"Mark van Gulik" <ghoul6 at home.com> wrote:

> If you want to try Dvorak, make sure to switch when you have enough slack
> time, like at the start of a long vacation in which you intend to type a lot
> (but don't have to *produce* a lot).  I haven't bothered to buy a special
> Dvorak keyboard, as popping the caps off and rearranging them has worked
> fine for me.  The keys are different heights in different rows on most
> keyboards, so the surface will be a little bumpy, but hey - think of a
> piano.  Also, switch the key caps (or use the new keyboard) on day one, and
> stick with it religiously.
> 


Agreed on all points, but would add a few things.  

First, speed is only one advantage to Dvorak, and perhaps the least
important.  Comfort is a bigger deal, especially if it turns out to have
an impact on RSI's.

Second, I didn't find rearranging the keycaps to help so much.  The
bumpiness was annoying.  The keys will be in the qwerty arrangement on
other keyboads.  And most of all, if you really want to learn to type
fast, you can't be looking at the keys, anyway.  As a small tip on this
angle, note that you can do an exhaustive search of 30 keys pretty
darned quickly, if you type out a bunch of them at a timeand then just
scan for the character you are looking for.  (admittedly, hitting one,
looking, and then hitting another, would take a while.  so don't do that
:)).

Finally, you don't *have* to use typing tutors.  For me, spending an
hour or a few typing out the alphabet was enough to learn where the keys
are; after that it just took a lot of typing a lot does the trick.  Then
again, I only type around 40-60 wpm, not the impressive 80wpm described
above, so time with the tutors probably does help.

Hmm, interesting that so many people on the Squeak list use Dvorak....

Lex