I just received an email from the folks that are in Central America. It seems they are having an odd problem with their Dell laptop. I was wondering if anyone here could shed some light on it.
Here is a quote from an email they sent us last night:
I’ve already told them to make sure their Norton is updated with the newest definitions incase it is a virus. Any other ideas? They are using a slow, dial up account in Belize, if that makes any difference.
Adding words? in more than one application? It has to be a virus, doesn’t it?
This frequently happens when two computers using wireless keyboards interfere.
Surely wireless keyboards wouldn’t capture intact but nonsensical strings of words, would they? The speech recognition thing sounds plausible.
That speech thing sounds interesting to me, too. I’ve forwarded that article to them.
I really doubt it has anything to do with wireless keyboards where they are located.
Thanks for the help. If anyone has any other ideas though, keep them coming.
I’m surprised nobody’s suggested the obvious here: they moved the headstones, but they didn’t move the bodies!!!
I agree that speech recognition sounds like a more likely culprit here. However, in my very limited experience with wireless keyboards, it doesn’t seem like they are an all-or-nothing device. They can have an error rate if there is interference, which means a keyboard taken too far from its base or set up incorrectly will enter either complete gibberish or correct input with occasional errors. The content of the inserted text quoted in the OP looks more like the output of bad speech recognition than an error-prone keyboard, but I was simply trying to provide alternatives.
I have had a very similar experience and I did isolate the problem to the WinXP speech recognition but I did not know how to turn the darn thing off because the language toolbar had vanished from my desktop.
The speech recognition software picks up any speech (depending upon the sensitivity of the microphone) and types up nonsense on whatever application thats running; including typing stuff in the address bar of IE.
Here’s how to check for it…right click on the bottom of the screen where all the applications minimize. Click “Toolbars” then “Language bar” You will see the language tool bar with a microphone. This icon would probably be brighter than the rest signifying that it has been turned on. Click it to turn it off. Go back and uncheck the “Language toolbar” to prevent the speech recognition being turned on.
Whats amazing is that I had started a thread with the same problem with a not too dissimilar title http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=151243
Thanks for your input! Really! In our case though they are quite isolated and I doubt that it would be their problem. For someone with other PCs in the area though, it sounds logical enough to me.
Sounds more like a cyber-demon to me. I suggest you contact that techno-pagan from Buffy. (Unless she died - didn’t she?)
Just to close this, it was indeed the Speech-Recognition gone bananas. It is now turned off and all is well.
Thanks for the help!