Re: New dvorak user!

Welcome, Jenny, to the wonderful world of Dvorak typing and of making
interesting typos (like explaining that you really didn't mean to drink a
"punt" but rather a "pint" and the error was the result of all the vowels
being next to each other on your "special" keyboard arrangement.

Or of the random tying out of completely random gibberish when at 2 PM some
random lazy afternoon your mind somehow switches to qwerty for about ten
seconds midsteam through a mad typing session and you don't catch the error
right away.

Aside from these random nuisances (and finding a new way to CTRL C and CTRL
V - for which I'll offer a recommendation in a moment) swapping to Dvorak is
a dream come true.

Not only will you probably completely eliminate your muscle fatigue, but
you'll finding that typing is simply more comfortable overall.

Sure, you are typing rather slowly right now, but RESIST the temptation to
swap back to QWERTY to "quickly get done" with something unless it's really
really necessary.

Also, don't look at the keyboard while you are re-learning but rather, if
you need, print out the new arrangement and place it at eye level. That way,
you do not get in to the habit of looking down at the keyboard - a habit
that will hurt you in the long run.

Now about those CTRL C and CTRL V shortcuts.

If you're on a MAC, they have an arrangement that is Dvorak unless COMMAND
is held down. On Windows, download a program called AutoHotKey, install it,
then set up a custom script with this:

#o::#s
^;::^c
^q::^v
^`::^q

You can skip the #o line if you don't want to remap Windows_O to Windows_S
(I use OneNote and that's the fast way to screen cap which I like the
placement of it)

The rest remaps CTRL ; (that's semicolon) to CTRL C and CTRL Q to CTRL V and
finally (since I have one application I have to actually use a CTRL Q in
every once in a while) it maps CTRL ` (the grave character found to the left
of the "1" at the top of the keyboard) to CTRL Q.

Or more simply, "copy" becomes CTRL ; and "paste" becomes CTRL Q. Easy.

--Keith

On Thu, Dec 3, 2009 at 14:57, Jenny <[email protected]> wrote:

>
>
> Hi everybody. I am typing this very slowly but I'm new here and wanted to
> introduce myself. My name is Jenny and I'm a writer and I'm hoping that
> learning a new keyboard will help me in a few ways. One, it will teach me to
> slow down and actually look at what I'm writing and thus reduce my spelling
> errors. Two, hopefully it will reduce the pain I get in my hands, especially
> the right hand which I use for the mouse despite being left handed due to
> the fact that I've always had to use righty mouse in all the places I've
> used computers in the past (school, library, etc) its just easier that way.
> But my right hand has paid the price for it. Maybe I'll try changing my
> mouse too. Finally, I think using dvorak will be a fun experiment, a real
> change in my routine.
>
> Well that's it, this post took me 40 minutes to write. o-o
>
>  
>


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