articles on Pocket-lint and techradar.

LinkedIn Usage Trends

Over the past month, my LinkedIn network has grown by about 5% so I thought I'd run a quick query over the data I've accumulated to see if there's much in the way of change in habits since last time.

The short answer is no, but looking a bit deeper, a slightly higher percentage of the network creating shares does indicate some increased activity, so it'll be interesting to see if this trend continues over the coming months.

In the meantime you can find out more about the chart above here.

Jump into the Time Machine: Computing in 1982

I was having a clearout recently and found some back issues of Your Computer. This was my magazine of choice for computing matters in the early 80s, and I thought it would be fun to look at some of the issues arising 30 years ago.

The July 1982 edition had cover stories for the Spectrum and ZX-81, the BBC and the Atom, as well as the Vic-20.

In the news were the launches of the Dragon 32 and the NewBrain (or at least the availability of it, some two years after the launch) and the inevitable Spectrum delays, with the first machines ordered taking up to eight weeks to deliver.

The lead article that month was written by Tim Hartnell (who I had the opportunity to work with a couple of years later) and was an introduction to the Spectrum graphics and sound features that were available to those who were lucky enough to have received their machines.