Just a reminder.

Are we clear on this yet? Typing in all-caps makes you look like an idiot. Please stop doing it. Think of the children.

While we’re on the subject, it’s spelled “the,” not “teh.” Learn to proofread. You may be a stuttering chimp in normal conversation, but there’s no reason you should come off as an illiterate boob when typing.

Nobody thinks you’re any smarter or more socially appealing when you use numerical conversions like “n00b,” “k3wl” and “r0x0r.” In fact, most folks with an IQ over 40 consider this to be annoying. The word “elite” is not spelled “l33t,” no matter what your friends may tell you.

Learn to use simple grammatical structures like paragraphs, and please type in complete sentences. Again, you’re typing, not speaking, so please take a couple of seconds to check for errors.

Regrettably, there is no minimum academic requirement to use the internet. As a result, people who have no business toying with anything more technical than a handheld cheese-grater end up spewing all sorts of nonsense wherever they think they have a sounding board.

People like this are the type to call tech-support and complain, “it’s done busted” without having read the owner’s manual. They manage to swing the signal-to-noise ratio straight over into static, and it makes life harder for those of us who actually use the internet for constructive things.

Don’t be one of these people. Make the world a more pleasant place. Learn to spell.

Addendum:  Those of us raised on Unix are used to having our keys in the correct arrangement, which banishes the caps-lock key to a safer spot in favor of a handy ctrl key.  This arrangement also puts the escape key where it’s supposed to be.  You’ll also notice the lack of that silly Windows key.

Unicomp used to make a wonderful model called the Linux 101, which is sadly out of production.  Of course, in most operating systems, you can simply reassign the key via software, but I’ve yet to figure out how to do so in Windows.  If you know how, please let me know, as I’ve got a laptop with the now-traditional arrangement, and I’d like my ctrl key in the right spot.