I did >< much writing today. 700 words. Enough to finish the TRUTHSEEKER proposal. Then I read two books, neither of which I liked very much, and I'm seriously considering repeating this pattern tomorrow, except maybe without the writing and hopefully with books I enjoy. My dumb shoulder is somewhat better, but not lots. I've been trying to type without using my right pinky, which causes me to want a keyboard with an enter and apostrophe and 'p' key on the left-hand side. (Makes me wonder, too, if DVORAK is worth learning...) Ted and I took down the Christmas tree, watched a couple episodes of s8 Stargate, had a nice dinner...generally a very quiet day. As promised, two synopses for books that are already available: URBAN SHAMAN and THE CARDINAL RULE. These contain spoilers.
The SHAMAN synopsis was written after the book was. It is…brief. Amusingly brief, to me. It Covers The High Points. It is possibly my favorite synopsis ever. :) It is not necessarily any good. (If you want good synopses, apparently you should go learn at the feet of
The CARDINAL synopsis is actually kinda fun to read (for me, anyway) for the differences between it and the final book. Some things, like names, got changed at editorial request. Other things just flat out didn’t happen in the book. It kinda makes me want to re-read the book to compare the synopsis to the end result. :) Anyway, there you go, if you’ve got questions or comments, feel free to make ’em here or email ’em to me. :)
Awesome: birth of an ocean basin.
ytd wordcount: 1800
miles to dunharrow: 38
Given that…
– You work for yourself and therefore don’t have to worry about maintaining interoperability with other workers and equipment.
– You have a very high productivity rate (by normal human standards, even if you often complain).
– The standard U.S. keyboard layout is deliberately designed to slow down typists while Dvorak is deliberately designed for the reverse.
…you totally should convert.
(Besides, I’ve been curious about it myself and could use an unbiased opinion.)
Dvorak is much, much easier on the hands. I went from on my way to the doc to almost no pain within just a couple weeks. Just don’t have any deadlines when you start. For about 4 days, I couldn’t type in either mode. LOL. Made for an interesting vacation.
And yes, you do get a faster typing speed once you adapt to Dvorak. It’s wonderful, actually. My fingers don’t move anywhere near as much. So go for it!
Typing speed is not a problem for me, as in chat I type well over 120wpm. *Writing* doesn’t usually go that fast (tho o how i love it when it does), but I can’t really imagine achieving a greater typing speed. It’d be more about phsyical comfort for me.
Can you switch back and forth without a problem?
I’m actually kinda tempted. I don’t have any deadlines for months…
Dvorak is wonderful. I switched to it about two years ago and it’s never been an issue at work, even when I shared computers.
It’s frustrating, at first, especially if you were a fast typer on QWERTY like I was. But it’s a layout that makes sense and most people learn it faster than they ever did on OWERTY.
I was starting to get consistent arm/wrist pain while typing, so I changed over. It’s been two years and I have no pain. Most people say they type faster than they ever did in QWERTY within the first year, but that hasn’t been the case with me. But on the other hand, I’m still at like 75WPM (I was at 90 after 12+ years of QWERTY), and it doesn’t slow me down. I can’t write that fast anyway.
So, I’m all about Dvorak. :D
I can still type QWERTY, but it’s really slow unless I look at the keyboard. If you work on using both equally, you should be able to do both, as those who can tell me. I gave up after I learned how to switch over my work computer and I haven’t had any problems despite changing workstations (er, and companies) a few times.
Also, once you learn Dvorak, you start to really feel just how awkward QWERTY is. It’s physically painful for me to type in QWERTY for more than a few minutes now.
Then if you were going to give it a go, now would be the time.
I’ve been using the Kinesis keyboards for well over a decade. The funny looking ones, with hands in typing wells, and all sorts of useful keys relegated to the thumbs.
I can make no stronger recommendation than to note that the only hand/arm problems I’ve had since using these keyboards were either karate related or came from sitting in my chair at weird angles.
I’ve never bothered with a Dvorak layout, as things are working okay for me now.
Dvorak is definitely more fun. The typos are wonderfully amusing, especially if you offset your hands by one key.
I was around or over 100wpm on QWERTY when forced to switch (QWERTY turned my hands into useless claws), and I’m at that speed or better with Dvorak. It doesn’t help with the enter key, but P is the R key, and the ‘ is the Q key. It definitely gives the right hand a much-needed rest, especially if you’re using a right-handed mouse.
Getting “up to speed” on Dvorak took me two weeks: one week of weaning off of QWERTY, then one week of getting used to Dvorak full-time. I can’t really touch-type QWERTY, but my Windows profile allows me to switch between the two using Ctrl+Shift.
hm. maybe I’ll think about getting one of those to replace my not-writing-computer keyboard…!
How do you set your computer to a dvorak keyboard? I can’t actually find instructions. :)
Make the switch!
Go to Control Panel, Regional and Language Options. Click the Languages tab, and press the details button.
On the Settings page, you’ll find an Add button. Hit that, and under keyboard/IME, scroll down to US and you’ll find something like US-Dvorak.
Thanks for the syns! I have to write my own really soon.