type with 10 fingers

How I did it: Simple, I painted the whole keyboard black.
This way, since there are no letters to look at when typing, your brain is forced to memorize the key positions, and it does this pretty fast too.

Lessons & tips:

• Be sure you know and accept the concequences of painting your keyboard, there's pretty much no way back once you've done it, except for getting another keyboard.
• If you don't want to paint the keyboard, you can also cover each symbol/letter with a little sticker.
• If you are going to paint the keyboard, I've got a few tips:
• • Google it. See how other people did it.
  • Label the inside of the keys so you know where each key belongs. The keys have many different shapes and it's therefore best to put each key on it's original position.
    You can also just lay out the keys properly before painting, but this is more risky.
  • Clean the keys and use a little sandpaper on the top to get the letters off. Be careful with the f, j and 5 keys, as those have little nodges that are very important for touch-typing.
  • Use proper paint. I used cheap glossy paint, didn't use sandpaper and now the black paint is peeling off from my originally white keyboard. (see the tragic result in the picture)
    Get paint that will last and that will work well on plastic.
• Prepare!
  It's very likely you'll be using this keyboard for years, so you may as well do it properly. Do some research on how to achieve the best and most durable result, get everything ready and then get creative with paint..)
• Print the layout of your keyboard so you'll have a little cheat sheet when you can't find a certain key. This will not slow down your progress very much as you still have to remember where the key is; pressing the 'y' on your paper cheat sheet won't help..)
• Enjoy, and celebrate your progress.

Resources:

• Google
• http://joshcarter.com/miscellany/how_to_paint_your_keyboard
• Your local DIY shop, where you can get advice on the type of paint and how to paint properly.

Sep 18, 2008, 07:50AM PDT | 3 comments | 6 cheers