my biggest downfall as a geek...

phrakture · 2004-12-17 17:13:57

...is that I never learned to type...

I "hunt and peck" when I type, though I can do it w/o watching the keyboard... and i use maybe 2-3 fingers per hand...I get a decent speed... I guess (never measured it....)

But I'd still like to learn "touch typing" or "home-row typing" - whatever ya want to call it...

So I'm looking for a decent typing program... and no kiddy games (tuxtype)... I seem to recall some nice console based ones... but can't find any online or in pacman...

If anyone wants to point me int he right direction, it'd be appretiated.

Thanks

dp · 2004-12-17 18:10:07

ktouch is a good one ( kdeedu )

phrakture · 2004-12-17 18:49:08

i found gtypist... from GNU... seems decent, but ktouch looks cool too.
I'll try it out...

thanks

on a side note - how long did it take you all to learn how to touch-type? I'm figuring it may take a bit to break my current habits...

dp · 2004-12-17 18:51:49

phrakture wrote:

i found gtypist... from GNU... seems decent, but ktouch looks cool too.
I'll try it out...
thanks
on a side note - how long did it take you all to learn how to touch-type? I'm figuring it may take a bit to break my current habits...

i had it at school as a course and we learned the 10-finger-typing in ~5 months (@ 2h/week)

lanrat · 2004-12-17 21:48:19

You don't really need much time to learn how to use this method. I learnt all basic key combinations using some ancient DOS tutor program in a few days (it was a long time ago :-)). You can probably do this too becuase you already know many things unlike people that never used keyboard before and you can better and faster "visualize" them. So it's not that hard.

The problem is practice because at the begining you just have to force yourself to use new method and this of course will slow you down (can be pretty annoying) but it's worth the effort IMO. If you want my advise just learn the basics as fast as you can and start typing longer text documents ASAP.

You can also try to use a special natural ("broken") keyboard if you want to. I started to use them a few years ago and IMO this can help too (but it depends on your preferences really).
Unfortunatelly my favourite ms natural keyboard broke (R.I.P.) a few months ago and I couldn't find any good and new natural keyboard (I decided to buy a wireless this time). Looks like they are not popular now :-(. Logitech makes only one (quite old) model but they only sell keyboards with mouses and this keyboard is only beeing sold with some old mouse model so I had to buy mx 700 cordless desktop and moved back to "normal" layout. Fortunatelly it took only a few days to get used to it (again). I still use natural keyboard in my workplace thogh.

BTW Microsoft informed not so far ago that old type natural keyboards were not properly designed ;-) Of course they now designed a new "better" keyboards (I guess this time it's patented...). Yeah, right....

phrakture · 2004-12-17 21:56:04

heh, I used to be obsessed with natural keyboards... so much that it was hard for me to type on a normal one...

I really like the new wireless MS combo... bluetooth keyboard and mouse... like $120 - it's sweet. If there's one thing you can say about MS it's that they make great hardware stuff (keyboard, mouse, joystick, etc) [sans xbox]

cactus · 2004-12-17 22:12:40

dp wrote:

i had it at school as a course

Me too. I had it in high school. Probably the most important thing I got out of high school in fact. lol
At one point I was up to around 45 or 50 words a minute, with few errors. Now I am down to around 20 or 25 I suppose.

dp · 2004-12-18 01:19:54

phrakture wrote:

heh, I used to be obsessed with natural keyboards... so much that it was hard for me to type on a normal one...
I really like the new wireless MS combo... bluetooth keyboard and mouse... like $120 - it's sweet. If there's one thing you can say about MS it's that they make great hardware stuff (keyboard, mouse, joystick, etc) [sans xbox]

i wish, there would be laptops with natural-keyboard (to fold-out or something like this) ... but unfortunately, there is no such thing

i personally prefer logitech hardware to MS hardware (or any other input hardware) ... not only because of the lack of the name microsoft in it ;-) ... on my old 266MHz, there is a Logitech® Cordless Comfort Duo™ i would recommend you, if you are looking in something like this to buy now (works out of the box on PS/2 and any usb (on any OS), is wireless, looks cool and is not too expensive)

but as you already said, i feel the same: if you wrote a longer text (writing >20 pages of text) on a natural keyboard, then, working on the laptop (or any other keyboard) is really hard

waiting for a thinkpad with a natural keyboard ...

syd · 2006-01-23 03:49:53

Man just get an old keyboard and spray paint it all black.
Works great and u learn really fast.

ozar · 2006-01-23 03:55:07

hmm... another old thread has been revived!

Anyway, I'm glad that I took 2 years of typing back in high school.

Dusty · 2006-01-23 03:59:18

neh, this thread was revived earlier and split into the 'try this' thread on typing speeds, so now its stuck in the new topic lists until people let it die.

Dusty

kleptophobiac · 2006-01-23 04:01:01

I did typing back in elementary school, and so I know no other method than the proper "home row" method. It works well for me, and I can usually do around 50 wpm, but I can burst to 130 for a min or two at a time if I have that much content to type. My biggest problem is having that much stuff to type. I end up "stream of consciousness"-ing my work, and things end up... strange?

ozar · 2006-01-23 04:03:50

Dusty wrote:

neh, this thread was revived earlier and split into the 'try this' thread on typing speeds, so now its stuck in the new topic lists until people let it die.
Dusty

Ahh... okay, I get it now.

acetylcholine · 2006-01-24 02:19:55

about touch typing: i was in the EXACT same situation as you are now--using a few gingers and not typing "correctly"
i took up some typing software, and learned how i should keep my fingers. that took a short time since i didnt practice much in the program (boring!)

however, you will see that when you are already very familiar with the keyboard fast typing will come very quickly... as long as you try while doing your work or whatever.

Dusty · 2006-01-24 02:34:40

I suspect phrakture's learned to type by now, this was a year ago, and he has a boring job where learning to type would be something to pass the time.

Dusty

phrakture · 2006-01-24 02:40:46

Dusty wrote:

I suspect phrakture's learned to type by now, this was a year ago, and he has a boring job where learning to type would be something to pass the time.
Dusty

Nope, still haven't - it was too much work and I wasn't gaining all that much... maybe this thread will inspire me to try again.

T-Dawg · 2006-01-24 02:49:46

is it really so? phrakture's only weakness is.....typing??

Dusty · 2006-01-24 03:26:09

well kryptonite doesn't do him any good either.

shadowhand · 2006-01-24 06:45:13

BTW, for people trying to learn how to touch type Dvorak, there's a great app called "dvorak-ng" (curses app) which did me wonders. It's on freshmeat I think.

phrakture · 2006-01-24 16:30:06

I wonder if I could do the dvorak switch and learn to type all in one go?

Seriously, does anyone have enough wrist problems so that dvorak really makes a difference?

Dusty · 2006-01-24 17:12:48

I type a wee bit phaster on dvorak, phrakture, and a whole pile more accurately. That *may* be because I learned qwerty kind of without learning touch typing first, so I often got used to making mistakes. So in your case, you might find you can be more accurate learning to type on a different layout too. Or maybe not.

I haven't thought about it in a long time, but I used to have all sorts of wrist problems, and now I rarely do. That may be from switching to dvorak, or again, maybe its just from the fact that I switched to an ergonomic keyboard at the same time. OR it may be from some of the tricks I've learned to prevent carpul tunnel as a touch for health student....

Dvorak has a real nice geek factor. It might be a great way to compensate for your 'biggest downfall as a geek' ;-)

Dusty

shadowhand · 2006-01-24 19:46:35

Dusty wrote:

Dvorak has a real nice geek factor. It might be a great way to compensate for your 'biggest downfall as a geek' ;-)

+100 Nerd points :!:

jellywerker · 2006-01-26 21:29:31

I intend to switch to dvorak when I can find a keyboard that I can switch the keys around without them getting all knobbly, as most have angled top faces. I want to do that since all the dvorak keyboards I have seen have been pretty ugly. Till then, spatial typing! I think it would be good to switch, so as I learn to type dvorak, I also learn to type correctly.

Dusty: what keyboard do you have? a normal qwerty?

lucke · 2006-01-26 21:58:33

Ihihih. I switched to colemak few days ago.

Aww, my 1337 typing skills have left me :-(

codemac · 2006-01-27 22:33:30

I really had some weird finger pains whenever I typed on qwerty for long periods of time... and they haven't come back since using dvorak. I type a bit faster too.

Arch Linux

#1 2004-12-17 17:13:57

my biggest downfall as a geek...

#2 2004-12-17 18:10:07

Re: my biggest downfall as a geek...

#3 2004-12-17 18:49:08

Re: my biggest downfall as a geek...

#4 2004-12-17 18:51:49

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#5 2004-12-17 21:48:19

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#6 2004-12-17 21:56:04

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#7 2004-12-17 22:12:40

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#8 2004-12-18 01:19:54

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