Google Wants To Take Away Your Capslock Key 968
heptapod writes "Slashdot reported earlier about Google's Chrome notebook and keen-eyed readers would have noticed the lack of a caps lock key. 'According to Google, this will improve the quality of the comments, because people will not be able to write all in capital letters. I'm not a fan of the caps lock key myself. I never use it, so it can go to hell, for all I'm concerned. But taking away choice from people is not good, especially when this is not going to improve the quality of comments.'"
You can't fix stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Those of us who use it sparingly or for specialized reasons will be deprived of it. And those who USE IT TO ON EVERYTHING WITHOUT REALIZING IT'S THE EQUIVALENT OF SHOUTING will still be stupid. And stupid people will find a way to be annoying no matter what you do.
You could take every key but "a" away and websites/services will still be filled with denizens sporting aol email addressees posting:
aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
e.e. cummings approves (Score:5, Insightful)
And stupid people will find a way to be annoying no matter what you do.
Like just holding down the shift key?
Re:e.e. cummings approves (Score:5, Informative)
Stupid people probably don't even know shift works for caps. I've seen people pressing caps just to get a single capital letter in their password.
Re:e.e. cummings approves (Score:5, Funny)
I have a colleague who uses her mouse upside down. Meaning invert x, invert y, clicking with her thumb, cable facing downwards. She says that's just how she started using it and it never occured to her to use it the other way. She's no less accurate than I am with a mouse either.
I've heard stories of one individual completely stumped when he ran out of desk space but couldn't move the mouse cursor any more to the right than the middle of the screen. Clearly he didn't realise that you pick the mouse up...
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By my logic, your colleague may be one of the few people that actually holds the mouse correctly.
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I do something similar: I have two computers at my desk at work, and I set up the one on the left side left-handed, and the right one right-handed. It keeps both hands in good mousing shape, allows me to have the two keyboards butting up against each other in the middle, and makes it very easy to operate both machines at the same time.
Curiously, not only does no one else at my office do this, but they all use both computers right-handed. I'm looking out at a field of dozens and dozens of desks, and every
Re:e.e. cummings approves (Score:4, Funny)
Six months ago I switched it for him. His immediate reaction was "Oh wow that's much better!"
He wants a technical job in IT.
Re:e.e. cummings approves (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm right-handed but I use my mouse my the left hand. That way it's closer to the keyboard, I mean, the part of the keyboard I use all the time, the letter keys of course. And I can reach it with only a minor movement of my left arm instead of having to go aaaall the way to the right, past the arrows and the numpad.
Combined with a bit of knowledge about keyboard shortcuts (Ctrl-Ins : Copy, Shift-Del : Cut, Shift-Ins : Paste) and drag and drop (select some text, drag it with Ctrl key pressed : easy copy-paste), I find it a very ergonomic disposition. And it didn't take very long to learn to use the mouse left-handed (my right hand is still more precise though).
I haven't inverted the mouse buttons though, because I like to use it with the right hand from time to time.
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I am left handed and use the mouse with my right hand, because that is where the mouse goes, and it requires less dexterity than touch typing or hitting the right key sequence while playing a videogame.
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You want wierd? My dad is right handed, uses his mouse in his left hand. Standard config, just on the opposite side fo the keyboard.
Trick is that he's an accountant. Easy access to the numberpad is more important to him than any extra control of the mouse.
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Mate of mine is a lefty, but used his mouse in a right hand configuration. He just positioned the mouse in his hand so his left index finger was over the left mouse button, and moved it between the two buttons as needed.
I'm a lefty, and that's actually how I prefer using a mouse. For some reason it works better for me than switching the buttons - maybe because it doesn't require any thought if I switch to someone else's computer, or maybe because I mouse somewhat ambidextrously.
Re:e.e. cummings approves (Score:5, Funny)
And stupid people will find a way to be annoying no matter what you do.
Like just holding down the shift key?
Yes. [googleusercontent.com]
Re:e.e. cummings approves (Score:4, Interesting)
________are those keys that
________flitter ravenblack words
________________________________acrossmyscreen
windowsmenumeta
________________are
___________________keys
_______________________that
___________________________fly
______________________________me
________________________________around
______________________________________invisiblespace
gOOGLE
take not my expressive locks controls and alternates.
Some User lackingnbsponslashdot
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Those of us who use it sparingly or for specialized reasons will be deprived of it.
Easy, just replace it with shift-meta or something similar. It annoys me more than it helps me but I occasionally use it so I don't xmodmap the lock away... Not sure if there is any logic there but I think I just don't want to get used to it being another shift key for when I use someone else's computer.
Re:You can't fix stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
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I use the caps lock key a lot. On French keyboards, when a word begins with an accentuated letter, the only way to display it correctly is to hit caps-lock and press "é" or "à". Give me way to write easily É or À otherwise this is a (arguably minor) feature you remove from me.
I've been using only french keyboards forever and I never have had to use the caps lock key to get a capital É or À or È or  or Ù, etc. Shift works just fine, don't know how you have your keyboard configured but it would seem something is wrong.
Re:You can't fix stupid (Score:4, Interesting)
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The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity
Maybe not, but perhaps there should be CAPITAL punishment for stupidity?
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>
You could take every key but "a" away and websites/services will still be filled with denizens sporting aol email addressees posting:
aaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Or take away the dedicated italic, bold and underline keys!.... Wait we don't have those? Talk about removing choice.
Deciding to drop hard keys isn't removing user choice. If you build it with a caps key you are making a decision for the user, without it, you're making another. Personally, I'm more than happy to save a bit of space for a more functional key, and have caps lock as a meta-key.
Re:You can't fix stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Really, how can you read that article and not come away with the feeling that the writer is a little clueless, or trying to create a story where there isn't one, or both?
Saving space? No (Score:3)
That seems unlikely, since the key is still there.
I suspect that the reason they have set the default function of the key to be "Search" is that they believe the bulk of Chrome OS users will be better served a Search hotkey than by a rarely-used Caps Lock key, and that those for whom Caps Lock is needed will take advantage of the convenient option in the Settings menu to switch the function of the key to "Cap
Re:You can't fix stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
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Browsers and email clients have this things called "text zoom" or "text size", people don't need to type in all caps. And multiple studies since 1914 have proven that lower caps are more readable than all caps.
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If you really use it sparingly, you won't miss it. You'll hold down shift for an extra 4 seconds per week.
While their explanation about it improving comments is obviously bullshit, I like the decision anyway. Every single time I ever press caps lock, it's an accident.
If I may get overdramatic, having a caps lock key on your keyboard, is like having a bear trap on your desk. As long as you stay away from it, it's harmless. But it never under any circumstances ever ever helps you, and sometimes you accidently go near it.
Like the fire department. You only use that sparingly, right?
Having a caps lock key is like having a bear trap on your desk, if you work in an office with the occasional bear.
Most of the time it sits there taking up space. But when you use it, it's the right tool for the job.
I'm a bit scared (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as I hate the caps lock key (reassigned mine to be an extra Esc), I just submitted a bug on Chrome that it doesn't have a command line --geometry option, which I consider a pseudo standard thing for X apps. I can't help but see that Google is going from the mostly standards compliant company they once were to becoming a Microsoft as far as following standards goes. I'm sure there are other examples people will bring up and maybe a comment along the lines of "They were never standards compliant".
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Have you filed similar bugs against all of Mozilla's products?
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Fresh install of Win7 yesterday. Chrome (browser) gets 100/100 on Acid3, while IE8 gets 20/100. I'm missing the point I'm sure?
Most of the stuff Acid tests has little to do with standards; IE scores so low on it because they decided this particular test was unimportant for real-world scenarios and not a priority. (And frankly, I agree with Microsoft on this one.) Your Acid3 score really says very little about how well you support web standards.
That said, IE9 will have a significantly higher score simply as
OMG!? (Score:4, Funny)
Finally (Score:2)
Personally I have both: Keyboards where I physically disconnected Caps-Lock and Keyboards where Caps-Lock causes trouble. I think, I have never, ever needed that key, not even once.
I am all for it!
Good Riddance (Score:4, Insightful)
The Caps Lock key is an arcane relic of the ancient IBM keyboards and for most users, it's completely unnecessary. It screws up passwords, for one, and it is in a position that is way too easy to hit accidentally. Besides, there's been a movement to ditch it for ages now, and thus far nobody's complained. Did nobody notice that the OLPC computer also ditched the CapsLock? Besides, anyone who still wants to use all caps still has the shift button.
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While I agree with you, there are situations where caps lock is useful - when writing in caps along with numbers and punctuation.
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"ancient" IBM keyboards (like the IBM 1391411 I'm typing this on) are about the only ones that doesn't have any "problem" with capslock (hitting capslock by accident), since it's clearly separated from the "a"-key and gives you plenty of feedback when hitting it (sound + feeling).
Of course, not having caps-lock might stop idiots from shouting, but they'll just express themselves in some other annoying way.
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Every keyboard I've ever used (well, every standalone keyboard) has the spaced gap between the 'a' and CapsLock key. The only keyboards that doesn't have the spaced gap that I've ever used are laptop keyboards, but they are generally bad for more than just that reason.
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Re:Good Riddance (Score:4, Informative)
If you are a touch typist, having to hold a shift key down for more than 2 capital letters in a row really slows down your typing speed and contributes more to repetitive motion injuries.
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Just about every operating system warns you when your capslock button is on during logon. For other password dialogs, you would generally notice the problem when typing in your username, so I can't help but think this is a pretty minor problem IRL.
You just haven't been paying attention. Every time this subject comes up on slashdot, a bunch of people (including me) complain about it.
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Actually, I just pick a side and stick with it. Three fingered touch typing is not that hard. Personally, I'm in favor of the caps lock key, I just couldn't resist your challenge. I'll admit doing that all day would get uncomfortable.
OMG (Score:3)
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It's a start but (Score:5, Funny)
They should probably take away all the other keys too.......
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And the computer, in case they start using the mouse and an on-screen keyboard, or even touch-screen, or handwriting recognition.
I love the caps lock key (Score:5, Funny)
Buncha keys should go (Score:3, Interesting)
Why the continuing bother with Caps Lock, SysRq, Scroll Lock, and Break? Does anyone use them? at least, any number of people above statistical noise?
How about the Windows and Menu keys? anybody use that on a regular basis? would a statistically meaningful number miss them?
And while we're at it, usage of the Function keys (12 of them!) seems vanishingly small.
Nineteen nigh-unto-unused keys, times how many keyboards out there with them?
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I think the only people who still use all these keys are people who like overly complex video games that uses every single key on your keyboard, plus all the buttons on your mouse, plus some sort of neural interface to get working.
No big deal (Score:2)
Turn your CAPS into another CTRL key (Score:2)
http://johnhaller.com/jh/useful_stuff/disable_caps_lock/
Change the key, keep the functionality (Score:3)
Perhaps the functionality should be retained, but entered via a function key or a two-key combination that requires pressing to enter that mode.
This way, people who need to type extended all-caps can still do so, but it won't be mistakenly keyed by dolts who hit it as a shift key and then flail away without returning it to lower case. Of course, people who want to be annoying and "shout" will still be able to do so, but it might cut down on the inadvertant clueless shouting.
Well there goes THAT idea... (Score:2)
I have been mulling over the possibilities of adopting tablet devices at work so we can connect to our HP-UX server for access to the POS and inventory stuff. Other than logging in, everything must be entered in caps.
Actually, now that I think about it, maybe this will be the single motivating factor for finally upgrading our 20+ year old software.
ABOUT TIME (Score:2)
I never understood why there is a hardware button that was SOOOO easy to hit by accident over something that could much easier and better been done with software.
Can all hardware vendors get away from the CAPLOCKS key?
Capslock is Still there (Score:2)
Why do people do that? (Score:2)
No, seriously, can anyone explain to me why some people insist on capitalizing every letter in their e-mails and/or comments? I've been wondering about this for years, and I've never been able to figure it out. I seriously doubt these folks write in all caps when they use a pen (or do they???), so why do they do it on a computer? What is their "logic" for this?
The old saying goes.... (Score:2)
when a company finds a way to make the world a little more foolproof, the world will make a better fool....
WTF? (Score:4, Interesting)
I assume this bit is from a Slashdot posting and not Google:
Attention people -- keyboards are use for more than posting comments.
What the hell kind of drivel is this?
Case Sensitive Language (Score:2)
Re:Case Sensitive Language (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I've just always programmed in languages that are case sensitive ... C, C++, C#, Java ... the few I've bumped into that are case insensitive are scripting languages.
I guess I just learned that CAMEL, Camel, CaMel and camel are all different literals. It doesn't rely on an interpreter to say "oh, you meant this, I'll ignore it". I'm used to a compiler saying "I have no idea what camEl is".
And, from experience, I'd rather have camel case than that whole "Hungarian Notation" which more or less made variables pointlessly hard to read.
Guess it depends on what you learned with, but I find case-insensitive brings its own problems. ASCII provided us with a lexical sort ordering (for good or for ill), and throwing that away isn't always a good thing.
How about å, ä, ö, and ø? (Score:3)
How about å, ä, ö, and ø?
I know quite a few Vikings who are pissed at the lack of it in plain ASCII.
Unfortunately, Columbians have taken control of the matter from Erkissonians. An now Göögle?!
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Well, the A in ASCII does stand for American, so I don't think anybody is worried about the Vikings.
Architectural drawings (Score:3)
Good luck creating architectural drawings. (IMAA)
It has been convention since the beginning of time to write everything in CAPs. Not that conventions can't change, but there is a whole system of communication in the construction industry related to the assumption that instructions and notations are always capitalized. Similar reason to why US construction is still Imperial, there is too much embodied energy in the current method to risk confusing it with a change to another system.
Don't take it away (Score:2)
They are not taking away my caps-lock key (Score:2)
... they are offering me the opportunity to buy a device that doesn't have a caps-lock key.
It's useless anyway (Score:3)
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It's more satisfying to hold down shift as you yell. Try it.
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I did, but the only feeling I got was from all the people in my office looking at me funny.
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The company I work for during the day actually uses an archaic system with terminal menus and command line commands that are named in all capital letters. They use the caps lock key excessively. I've seen other systems like this in use for inventory systems at stores and warehouses too. You probably have as well.
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Caps lock: Yep, it gets used for long blocks of capitalised text (particularly those in SQL statements and those that also mix in numbers so that the 3 doesn't become £ bu accident)
Scroll lock: Yep, every day. Double scroll lock and up/down switches my KVM from the dev machine to the work machine.
I've not used Numlock or Pause/Break for ages, though.
Re:Does anyone actually use it legitimately? (Score:5, Interesting)
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I try to imagine it... (Score:3)
So when you're designing the ROTFLcopter you can write "CROSS-SECTION!!!!1111".
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I use NumLock. Well, I make sure it's always on. I guess I never un-use NumLock. At least when using a full-size keyboard.
Pause/Break is handy in Windows. Try hitting Win-Pause sometime.
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Pause is occasionally useful during PC repair since it'll freeze boot messages on the screen. CTRL-Break is functionally the same as CTRL-C in most places, just harder to type. Windows key-Pause brings up the System Properties applet on most versions of Windows.
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Even that is probably unnecessary - unless it is a really bad app that can't automatically upper/lower-case all of the text.
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ah745-x8d8e-fe02w-8s89e
The program returned an error that said "It looks like you used lowercase letters. All serial numbers for this program have uppercase-only letters."
So whatever idiot programmed this knew to check to ensure the serial number didn't have lowercase numbers, and thought to return an error message to the user, but didn't think to just interpret lowercase as uppercase. Now, I'm not a programmer, but isn't the for
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i cant remember ever running into software which was case-sensitive when it comes to license keys..
but yeah, it isnt all that usefull of a key.. but taking it away to "improve the quality of comments" is just stupid
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Useful for designing menus, buttons, titles & logos in Graphic design also.
And... I used to use it a lot when I was a little kid learning BASIC from old library books, as all the code then was written in uppercase so I would type them verbatim.
Since those old books were written in a single font, all uppercase helped separate computer code from from prose text.
Use of Caps Lock key (Score:5, Informative)
For modern web-based applications, you are correct that there is little or no reason for the Caps Lock key.
But for the MILLIONS of people whose job requires them to use antiquated legacy systems, it is often essential.
The largely character-based systems used for accounting, order entry, invoicing, and other core functions are often accessed through terminal emulation software or first generation client-server software. These systems often have a great number of "lookup" codes for everything from SKU to client numbers that fail when using lower case. Those still using first generation client-server software are especially inconvenienced as some of these programs have no option to remap the keyboard.
The sheer volume and costs of re-engineering these systems mean that they will be with us for years to come, no matter how ugly and inefficient when compared to modern systems.
(Well, you did ask.)
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Those people probably won't be using ChromeOS in the first place...
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"For modern web-based applications, you are correct that there is little or no reason for the Caps Lock key."
Bingo. The Chrome laptop is a specialized piece of hardware for use with web applications -- we won't be using "antiquated legacy systems" on it. If one needs that functionality, don't buy a Chrome laptop.
Re:Use of Caps Lock key (Score:5, Informative)
Except that Google brought some reps from Citrix up onto the stage to demonstrate exactly that.
I actually thought that the Citrix demo had the potential to be game-changing. They almost completely divorced business applications from the platform that they run on, and used a dead-simple Linux-derived OS as the client. The idea that corporate users could deploy *any* app, regardless of the OS that it natively runs on to almost *any* end-user is pretty tantalizing. OS lock-in is suddenly no longer an issue, no software needs to be rewritten, and client maintenance got a whole lot simpler. It'd be hard to pitch a more appealing proposal to a corporate sysadmin/beancounter.
(Of course, you could take care of the caps lock thing at the terminal emulation level, by remapping an unused hotkey combination as a Caps Lock toggle. It's a non-issue, and I'm sure there will be other hardware that has the button included. Unlike iOS devices, the platform is open, which I suspect will be a very important thing to the corporate world, as vendors can customize hardware to fit their customers needs.)
Re:Use of Caps Lock key (Score:5, Interesting)
On top of that, in Japan, you can use the caps lock key to switch to a different kind of characterset. Quite useful, really...
B.
One step further (Score:2)
After a series of unfortunate caps-lock incidents years ago, I've taken to popping off the caps lock key on any QWERTY (-- yes, I held the shift button to type that) keyboard I use regularly.
While it is annoying that the infrastructure guys keep asking me if I want a new keyboard, it beats dealing with the accidental capping, especially when working in languages that are case sensitive.
-Rick
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Programming.
The convention in C/C++ programming is to put preprocessor symbols in all caps.
#define THIS_IS_A_PREPROCESSOR_SYMBOL 42
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Thai keyboards use it to switch to latin.
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i did to toggle running in some game a long time ago !
Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, capslock set autorun for you.
Why the hell do I still remember this!?
Agreed (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm a database programmer, and I use caps lock on a regular basis. It's off by default, of course, but if I had to type stuff like this all day without caps lock I'd go mad:
CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW part_glass_part2 AS
SELECT part_key, sum(line_sqft) AS sum_sqft, sum(line_lbs) AS sum_lbs
FROM part_glass_part1
GROUP BY 1;
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Arguably though, I might've had more of an issue with it had SQL been my primary area of expertise. Our main database developer doesn't even use the shift-key. Ever.
Re:Agreed (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, database programmers aren't the intended target audience of Chrome OS. Just sayin'
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>>>CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW part_glass_part2 AS SELECT
EXACTLY.
Precisely. For the google dipshit to say, "I never use it, so it can go to hell," demonstrates they must have fired all their programmers & engineers. The key was invented almost a century ago for typewriters because it was needed, and for google to not include the key is short-sighted.
C64_love (still looking for a new search engine that's not Google)
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# ifdef SOME_MACRO_NAME_THAT_WILL_BE_CREATED_BY_A_SCRIPT_SOEWHERE ....... ........ ......
#endif
#ifdef SOME_OTHER_MACRO_THAT_THE_SCRIPT_CREATES
#endif
#ifdef AGAIN_SOME_OBSCURE_MACRO_CREATED_BY_SOFTWARE
#endif
Now, get me some software that auto cases C!
Re:Agreed (Score:5, Informative)
Um, SQL isn't case-sensitive. That's just a coding convention.
Re:Agreed (Score:4, Insightful)
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(I hope they don't enforce this rule by human inspection, but I have this horrible fear...)
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Never mind. Google is clearly correct.
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Can you still buy netbooks with capslock? Yes? Then you still have choice.
For people complaining about companies taking away choice you sure are eager to take away their choice in matters.
Re:Choice (Score:5, Insightful)
> Can you still buy netbooks with capslock? Yes? Then you still have choice.
In fact, you have more choice.