geekhack

geekhack Community => Off Topic => Topic started by: didjamatic on Fri, 20 November 2009, 22:13:44

Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: didjamatic on Fri, 20 November 2009, 22:13:44: I can touch type around 65wpm and have some bad habits. I use my ring fingers instead of pinkies for many of the "pinky" keys and I only use the left shift key.

I would like to type 100wpm and correct my bad habits.

Have any of you done this? Do you have any tips or resources you could recommend?
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: msiegel on Fri, 20 November 2009, 22:21:49: i never learned to touch type, and am all over the board... but i routinely reach speeds of 100wpm when i know what i'm going to say :D

hmm, this is not the answer you're looking for :-/

come to think of it, why don't i learn to touch type :(
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: arfink on Fri, 20 November 2009, 22:26:37: I learned to touch type, just not normally. I learned badly (read, taught myself without the aid of any text or anything) when I was in 3rd grade and it stuck. I'm not a very fast typer, but it's automatic by now. It would help if I wasn't typing on a totally crap laptop keyboard right now. grrrr...
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: hyperlinked on Sat, 21 November 2009, 01:45:02: Quote from: didjamatic;134807
I can touch type around 65wpm and have some bad habits. I use my ring fingers instead of pinkies for many of the "pinky" keys and I only use the left shift key.

I would like to type 100wpm and correct my bad habits.

Have any of you done this? Do you have any tips or resources you could recommend?

Here's one suggestion, but I don't know if it's very practical. Find an old mechanical typewriter and practice for 30 minutes a day on it for a month. By Manual typewriter, I mean one in which the force of your finger strike is what causes the type arm to strike the paper and register a letter. It's hard to cheat on a manual because it's hard to generate enough force to type a letter with the wrong fingers.

I learned to type that way and it's done me well though I have no idea if I would have developed the same habits learning to type on a computer.

Once you've worked on your habits, you can work on speed. Working on speed without straightening out your habits will probably just reinforce "bad" habits...
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: Rajagra on Sat, 21 November 2009, 02:05:49: I do everything by the book and I only do 60wpm. (Says more about me than anything.) I don't think doing things "correctly" is automatically the way to increase speed. I don't even think the "correct" way is very logical - look at the way the left hand has to deal with a reverse slope to the right hand. The "correct" method seems to be more aimed at easy learning rather than optimum speed or comfort.
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3698&d=1249980835)

If I was learning from scratch I'd be tempted to learn this pattern of finger use
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3699&d=1249981393)
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: GenEric35 on Sat, 21 November 2009, 09:42:11: Quote from: Rajagra;134842
I do everything by the book and I only do 60wpm. (Says more about me than anything.) I don't think doing things "correctly" is automatically the way to increase speed. I don't even think the "correct" way is very logical - look at the way the left hand has to deal with a reverse slope to the right hand. The "correct" method seems to be more aimed at easy learning rather than optimum speed or comfort.
Show Image
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3698&d=1249980835)

If I was learning from scratch I'd be tempted to learn this pattern of finger use
Show Image
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=3699&d=1249981393)

I use these layouts but use the thumb for alt and windows key. For sorting out bad habits, i just slow down and make sure i use the correct finger, and try to type one key at a time leaving the other fingers on the home keys unless it requires a combination with shift, alt, ctrl, windows or menu key.

My favorite typing programs are 'Stamina 2.5' from TypingSoft and 'The typing of the dead' for PC, by Sega.

But I for alt, ctrl, windows and menu key I'm stuck practicing with real life example. Stamina will let you use custom files for example if you want to practice HTML or other code, but they are from txt files and can't write a windows key, if someone knows an a typing program that includes shorcuts, combos, or 'chords' I could use this to speed things up a bit.
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: hyperlinked on Sat, 21 November 2009, 09:59:16: Quote from: ripster;134924
I actually do it standard style (yeah, I've even tried Utron style).
Show Image
(http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=4325&stc=1&d=1252424542)

I just realized that the semicolon key was in the H-key spot. What's the story with that one?
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: msiegel on Sat, 21 November 2009, 12:40:12: Quote from: ripster;134930
Little known IBM trivia - the extra key pads are active under IBM Model Ms bigger key supports. Link. (http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:7046)

:D i love that experiment.

very sensible re-use of a caps lock, btw :)
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: msiegel on Sat, 21 November 2009, 14:12:38: Quote from: ripster;134968
Yeah, I assume you need some keys for your F mod. In the next rev (see the discussion page) I use two blank keys from a 122key terminal emulation board. Webwit has some he got separately from Ebay but I don't think they are there anymore. I'd send you the Boscom ones if you want (see that post in mods section too) but they are Unicomp gray.

:) thanks ripster, i still have to figure out the most usable set of keys...

btw, are all the unicomp keys one-piece and stabilizer-bar-less (except the space bar) these days?

sorry OP, i realize i'm now totally OT :p
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: xsphat on Sun, 22 November 2009, 20:34:00: This might help:

(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/76433/How%20to%20type%20in%201937.jpg)
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: msiegel on Sun, 22 November 2009, 20:41:56: Quote from: xsphat;135438
This might help:
(img)

cool!! :D :D

presumably the quotation mark, brackets, etc hadn't been invented yet ;)
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: xsphat on Sun, 22 November 2009, 20:54:29: Quote from: msiegel;135443
cool!! :D :D

presumably the quotation mark, brackets, etc hadn't been invented yet ;)

What really sucks for people like me is the apostrophe on typewriters is shift+8 and the quote mark is shift+2. Though I never use exclamation points (they're a surer sign of bad writing than three thats per sentence), on really old riters you actually have to build them with an apostrophe, hit backspace and then a period. Oh the days of old.
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: AndrewZorn on Sun, 22 November 2009, 20:56:21: Quote from: ripster;135450
YAY - It's official. Left thumb ONLY on spacebar.

Proof. Everybody post their shiny spacebar or it ain't real.
Show Image
(http://-)

really????
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: hyperlinked on Sun, 22 November 2009, 20:57:05: Quote from: ripster;135450
YAY - It's official. Left thumb ONLY on spacebar.

Proof. Everybody post their shiny spacebar or it ain't real.

Is that for real? I can't even use my left thumb on the space! I just tried and it feels evil. I imagine hand dominance has something to do with how you hit the keys that could be hit with either hand.
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: Computer-Lab in Basement on Sun, 22 November 2009, 21:00:18: I have really bad typing habits, i only use my pointer and middle fingers when typing, and i only can type at about 30wpm when i am typing fast. They tried to teach us the "Home row" method at school, it never stuck with me...
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: xsphat on Sun, 22 November 2009, 21:02:54: Not to be a ****, but I text message at over 30WPM. Wow man, buy one of those typing tutor programs.
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: JBert on Mon, 23 November 2009, 14:04:05: Quote from: xsphat;135453
What really sucks for people like me is the apostrophe on typewriters is shift+8 and the quote mark is shift+2. Though I never use exclamation points (they're a surer sign of bad writing than three thats per sentence), on really old riters you actually have to build them with an apostrophe, hit backspace and then a period. Oh the days of old.
Hmmm, I'd been wondering how they did that on those few old typewriters my mom still has lingering in her house...
Title: Increase typing speed, break bad habits
Post by: xsphat on Mon, 23 November 2009, 16:16:04: Quote from: JBert;135628
Hmmm, I'd been wondering how they did that on those few old typewriters my mom still has lingering in her house...

Do some Googling on it sometime when you're bored, it's pretty interesting stuff. The First typewriters didn't even have keyboards: To type you would need to set vertical and horizontal sliders on the letter you want and hit the space bar to actually type it. The first ones with keyboards couldn't do small case letters, and then after they added the shift mechanism, there were only three rows of keys and the numbers were the shifted characters for the qwerty row. By the early 1900s the qwerty / azerty / qwertz layouts were common to the same regions they are today, and there are a lot of Dvorak keyboards, mathematical typewriters and the ones secretaries trained on had blank keys. None of these are that hard to find today.