I Feel Impotent

Woah and I thought I was the only one!

Night before last I rearranged all the keys on my laptop (ok some wouldn’t go, only increasing my DVORAK enhanced laptop security by obfuscation).

Last time I had a sit down job was my first solid attempt… everyone at work looked at me weird when I took apart my keyboard, and my boss got really pissed every time I wasn’t there and he had to use my computer. It’s been a while though and things are going slow… would you believe I only just realized it was even doable on windows.

Take it from someone who’s been there before and who’s going back – it’s a long road, but it’s worth it. “Dude can I use your laptop?”
“Yeah no probs”
“Dude WTF your keyboard is… it’s…you’ve got issues”. Oh it’s allll worth it. I think we need a support group.

did you pry the keys of your x61 and rearrange them or did you just change the settings in windows.

Biggest reason that stopped me from learning dvorak:

1. Loosing the ability to type on qwerty keyboards, which is %99.999999 of all keyboard types out there. I dont want to be stuck on using my computer and nobody elses.

(That and the dubious evidence of better results)

One handed dvorak is really cool although.
And this programmer’s dvorak is even cooler:
http://www.kaufmann.no/roland/dvorak/

Good luck on the Dvorak. I switched probably 4-6 years ago, and never looked back. I haven’t tested the absolute speed difference — I’m at around 80-100 WPM either way. At that level, a couple more WPM isn’t going to really benefit, unless you’re transcribing or taking dictation or something. I did it for the comfort — I find it much more comfortable on the hands, with the less movement required.

Also, for those worried about loosing QWERTY, don’t. It is like learning another language. After a couple weeks to a month, you can switch back and forth smoothly between keyboard layouts. It’s actually transparent for me now — when I sit down at my computer, I automatically start typing Dvorak. When I sit down at someone else’s box, its automatic QUERTY.

Interesting to hear you’re going for the change. I thought about going over to Dvorak a while ago, and spent a while reading up on it and considering whether I should learn it.

At the end of the day though, I felt that the difficulties with learning the format far outweighed the potential benefits, so I didn’t pursue it any further and quickly forgot about it. It’s definitely a nice concept in theory, but in practical terms, as much as I tried, I found it hard to build a case for Dvorak.

Learning it takes a lot of time and effort, and the fact is that the vast, vast majority of keyboards out there used QWERTY. So, anyone who would want to use my computer simply wouldn’t be able to, and I consider that a serious downside rather than an amusing quirk, particularly in any professional setting. Also, my skills would not be transferrable if I was going to use another computer, which – especially in this age of ubiquitous computing – reduces the potential benefits a whole lot.

Not only this, but keyboard shortcuts and commands for various programs, and especially games, would be totally screwed up. I’d have to spend time relearning or reconfiguring every program and game I use, which would make me wonder whether the inconvenience and time lost would outweigh the comfort and time gained in typing more quickly.

That said, an even bigger issue for me was the fact that the benefits of Dvorak aren’t even proven to be true, as far as I’m aware. Even if there are benefits, they would need to be pretty significant for me to consider it worthwhile.

I don’t mean to sound totally negative! I thought Dvorak was quite interesting back in the day and thought I would share what I found. I’m all for people who want to learn Dvorak, I think it sets apart people who are serious about improving their skills at the computer. It’ll definitely be interesting to hear how it goes.

I switched to DVORAK about 6 months ago and it was one of the best things I have ever done. I love every key position except for L, i always hit / instead by accident because i have huge hands, but overall i love the new layout, stick with it, the first month sucks but it gets a lot easier after that. I will miss reading your long posts until you get your speed back up, I never thought of a blanket as a giant pancake, interesting analogy.

Mmmm, I’d actually suggest doing IM etc…anything to force you to keep inputting content, preferably to people who understand you’re learning again, that’s how I learned a bunch of mine, transition took under a month.

I prefer to just leave the keyboard standard and touch type, one reason I switched was to make myself learn to touch type again, and on the latest keyboard I bought (Logitech UltraX – great flat keys, totally recommend them) I just left it standard. I also set it up so that Ctrl+Shift+8 goes to Dvorak (default) and Ctrl+Shift+9 switches to standard, that way anyone can use my keyboard if they need. Aside from that, my laptop got switched, I pried the keys, but that was mostly to learn, now I’d leave them as is or go to blank keys. :-D

How do you change your keyboard map in windows to dvorak from qwerty?