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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: WhiteFireDragon on Wed, 18 January 2012, 01:50:16
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I just memorized all the keys in the Dvorak layout. Starting from this post on, I will dedicate myself to type in Dvorak only. This includes every post typed in this forum from me, from now on will be in Dvorak. This is my 149th post. My main focus will be 100% accuracy, but every once in a while, I will give updates of my typing speed progression in this thread.
p.s. - omfg, that little line up there took about 15 minutes to type! And this one just took a few as well.
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Good luck. You will get your speed back soon.
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Been through that, it's worth it! Try to memorize common short words like: in, the, me, on, etc; it helps speeding things up. Report progress in this thread, we'll cheer you on. First 3-4 days are the hardest, hang in there!
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I am a Colemak user (picture at bottom) and I reached my old Qwerty speed in 6 months. So be patient.
The first three weeks of switching are hardest, so be tough mentally and physically to overcome this difficult time
(http://www.upl.co/uploads//Colemak2.jpg)
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one of the best reason to use Dvorak and blank keyboard is that no one can use your computer. Lol.
I got around 80wpm in one year, hopefully you can do better than me. I bring shame to dvorak users....
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I wish I kept track of my WPM over time. All I can remember was that I did about 80WPM in QWERTY several years ago, and can now do 100WPM in Dvorak.
However, that's comparing QWERTY on a flat/staggered keyboard, Dvorak on a Kinesis Advantage... which is a big advantage!
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Thanks guys!
Btw, I forgot to mention that I will be typing with proper grammar and capitalization. Have to fix old bad habits!
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Try and remeber to learn to shift with the oppersite hand. I used to only use the left shift in qwerty, when I switched over that was one of my "goals".
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Good luck. It'll be a while before your fingers really know the motions. Tip - if you find yourself typing some words and combinations MUCH more slowly than others, practice them individually so they don't give you trouble later on.
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Try and remeber to learn to shift with the oppersite hand. I used to only use the left shift in qwerty, when I switched over that was one of my "goals".
Ah yes, that was another thing I forgot to mention: I'm also fixing the bad habit of exclusively using the left "shift" key with QWERTY layout. Since I started from scratch again on Dvorak, I'm relearning to use both "shift" keys, pressing "shift" that's opposite to the key being capitalized. This little sentence just took me about 10 minutes to type.
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Good luck. It'll be a while before your fingers really know the motions. Tip - if you find yourself typing some words and combinations MUCH more slowly than others, practice them individually so they don't give you trouble later on.
In a similar vein, I'm finally forcing myself to touchtype properly (instead of never using my pinkies). It's taking me ages, even though I already know the layout.
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dorkvader, do you type in dvorak or qwerty?
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I type in dvorak at least 90% of the time (main computer) and less than 10% of the time on my "gaming/leisure" computer. The mouse gets used much more than the keyboard there.
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Dang! I reset the kinesis before I sent it to ya. That model doesn't have instant layout switching, so I had mapped the keys to dvorak one by one :-)
But you'll get it in qwerty, which is ok since you presumably have your OS keyboard layout set to dvorak.
EDIT: Same 90% here, typing dvorak on 2 computers (home and work) and qwerty everywhere else: laptops, tablets, and the occasional other people's computers.
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It has been a few days, and I'm typing at a pathetic speed of 12 WPM, but a good accuracy of 99.4%. I'm using TypeRacer.com (http://play.typeracer.com/) to measure this, averaged over a couple runs. Are there better programs/websites to measure speed and accuracy?
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I like this one when I first started with Colemak. http://speedtest.10fastfingers.com/
It has mostly random simple words with no punctuations, and also you're not racing with anyone so you're just focusing on redeveloping muscle memories. Then I'd go here when I want to test it on actual sentences. http://www.keyhero.com/typing-tests-wpm/
I like it better than typeracer since you don't have to wait for other players to join before starting on a new quote.
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For those that want typing lessons on dvorak, i used this website. It starts off slow teaching you to memorize two keys at a time and gives a comprehensive practice, then teaches another 2 keys and gives another comprehensive practice, including those two keys just learned, and so on.
http://dvorak.gruevy.com/
I like this one when I first started with Colemak. http://speedtest.10fastfingers.com/. It has mostly random simple words with no punctuations, and also you're not racing with anyone so you're just focusing on redeveloping muscle memories.
Then I'd go here when I want to test it on actual sentences. http://www.keyhero.com/typing-tests-wpm/. I like it better than typeracer since you don't have to wait for other players to join before starting on a new quote.
It looks like 10fastfingers.com isn't too bad for random words, but it doesn't how accuracy percentage at the end. With TypeRacer, you don't always have to race people. There's a section in there called "Practice" that you don't have the pressure of racing anyone, and it adapts the time and sentence to you WPM. It gives speed and accuracy numbers at the end of each run. Keyhero looks like a good alternative also, I may have to try this one out.
Wow this took me so long to type
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Good luck mate, switching keyboard layouts is hard work. :) How come you're switching to Dvorak rather than Colemak?
(I don't mean to start a "religious" discussion, either layout is way ahead of QWERTY. Just wondering because I had the same decision a couple years ago and decided to go with Colemak instead)
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I decided that colemak's placement of the punctuation keys was wrong, so I went with dvorak's. Really, I didn't want something that was based on QWERTY at all.
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Amphetype (http://code.google.com/p/amphetype/) is a nice program (some bugs, but mostly accurate). Also provides you with a bank of classic literature quotes and some settings you can play around with. What's really cool is that it can measure accuracy/speed (and other stats) on individual words (though sometimes glitchy).
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Week 2: speed is 18 WPM, accuracy is 98.9%.
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Similar to my performance on the kinesis. except accuracy. I'm much lower.
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What layout are you using on the Kinesis, and what's your normal WPM on that layout?
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I just plugged it in, but my linux is set up for Dvorak, so it's that.
My speed on the kinesis is a lot faster than trying to touch type properly on a flat board, but still slower than my work not typing right (I use my pinkies only for shift, my ring finger almost never). This morning, I tested out at 20 something WPM and 88% on the kinesis. I just tested at 50 WPM and 100% using my improper technique. Using proper technique on my unicomp I got 14 WPM and 83%.