Looking for CAPS LOCK/NUM LOCK and HDD activity indicators

I've purchased a Dell Inspiron 1545 for my wife. Due to some really bad judgement from the design team, the only indicator you have is the power one.

What do you guys recommend in terms of having some nice indicators for CAPS/NUM Lock and HDD activity? I just feel so lost without some quick visual clue on those items.

For the caps lock and num lock you can use the Indicator-keylock package. It looks like this:

And instructions for installing are available at: http://www.webupd8.org/2010/07/indicator-keylock-displays-keyboard.html

For the hdd activity monitor you can use the system monitor applet available in the gnome-applets package. Go to preferences and choose to display disk activity.

There is an applet you can add to the panel to do this.

Look for the "lock-keys-applet" package. You can find this in the Software Center (Applications - Ubuntu Software Center) by searching for "lock keys" or just clicking on that link.

Once you have installed it, right-click on a panel at the top or bottom of the screen and select "Add to Panel..." and selecting it. (Again you can search for "lock keys" to show it quickly.)

This will show the status of caps lock, num lock, and scroll lock on the panel.