Below is from <ajax on java>:
"Why are we using the onkeyup trigger as opposed to onkeypress? This is a "gotcha" that you must understand. The onkeypress event seems like it should work for this application, but it doesn't. onkeypress and onkeydown TRigger their actions before the character makes it into the field, sending whatever is in the field prior to the key press. Since we want to read the actual character, we need to use the onkeyup TRigger instead."
So when we need to read the text from a textarea, we need to use ONKEYUP!