The lunatics have taken over the asylum

This is a repost  of a posting made in 2009. It is still as true today as it was then.

I received an email a couple of hours ago to tell me that the Windows setup file for VOAProp is reported as containing a trojan at VirusTotal, so I checked for myself. It's true. Thei nstaller is reported as containing a trojan by 8 out of 41 scanners none of which I have heard of or have any reason to take seriously.

I checked the original copy of the KComm setup file that I have here just in case my web site had been hacked and a trojan planted. But the result was the same. I also checked the downloads of a couple of other programs of mine including MorseGen and VOAProp. They produced virtually the same scan results as for KComm.

For years I have advised people that if they have downloaded a file from a source they would trust and their security software flags it as suspicious, they should scan it at VirusTotal to get a consensus of opinion as to whether the file really is a virus, a trojan or spyware, or just a false alarm. Unfortunately, VirusTotal has kept on adding new virus scanners to its armoury regardless of whether they are any good or not. The lunatics are taking over the asylum and as a result, VirusTotal has become useless as a tool for ordinary PC users to check whether a file is suspicious. I recommend jotti.org instead.

Some of my programs that are accused of containing a trojan were last updated several years ago. They have since been downloaded by hundreds or thousands of people. It is inconceivable that they could have contained a trojan that remained undetected all that time. The thing that all the programs have in common is that the installers were all created using the same setup generator. The likelihood is that somebody used the same setup generator to create an installer package for a trojan and the third rate scanners are picking up on something in the installer package that is not unique to the trojan.

I have no desire to waste my time contacting the developers of obscure anti-virus products to inform them about this false reporting of my programs. Nor do I have any plans to repackage all the programs using a different setup generator. I'm sorry, but third rate virus scanners are not my fault and I don't have the time or the inclination to deal with the problems they cause. If you choose to trust your virus scanner instead of me  I won't argue with you.

Some of the scanners are flagging the fact that the files have been compressed using UPX. This is a harmless tool used to make executable files smaller. It is not a malware. But I don't know how users of these scanners are supposed to know that.

Visitors Book gone!

They say that to err is human, to really foul things up you need a computer. And I have been fouling a lot of things up recently. The latest thing that I fouled up is the G4ILO's Shack visitors book.

On the site I also have a contact log. This runs from a backup of my KComm (MixW format) log file. KComm automatically backs up my log to the web server, in order to create an off-site backup of my log. As a bonus, I have a PHP script that reads this backup file and displays the contents in a human-readable format.

What I stupidly did, when re-configuring KComm after my computer troubles a couple of weeks ago, was put the guest book file name log.dat for the backup file name, instead of what it should have been: g4ilo.log. So when KComm uploaded my contact log backup it overwrote the guest book data file instead. I only discovered this after wondering why the contact log on the site wasn't updating.

I looked back in the site backups maintained by the hosting service but they only go back a couple of weeks.  I must have made the error before then. All I have managed to salvage is the most recent 3 entries. I'm rather upset about that, because the guest book contained comments made over many years from the early days of the site, which I had painstakingly preserved over various versions of guest book script.

At least I didn't lose my contact log going back to 2001. That would have been a disaster!

Chromium plated

I never did find out what was causing Google Chrome to crash so much on my computer. However, after several months of using Chrome I found Firefox rather slow and clunky. So I had a look round to see if there were any other browsers. It turned out that there were more alternatives than I ever imagined.

The first alternative browser I found was one called Avant. This is a powerful browser with a lot of configurability, developed by a Chinese programmer. It boasts the ability to render web pages using your choice of the Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome rendering engines, which is probably handy if you're a website developer. I set it to use Chrome and it displayed the pages that had give me trouble with nary a murmur. But I found the user interface rather heavy after the minimalist approach of Google Chrome. So I kept it on my hard drive but carried on looking.

The next candidate I stumbled across was SRWare Iron. It almost counts as two browsers in one, as it installed two shortcuts on my desktop, one named SRWare Iron and one named Chromium, both pointing to the same executable. This turns out to be a browser built from the same open source code as Google's Chrome by a German company. Germans seem to be a bit sensitive about privacy, so the main difference with this SRWare browser is that it does not send information about your browsing habits back to Google. What, you didn't know Google Chrome did that? Neither did I until I discovered this program, though I thought I opted out of this during Chrome's installation.

Apparently you can opt out of all the Google tracking if you choose the appropriate settings in Chrome, but most users won't do this. So Iron / Chromium could be said to be a better version of Chrome than Google's, certainly from the privacy point of view. Chrome extensions like AdBlock Plus work as with the real thing. Chromium even supports the ability to log in to your Google account to save and restore your bookmarks and other settings, which was very handy.  Try it, you'll never notice the difference.

I'm happy with Chromium / Iron as my default web browser now. So far, it hasn't crashed on me. But I also discovered another Chrome clone. It's called Comodo Dragon and it's made by the Comodo security company. Dragon is also built from the Chrome open source code and omits the Google tracking code, but it     has some extra security features added by Comodo. So it looks like an even better option if you are really privacy-conscious.

Life without Chrome

I've not been doing much radio the last couple of weeks. I haven't been able to raise much enthusiasm. No doubt for those of you with jobs, being able to play radio all day would be a blissful situation. But it's not much fun being in this small, sweaty shack in this hot, sunny weather. I'd really like to be able to get out and about in the beautiful Lakeland countryside, further than I can reach on my own two feet. And my hopes of doing that took a bit of a blow yesterday.

I did continue trying to get Google Chrome to run on my shack computer. For a short time I thought I had succeeded. I spotted that Microsoft .Net 3.5 was installed twice. I uninstalled both copies and Chrome appeared to be stable after that. Then I spotted Windows Update installing Net 3.5 again, and before I could stop it Chrome immediately crashed. I tried removing Net 3.5 again after disabling automatic updates, but this time it didn't help. I could crash Chrome every single time I opened this post from PD0AC's blog. Usually Chrome would just vanish from the screen, but other times I got blue-screen or black-screen error messages and once Windows XP spontaneously rebooted. So I have given up.

Time and trouble

I'm still reconstructing my PC system after the disk got trashed. I didn't lose any important files nor my ham radio stuff. But many of the configuration settings that Microsoft helpfully squirrels away in hidden locations like the registry or somewhere off Documents and Settings were not backed up. Mea culpa. Unfortunately I never came across a full backup system that I liked (I purchased Acronis but it was full of bugs that they want you to pay for an upgrade to sort out.

I keep on discovering things that need to be restored. I was getting some gobbledygook decodes from WSJT-X and then remembered that I needed to install Meinberg NTP. But the installation failed: the service wouldn't start, reporting the error that "NTP failed to respond in a timely manner." There is a note on the Meinberg website that the service might fail unless you install some Visual Studio restributable package, so I installed it but still no luck. I've run Meinberg NTP for years and have recommended it to everyone and it's so annoying that I can't install it.

Hacking the registry to up the frequency of Windows Time updates.

Nothing for it but to rely on good old Windows Time Service. I found the registry hack that lets you increase the frequency of updates. I also changed the time server to europe.pool.ntp.org which responded much more quickly that time.windows.com. Hopefully that will do the trick. I hunted for an old version of Meinberg from before 2009 which I must have installed when I first set the PC up, but no luck.

Disaster!

I have just trashed my shack PC. Not intentionally, you understand. I was trying to resolve a problem and the result was that the system has restored itself to the state it was in when it was new back in 2006 or whenever it was.

I have been using a backup program called Magicure. I've probably mentioned it in this blog before. It's kind of a System Restore on steroids. It has saved my bacon countless times and I have come to depend upon it. But it started giving an error message when it tried to do a backup. No new backups were being made. So I had to do something about it.

I emailed Magicure support for help but didn't receive a reply. I saw that there was a newer version of the software so I decided to download and install that in the hope that this would get it working again.. But the installer complained that there was another version present and asked me to remove it first. So I started to uninstall Magicure. That was a mistake.

The uninstaller said that it was going to roll back to before Magicure was first installed. If I was a bit sharper-witted I might have smelt a rat at this point. But I thought "no, surely it isn't going to do that." I just want to remove Magicure. So I clicked OK and within a few seconds I was looking at a Windows XP login screen with only Administrator as the available login. This looked ominous. No user "Julian". It looked as if it had rolled back the entire system to the state it was in when new, when I first installed Magicure.

I have no idea what the Administrator password was. But if I knew it I would be no better off because the computer won't respond to the mouse or keyboard. So I can't get in to the system to assess the extent of the damage. I don't seem to have a Windows XP disc to reinstall from scratch, either.

What an utter disaster. I have no idea what to do at this point.

Is this progress?

The home improvements have overrun. The shack is still full of the contents of two other rooms. I won't regain access to the PC and radios until early next week. I am typing this slowly and with considerable difficulty on the touch screen of my Android tablet.
Is this progress? Give me a computer with a proper keyboard any time.

Fix for "Gmail app unreachable" in Google Chrome

This morning when I started up Google Chrome and tried to log in to Gmail the page kept coming up "Gmail app unreachable". Curiously, when using Firefox Gmail loaded up fine.

I found a solution to this issue that works for me. Right-click the shortcut that you use to start Google Chrome, then on the Shortcut tab in the box marked Target which contains the full path to chrome.exe, append a space followed by  --ssl-version-max=tls1 (that last character is a number 1.)

I have no idea what this does but as I say, it worked for me.

Printer problems

Computers have the ability to raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels, but nothing causes quite so much stress as printers. Like most home users I suspect we are not heavy printer users. But we always seem to end up throwing away a little-used printer (usually with a full cartridge of ink) because of some alleged problem with the print cartridges.

We have an HP Photosmart 2575 All-in-one printer. We have had it for several years. In that time I would estimate that it has used no more than 4 sets of print cartridges. The cartridges installed are full and genuine HP products, not cheap refills. But whenever we try to print a message comes up: "Ink Cartridge Problem. Remove and check color cartridge."

We have removed, checked and cleaned the colour cartridge. We have  removed, checked and cleaned the black ink cartridge. We have cleaned the contacts. We have done this over and over again and still we get the same damned message.

The stupid thing about this is that the printer will still make a perfect colour copy. So I know that it is perfectly capable of printing. But I can't print from the computer no matter what I do. Grrrr!

A blinking nuisance

It's beginning to look as if my shack PC monitor is on the blink. Recently I have noticed that when the system comes back to life after going into standby the picture flashes repeatedly - flash, blank screen, flash, blank screen and so on. Nothing I do seems to bring this cycle to a halt, I just have to wait until the picture eventually stabilizes on its own.

This morning for the first time this occurred upon powering up the system from cold. So it looks as if the problem is getting worse. One day soon I expect the picture may not stabilize at all.

It is a 19 inch (48cm) monitor and must be about 8 years old, bought at a time when 19 inch monitors were quite a pricey item. So I can't complain that I haven't had good use out of it. I must have had three different system units in all that time. I should take this as an opportunity to replace it with a newer, larger screen. Except for the fact that I don't really have the room for a larger monitor as my shack is so small.

I do have a laptop that I could use. It is a nice wide-screen Dell running Windows 7, purchased for work about 3 years ago but now little used as I have given up most of the things I used to do. The trouble with that idea is that the laptop doesn't have the 4 real serial ports and 6 USB ports that the shack PC has, all of which are used.

So I guess I'll be shopping for a new PC monitor some time soon. The thing that always puts me off buying new computer hardware is the fear that it will be RF-noisy and add to the already high noise levels I experience here. This old monitor actually causes some hash on the 2m band, which went unnoticed when it was new as I didn't use VHF at the time. I think I'll ignore cheap Chinese products for once and stick with one of the well-known European brands that have actually passed emissions tests instead of just sporting a CE sticker like I suspect many imports do.

Seeing red

I just started up Google Chrome and my eye was caught by the minimize, maximize and close buttons in the title bar, which are bright red.

They stick out like a sore thumb. I can't believe I wouldn't have noticed it before. Is it just me, or my computer? If the buttons have changed colour, why? My eye is constantly drawn to these bright red buttons. It is a real eyesore.

An interesting discovery about sound cards

CheckSR result at 48kHz with internal sound card

I have several radios connected to my shack PC. For the audio interfacing I have several sound cards or sound devices since most of them are not internal cards but use USB ports. I wanted to make sure the rig I mostly use for digimodes used the best sound card I had so I thought I would do some tests.

Some people believe it's better to use a high end sound card for radio work. I don't think there is any benefit for HF use as the noise level will be much higher than even the poorest sound card. There is no advantage to using a device capable of more than 48kHz sample rate unless you are using SDR software and need the extra bandwidth.

The one factor that can really made a difference is the accuracy of the sample rate. Most digimode software uses either 11025Hz or 48000Hz. There is no theoretical advantage to using a faster than 11025Hz rate for terrestrial digimodes. A 48kHz sample rate should not give any benefit and will need more CPU cycles to transfer and process the extra samples.

Sample rate accuracy is important because it affects both the pitch of playback and the data rate. It's like playing an LP at the wrong speed. If you play a 33rpm LP at 45rpm the music is played at a higher pitch and a faster tempo. If played at a lower speed the sound is lower pitched and slower. This is analogous to what happens if the sample rate of your sound card is not exactly what your digimode software expects it to be.

I tested a number of sound devices using CheckSR.exe. This is a utility that is distributed with the MixW digimode software, but you can probably find it on its own if you Google it. To use it you simply select sound devices for input and output and set the sample rate you wish to test. You then run it until the measured sample rate settles on a stable figure.

I tested the Realtek sound cards built into my shack PC (HP) and a laptop (Dell) using both 11025Hz and 48000Hz sample rates. Both sound cards were as close to the specified sample rate as makes no difference.

CheckSR result at 11025Hz with USB device

I then tested a number of USB devices ranging from a $1 audio 'dongle' to a $10 model with surround sound and SP-DIF inputs and outputs. The drivers for these devices had names like 'USB sound device', 'Generic USB sound device' and  'USB headphone set'. These devices were also close to spot-on at 48000Hz.

But at 11025Hz every single USB device had a measured sample rate of 11100Hz - 1% faster than specified. This would make a 1kHz audio tone play at 1010Hz, whilst a 1200baud APRS packet would be transmitted at a rate of 1212baud. This error is more than enough to prevent decoding of an FSK packet signal. Other digimodes are also subject to sample rate errors. If you have ever seen a PSK or Olivia  signal that is strong and clear yet decodes as garbage, an incorrect sample rate (at one end or the other) is the reason.

I was surprised that the sample rate error at 11025Hz was consistent across all USB device samples. This suggests to me that the measured rate of 11100Hz is a factor of the drivers for these devices which may not run at the speed you select but instead resample down from a native speed of 48kHz. It would be interesting to see the results of running CheckSR on some branded USB devices or SignaLink USB interfaces that have their own drivers.

I ran some tests on USB devices at other sample rates. There was no consistency. At 8000Hz the measured rate was fast by a significant amount, but 16000Hz it was slower.

The results suggest that USB audio devices are only as good as internal sound cards if a 48000Hz sample rate is used. The use of lower sample rates with USB devices should be avoided.

A virtual impossibility

If you have been following my attempts to set up beacon monitoring using a software defined radio (SDR) then you may remember that I had found that Omni-Rig, the radio control software used by Faros, the beacon monitoring software, would not talk to the virtual serial port created using VSPE in order to control the SDR-Radio software. I thought there was a problem with SDR-Radio's emulation of the Kenwood control protocol. In fact, that turned out not to be the case at all.

A reader asked if I had tried DDUtil, a.k.a. VSP_Manager, a program by K5FR so I got hold of a copy. The instructions made my hair stand on end as it seemed very complicated. But I managed to set up a virtual port pair between COM8, the control port that SDR-Radio was using, and COM9 which would be used by Faros. VSP_Manager threw up a few error boxes but it still seemed to have done what I asked. I then tried setting up Omni-Rig. The first attempt failed, but I decided to try again as the help files actually showed VSP Manager being used with Omni-Rig and sure enough I had Faros changing bands and frequencies of SDR-Radio.

My joy was boundless, but not for long. I fell at the next hurdle which was using a Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) to pipe the audio from SDR-Radio into Faros. VAC also looked complicated to set up, but what I was attempting to do was the simplest application of it. I created a virtual audio port and set the SDR-Radio output to use it. As soon as I connected this to Faros' input Faros began spitting out "divide by zero" message boxes so fast that I couldn't close them quick enough to get back to the Settings window to change it back again. Another brick wall.

A separate issue was that of creating a serial port splitter to allow two applications to connect to physical port COM3 used by my Elecraft K3. VSPE could do that easily, but yesterday I discovered that WSPR would not talk to the virtual port created by VSPE. However, VSP_Manager does not seem to enable you to split a real port into a pair of virtual ones anyway, so I did not pursue this avenue any further.

If you are confused trying to follow all this you are not the only one! I have abandoned the idea of using an SDR for beacon monitoring and am breathing a sigh of relief that I never decided to go down the road of buying a Flex or other software defined transceiver. SDR will never catch on until connecting the software defined radio to logging programs or digimode software becomes as simple as plugging in a real cable.

Hamlib and virtual serial ports

Sometimes it seems as if half the posts in this blog relate to trouble with computers.

After I got back from the hospital today I thought I would try some WSPR for a change. Paul PC4T had mentioned that conditions on 80m were good. 80 is not a band I often use so I thought I'd try there. But no sooner than I had tried to change band than the software beeped rudely at me. The console window contained an error message: serial_open: Unable to open COM13 - Invalid argument.

COM13 is a virtual serial port splitter on COM3 which I'd created using Eterlogic's Virtual Serial Port Emulator, VSPE. I've used this utility for years to create virtual serial ports so that more than one program can open my radios' computer control ports at the same time. I'd used one to try out CW Skimmer with KComm before Christmas. As I'd uninstalled Skimmer I removed the virtual serial port. WSPR, which does its rig control through hamlib, then opened COM3 up just fine.

That's a temporary solution, but I haven't given up the idea of running other ham software alongside KComm for good. I think there are other serial port splitters out there (there's com0com which was far too complicated for me to figure out) but VSPE has always worked for me until now. Don't you just love computers?

Grounded

I hope all of you had a very good Christmas. I was not very well a couple of days before the holiday. Nothing to do with my cancer, I'm glad to say, but possibly a result of all the treatment for it. I'm feeling a lot better now, but have got to have more tests and may have to go into hospital for removal of gallstones or kidney stones - I'm not sure which as I've been told I have gallstones but I have had some sharp pain in the kidney area. As a consequence of this I haven't felt much like getting up at a reasonable hour to start the beacon monitor or HF APRS gateway.

Creative Design New FM+DAB USB DVB-T RTL2832U+R820T

Before Christmas my interest was piqued by Tim G4VXE's adventures using cheap digital TV dongles as receivers for, amongst other things, aircraft spotting. The first dongle I ordered was described as a Creative Design New FM+DAB USB DVB-T RTL2832U+R820T with antenna, and cost just over six quid!

EZCAP eztv645 RTL2832U / FC0013 USB DVB-T Digital TV Dongle

After a bit more reading up on the subject I began to doubt that this would be compatible with the software everyone was using so I ordered a second one, described as an EZCAP eztv645 RTL2832U / FC0013 USB DVB-T Digital TV Dongle for WIN7 LINUX SDR which was a massive £8.68 including postage from Hong Kong.

Both arrived yesterday. I tried the ezcap first, but my shack PC didn't like the mini-disc that came with it so I was unable to test it as a TV receiver. Following the instructions for the aircraft decoders I installed the driver using zadig_xp, then downloaded and ran rtl1090 which is a decoder for the ADSB packets. This seemed to work - no error messages appeared - but nothing else happened. To display the aircraft data that I hoped to receive I downloaded ADSBScope and installed it. I then spent a lot of time trying various options to connect ADSBScope with rtl1090 but got nowhere. I also tried SDRSharp in the hope that I could use the dongle as a VHF/UHF SDR, and ADSBSharp as an alterntive to rtl1090. But neither of them received anything.

After a while I gave up, disappointed. I then installed the Creative Design dongle and its software. A scan for channels found about 55 TV channels with its quarter wave antenna hung in the window. So it was obviously working. Just not with any of the SDR or ADSB software, as I had suspected.

This morning I tried installing the ezcap software CD that my shack PC couldn't read on another computer. The software installed perfectly on this laptop so I plugged in the dongle and hung the antenna in the window. The software scanned for channels and found precisely nothing. I think this proves conclusively that I have a duff ezcap dongle. Ah, eBay!

Beacon monitor failure

After wasting most of the weekend trying to get it to work I have abandoned the idea of monitoring the IBP beacons using Faros. Although I did have it working with my Elecraft K3 I did not want to tie up this expensive transceiver on such a task. But my efforts to get my FT-817 working with this software came to nothing.

The first problem was getting Faros to control the FT-817. It uses a program called Omni-Rig to do this. The solution - no thanks to the developer who has still not replied to my plea for help - turned out to be a bad FT-817.ini file installed with Omni-Rig. I tried other programs to verify that my FT-817 CAT interface was working properly. I even ran the same developer's CW Skimmer software which also uses Omni-Rig, and which controlled the FT-817 just fine. The idea of looking to see if there was a different FT-817.ini file was just a flash of inspiration.

Having got Faros controlling the radio the second and final problem was getting it and the Yaesu talking to the same sound card. This did work if I used the computer's built-in sound card, but that is normally used by my K3. I have several radios in my shack, most of which are connected to the shack PC and all of the others use various USB sound devices. Whilst all of my other software - including my own program KComm - produce a drop-down list showing distinguishable names of all these devices, Faros displays a list showing three lines that all say "USB Sound Device." I tried selecting each one of them in turn, but I could not get Faros to talk to the sound device that was actually connected to the FT-817.

If it was confusing for me trying to choose from identically named devices, it also seemed to confuse Windows, which ended up sending PSK31 audio out of the PC speaker instead of to my K3! I had to reboot the computer to get sound using the correct devices again. At this point I threw in the towel and admitted defeat. Some things just aren't worth the hassle.

So endeth my attempt at beacon monitoring.

Print me an enclosure

Picture from nextdayreprap.co.uk

Jason, NT7S has just posted an article entitled "3D Printed Enclosures" on his blog. As a ham with a drawer full of unboxed projects who has often spent hours searching for suitable enclosures for a project and only finding ones that are either a wee bit too small or miles too big, the idea of being able to make my own custom enclosures is very appealing.

I had heard about 3D printing before, but thought it was either an April Fool spoof gone wild or one of those blue sky ideas that never become reality. My (admittedly cursory) searching has so far failed to turn up any articles that explain how it works, who makes 3D printers or what they cost. (However the site from which the picture was taken, nextdayreprap.co.uk, looks like a good place to start.)

A radio on every port

I left Faros running overnight. I needn't have bothered: Nothing whatever was heard on the bands 14 - 28MHz from 1730 yesterday until 0730 this morning. Even now, the Finland beacon OH2B is the only one making much of a showing on the lower 3 bands, though there is a flicker of a signal from VK6RBP on 15m. I haven't interrupted beacon monitoring to take a listen on 10m yet but prospects for the ARRL 10m contest don't look very good.

I am going to have to interrupt beacon monitoring some time soon. I need to yank the shack computer out to install a spare 2-port RS232 board to give me two more real serial ports. I should have left it in instead of replacing it with the 4-port board whose four serial ports are now all used up (K2, K3, TM-D710 TNC for 2m APRS and TM-D710 Echolink control, since you ask.) I want to use my FT-817 for beacon monitoring as it is a bit of overkill to use my K3 for this, and the FT-817 CAT cable I have has a DB-9 for a real serial port. I could always use a USB to serial adapter of which I have three, or even make up a USB cable using a wire-ended USB-to-serial plug. But USB ports are in equally short supply, as you might imagine. Whilst the cover is off the computer I will take the opportunity to hoover out the inside which has an amazing ability to attract dust!

Being able to use the 817 for beacon monitoring won't solve the conflict between monitoring and operating as I still have only one suitable antenna for both tasks. But it will allow me to give the K3 a rest!

No-IP Free

A few months ago I began using the No-IP Free service in order to be able to access my home network using a hostname or  fixed IP address. This worked well until a couple of weeks ago when I started getting the error "no host". I logged in to No-IP and could find no reference to my account. So I recreated it with the same details and it is working fine again.

I vaguely recall seeing something to the effect that to keep the free account active you are supposed to log in once a month. The trouble is I find it hard enough remembering what day of the week it is never mind something like that. Previously I had used the DynDNS free service but that didn't like the frequency with which my broadband changes IP address. My broadband provider says that I can only have a fixed IP address if I have a business account. It would be cheaper to stump up $20 a year for the No-IP Enhanced account. But being a dyed-in-the-wool cheapskate I'd like to avoid doing that. Any recommendations for free IP services that stay working as long as you want?

cAPS Lock Anguish!

Several times a week I have been on the brink of writing this. It's time to get it off my chest. I curse whoever it was that decided to place the caps lock key to the left of the A on the keyboard. For what seems like one time in two when I go to type a letter "a" I hit caps lock instead (or as well.) I hAVE USually typed several more letters before I realize my mistake and have to bACKTRack, to the accompaniment of loud cursing.

A couple of decades ago, in the days of MS-DOS, it was possible to write a little program called a TSR (from Terminate and Stay Resident.) This program could intercept your keystrokes and convert them to anything you liked. I wrote one that trapped Shift+3 and turned it into the pound sign instead of the US default hash (#). Microsoft provided a utility called KEYB.COM that could do this but it occupied several K of memory and in those days you counted every byte.

I don't know if that is possible in Windows. But I'd really love a program that could intercept the caps lock key and turn it into an A (or rather, an a) unless you gave it a long press!