signal boost, if you would?

[ishie]

I was on a call at work the other day in which someone claimed that $madeUpPercent of people only use the volume/mute controls on their keyboard (and don't even know how to use in-system sound controls). Since I only use keyboard controls on the very rare occasion I remember they exist, I wondered how closely his $madeUpPercent resembled reality. And fandom almost constitutes reality, right? *cough*

So:

Poll #13076 pump up the volume!

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 22

View Respondents

Q1. What is the primary way you temporarily turn off the sound on your computer?

View Answers

Take out/off headphones
1 (4.5%)

Mute button on keyboard
11 (50.0%)

Mute button on screen/in program
8 (36.4%)

Mute through computer/sound card volume controls
6 (27.3%)

Other (see below)
4 (18.2%)

Q2. If you answered Other for Q1. please explain:

View Answers

Q3. What is the primary way you control the volume on your computer?

View Answers

On keyboard
9 (40.9%)

In program/window
2 (9.1%)

In dock/taskbar
7 (31.8%)

On headphones or external speakers (ie, using the scrollwheel on a pair of headphones, &c.)
1 (4.5%)

Other (see below)
3 (13.6%)

Q4. If you answered Other for Q3. please explain:

View Answers

Happy to have questions and/or anecdata in comments!

eta
GDI POLL CREATOR WHY ARE THOSE CHECKBOXES WHEN THEY SHOULD BE RADIO BUTTONS

Comments

(Found via latest things page!)

[cheyinka]

Until recently I didn't use a keyboard that had volume buttons, and I didn't realize until literally just now that my new keyboard ("new" as in "three years old") has a mute button in addition to volume up / volume down. So if I need to mute, it's the volume thingy in the taskbar, since both Windows and KDE have volume thingies in the taskbar.

When I used blackbox as my window manager instead of KDE, I would have aumix open in an xterm and tab over to it when I needed to mute / lower volume / raise volume.

[redcirce]

Yeah, I had no idea you could control volume/sound through your keyboard. In fact, unless it's an obscure key combination and not a dedicated key, I can say definitively that my keyboard does not control volume. I'm on a desktop, though.