Learn Dvorak

An interesting thing about typing in Dvorak is that the most common typos are different and people are less likely to know what you meant because different keys are next to each other. I just thought of this when I read the entry below me: “I decided no try …” Sounds like “decided not to try” right? But no, the “n” and “t” are next to each other in Dvorak. So really, it should say “I decided to try..” No one who types QWERTY would get that since “n” and “t” are so far away in QWERTY. heh.

Argh, completely stopped practicing for 5 months.
Seems like I’m starting from scratch. And it seemed like Not practicing Dvorak for 5 months hasn’t re-increased my Qwerty speed back to what it used to be (when I started learning Dvorak, my QWERTY speed went down and now it stayed there!)

Crap!

I’m up to 17wpm on Dvorak with a 2.6% error rate. Hooray.
BUT, I’m also noticing my QWERTY speed is slipping and I have to glance down at the keys more than I used to – I’m down to about 56 wpm on QWERTY (at least as measured by “Master Key” – a mac typing tutor – minutes after practicing Dvorak).

Maybe soon enough my Dvorak and QWERTY speeds will match. I just hope it’s not because I will have slowed down so much on QWERTY but because I will have progressed a lot on Dvorak. If I can type ~50wpm on both I will be happy enough.

Once that’s accomplished, I’ll work on getting both “languages” up to 65wpm+

I’ve practiced a little bit and have gone from 48cpm to 75 cpm. That’s still a looong way from 320+cpm on QWERTY (this is all measured by stamina typing tutor and I’m not sure how it translates into wpm). I’m thinking its time to either buy or make some labels and commit my laptop to be a Dvorak one. Right now I don’t look at the keys as I type, which is good, but it’s nice to have the labels there at times. Even as I type in QWERTY I glance down once in a while because I’m not a 100% touch-typist, I just do what’s comfortable and often need to reposition my hands again by glancing down for a fraction of a second.

The only thing is that I just bought a brand new MacBook and I would hate to make my keys sticky with tape or labels. It’s too “fresh” looking right now for me to mess with it. Oy, what to do?

Ahh yea and now I might switch typing tutors so that I don’t have to boot up windows on my new mac just to type.

Downoloaded Stamina Typing Tutor today and played around a bit. Did the first couple of lessons – home keys, some bottom row, some top row keys. I type slow as hell (definitely NOT typing this in Dvorak right now, though maybe I should be for practice), but I’m getting started…