Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Computer Issues

Word verification drives me crazy.  I know it drives some of you crazy too. Vera commented last week that it would be her last comment as she could no longer cope with the word verification.  Gina commented that it takes her longer to word verify than to read the blog and post the comment.  I hear ya' Gina.  Others have also expressed frustration over the process.

You must wonder, then, why I use it.  One word.  Robots.  Without word verification, I get robotic comments.  Thankfully I have comments  sent to me via email, so I can peruse and  delete the robotic - often distasteful -  ones. 

But I do have few  suggestions.  Most of you are computer experts or you wouldn't have found your way to my blog in the first place.  So, if I am telling you something you already know, please excuse me.

In word verification, it is important to type the letters exactly as they appear.  Forget the common computer rule of always using lower case.  If you see capitals in the word verification, type the letter in upper case.  Also, if there appears to be a space between letters and numbers, leave that space when you type. And  - one that took me a long time to twig to - type the number  in numeric, not word,  form.  Thank Sandra of Curlerchick for that one.

But the biggest difference for me came when I learned  that if you hold the control button  - lower left - and repeatedly hit the plus sign - upper right  - that the page - and the print on it -  will increase in size.  Sometimes this still doesn't make reading the wonkily-shaped word verification  letters  any easier but lots of times it does the trick.  If, in your excitement of seeing the words  grow in size, you  hit the plus sign too often and make things too large, simply hold control and hit the minus sign on the key to the left of the plus sign.  Things will get smaller.

Learning this trick was a WOW!  moment for me.  I hope it helps make your blog reading easier.




2 comments:

Sandra said...

I got rid of the spammer comments by simply banning anonymous comments. So far, I haven't had to use word verification, but I know it annoyed some readers that they had to register themselves instead of just being anonymous.
I'll do the word verification twice when I leave a comment - if I get it wrong the second time, I give up and don't leave a comment. They are a pain, but the spammers are worse, no question.

Linda said...

Hey there, thanks for that magnification tip; I hope to feel less frustrated in future, when I want to chime in. :)