[PUBLIC] Degrading...

[bronzite]

I'm discovering an interesting phenomenon. I'm losing my ability to touch-type, despite spending the majority of my waking hours working with computers. Its not that I'm hunting and pecking, but I'm definitely making more errors more often, and I'm starting to worry that I'm going to wear out my backspace buttons. I didn't want to say anything

Comments

[etherial]

Wouldn't it be nice if you could just bring your own keyboard everywhere.

I don't seem to have this problem, but I don't touch-type per se - I have a more dynamic typing methodology that I find is more efficient but has to be learned intuitively.

[bronzite]

In this case, I'm using "touch-type" as any method that doesn't require you to look at your hands when typing alphanumerics and basic punctuation. I actually never took a touch-typing class, either -- although I was a great fan of Mario Teaches Typing.

[etherial]

I played a game on a computer with an orange screen and a cat. I've generally seen it referred to as a proper noun, but Wikipedia agrees with you.

My mother, on the other hand, would be horrified if she saw me using my middle finger to type the "u" in "using" (my index finger types the "u" in this sentence, on the other hand).

[mariaklob]

I haven't had such a problem. I resented the nun who taught us formal touch-typing in elementary school, but it has served me well. That isn't to say there aren't errors, but I can feel errors almost immediately and backspace to remove them without skipping a beat.

Then again, I work on a rotation of four nearly-identical keyboards for everything, and I even use a relatively limited key set. (I can't remember the last time I used the numpad.) So my typing tasks are easy.

[petercooperjr]

I don't think my accuracy has changed much, but I haven't measured anything. But, I don't use nearly as wide a variety of keyboards as you do, and my primary keyboard that I use at work is a Touchstream LP that can go on eBay for north of $2000 at times, so I'm not a representative sample of anything.

[bronzite]

I'm impressed. I did not expect that thing to live 8 years, between the touch-sensitive surfacing and the ribbon cable running between the halves.

[petercooperjr]

Well, my original broke due to static discharge I think, although it may just be the ribbon cable since only the left half is broken. I'm intending to look at it again at some point so that I can have one at home.

But I bought Dave Howland's off of him, which had a broken ribbon cable, and I replaced the ribbon cable and it works great now.