[ticktockclok]

Anyone heard of this? Its an alternative to QWERTY and is available on all major operating systems. I'm going to be trying it out, and if I see improvement by the time school starts, I'll switch to it permanently. Basically, what it does is put the least used letters on the bottom row, and makes typing a much more comfortable task. Instead of using only 30% of characters on the home row in QWERTY, DVORAK uses 70% of characters on the home row.

Right now I've got a QWERTY speed of 60 wpm, which I consider decent. I'm hoping for an improvement of 10-20 wmp with DVORAK. Apparently, the world record was done by a lady who reached a peak of over 200 wpm with DVORAK!

[Phieta]

Heard of it. Never tried it.

Don't care, really.

[ticktockclok]

I want to do this because I make some extra money by typing up people's papers. There are a bunch of people who are either slow typists, or just lazy. If I could learn DVORAK, I could expand to colleges and start eating up the huge "theses" market, since I'd be able to type faster.

But wow. I found a shareware DVORAK tutor on the net, and this is hard! I'd forgotten how tough it was to learn how to type!

[Phieta]

I'd forgotten how tough it was to learn how to type!

That and, assuming you're using a QWERTY keyboard and just setting your OS to use the DVORAK layout, you don't have the luxery of being able to glance down at the keyboard to see what you're doing.

[ticktockclok]

I'd forgotten how tough it was to learn how to type!

That and, assuming you're using a QWERTY keyboard and just setting your OS to use the DVORAK layout, you don't have the luxery of being able to glance down at the keyboard to see what you're doing.

In the typing program I found, they show the DVORAK keyboard on screen with the next character highlighted. Still its hard, because you're thinking: 'o' should be on the other side, not on the left! For every letter.

[©allum]

Dvorak's the teacher everyone fancies at my school.

[Nuu™™]

Dvorak's the teacher everyone fancies at my school.

Hawtness!

[Goto]

Well who could resist that handsome visage.

I've heard of it too, if you can get the hang of it you should be able to improve your speed. QWERTY was intentionally designed to be inefficient, to limit speeds so that typewriters wouldn't get jammed up.

[ticktockclok]

I experimented with a trial version of Master Key. I've got the home row mastered, but that's as far as they allow you to go without registering. I'm probably going to dig in to the piggy bank tomorrow and ask my dad if I can get this. I like how you can type out whole books from Project Gutenberg, and put your own documents, books, etc. on to the program and practice typing it. I started typing out 'Little Women' using QWERTY, and was able to go for about 10 minutes at 55 wpm. I had to slow down at the end, so I can understand how DVORAK can help you out with being able to sustain a speed for longer times.

My goal is to get up to 50-60 wpm by the time school starts on the 23rd. Then I'll begin my typing business in full blast! I'm hoping that the school will let you do this kind of thing- typing up other people's writings. Even if I can't learn DVORAK fully until a week after school starts, I'll still be in time for the "what you did this summer" essays.

[Bmatt]

Well who could resist that handsome visage.

I've heard of it too, if you can get the hang of it you should be able to improve your speed. QWERTY was intentionally designed to be inefficient, to limit speeds so that typewriters wouldn't get jammed up.

"This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished." [Translation: My mask isn't for vanity, its the cry of the lost population.]. . I Think V could .

But I thought QWERTY was designed because the guy was dsylexic and though the alphabet went like that?

[Neraphym]

Lol, Goto was right. Back when keys were levers, not capacitors, the levers would sometimes run into each other and jam up. Qwerty was invented to keep the levers from jamming as often by placing common far away from each other. This makes Qwerty very slow.

[Bmatt]

Well, what do I know? I just type fast, I've never looked up the keyboard design, just know what I was told.

[ticktockclok]

Well, thought I'd post an update on how DVORAK is working out. I can't type in QWERTY anymore; I keep doing the DVORAK keys. I'm hope to finish all the letters today, which is pretty fast considering I had bought this software a few days ago. I've had a huge want to start my own business this summer, so I figured if I can show my parent's that I can keep up with straight A's while typing up handwritten papers for people, they will let me make my tennis website.

Anyway, I'm currently working on 'lkm' and after this I only have 'qm' and 'xfz' left. Then onto the numbers!