Progress and a new keyboard!

It’s been about two weeks since my switch to the Dvorak Simplified Keyboard. I checked my typing speed on TypeRacer earlier today, and I’m currently running at about 40 wpm – I’m getting there.

Then, today my $129 keyboard came in the mail; with gold-plated mechanical switches and absolutely no labels.

That’s right; I bought the $129 Das Keyboard Ultimate – it’s loud, it’s heavy, and when added to this key mapping, it’s confusing for anyone that attempts to use my computer. 2022 Update: I am re-reading all of these as I migrate from aj.ianozi.com to aj.immo, and I am still using my Das Keyboard Ultimate over a decade later!

There’s been quite a few people asking me about this layout, and I have to say, the immediate results are pretty nice. I managed to learn to touch-type with this new layout in a matter of days, and within two weeks, I’m around half the speed I was with QWERTY. I’m able to type most of my words on the home row (consisting of aoeuidhtns), and my wrists don’t hurt after a long day of typing anymore (please be aware, I punched out almost 2000 lines of code this week while programming). But then again… I’m not typing as fast as I did with QWERTY yet, so we’ll see.

On a side note, I no longer have a problem with “F”, though I’m slipping up with “j” and “q” once in awhile.

PS: On a side note, I ran this entry though a neat little applet that would calculate some stats based on how much I’d type, etc…

Is this post, 64% of my typing took place on the home row, and my fingers traveled a distance of 58 feet.

If I were to use QWERTY to type this, only 32% would’ve been on the home row, and my fingers would have traveled almost 100 feet!

NOTE: This is part of a series, check the next entry here!