Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with typing

I type like Charles Barkley swings a golf club.

demagogue — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 09:05:27 -0800

I can touch-type relatively well (typing tests usually score me at about 75wpm) but I don't use the right fingering. If you were once me, and you learned to touch-type properly, can you describe your experience? What tools did you use? How many hours did it take to learn how to type correctly? Did you fail in learning the correct method (before succeeding)? How did you keep yourself from reverting to your old habits? Etc.

Also...I'm curious... how common is this?

Thanks for your help! The reason I can type relatively well, but incorrectly, is because when I was just a youngin, my dad bought his kids a computer, as he anticipated that the age of computers was coming -- and, busy with work, he left us kids to figure out on our own, the way this newfangled thing worked. (That's also why I learned at a young age how to fix computers =D )

Typing: from 60wpm to 90wpm

ekpyrotic — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 17:54:03 -0800

From a reasonably good [60wpm] looking-at-the-keys typist to a reasonably good [90wpm] touch typist. I currently type at ~60wpm. I have to look at the keyboard every 3-or-so words. I want to touch type for 2 reasons,

1. To improve speed,
2. So I can copy text effectively, i.e., not have to look at the keys now and again.

Where's the best place to go from here?

Slow typing in Excel 2008 and unexplained network traffic

lbergstr — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:06:18 -0800

Why would Excel 2008 cause a lot of network traffic while typing in a cell? After using Excel 2008 for a few months, recently I've experienced sluggishness when typing in cells. These are really serious slowdowns, the display can take 5 seconds to catch up to my typing. It comes and goes; haven't been able to discern a pattern here.

However I use MenuMeters and during slowdowns, I've noticed that network traffic spikes when I'm typing in Excel - say 150KB down, 33KB up.

I'm not editing a document on a network drive, or even an external drive. Happens whether or not I have any external drives connected.

I'm connected to a local network via wifi, and through that to the Internet - but our external connection tops out around 25KB down.

Any ideas?

Using Excel 2008 SP1 on 10.5.8.

I need to Shift into a higher plane of typing!

brenton — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:10:43 -0800

I am looking for a typing program that will force me to use the right shift key for left hand letters, and the left shift key for right hand letters. When touch-typing, I have the bad habit of only using the left shift key. With intense focus, I can use the right shift key for letters on the left, but after trying many times to force myself to do this, I always find I am reverting back to my old ways (it's faster in the short term, slower in the long run).

I really want to correct this flaw before I go to grad school and start writing Truly Long Papers. But every typing program I can find fails to distinguish between the shift keys. Does anyone know of a program that is shift-specific?

I am not even sure if keyboards send a different key-code for the different shift keys. If this is the case, then I am determined to hack a keyboard and then hack an open-source typing program to do this... any suggested starting points?

Odd free writing behaviour

paradoxflow — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:38:40 -0800

Why does this happen when I free write? I've been trying to overcome a serious writer's block lately, so I've been free writing.

A strange thing always seems to happen when I do this though, I end up closing my eyes, and my head starts to shake, first slowly, and then more vigorously as I go on, hitting the keys. This is completely involuntary and I don't know why I do it, it isn't unpleasant, exactly, but I wonder if something is wrong with me. Sometimes it can continue for the entire session, sometimes it stops when I reach a certain mental state; my eyes are closed, and I can't feel anything besides my fingers on the keys, and my head feels it is floating far above the keyboard, not attached to my body. I've experienced something similar to this before, during deeper stages of Zen meditation that I reached a few times when I was younger, but haven't been able to since (through meditation anyways).

I guess I have a few questions: To the writers among you, do you ever experience something similar this? Is there some kind of psychological basis for the head shaking behaviour? And sort of tied to that, is there something wrong with me, and if not, some way I can use this?

Help me find a typing game with a particular feature.

TigerCrane — Sat, 30 May 2009 17:30:44 -0800

Help me find a typing game that requires you to hit "enter" I'm looking for a typing game with a particular requirement.

I'm a student of court reporting, and I want to use a typing game to practice.

This is the problem:

Most typing games treat each keystroke as a separate event. Thus, if the game requires you to type "CAT" you will hit C-A-T and the game fires on each letter.

I need a game that would allow me to type the word and THEN hit "Enter" to fire the word. In other words, I want to fire words and phrases, not letters.

The problem is that machine shorthand types syllables, not letters. So, if you wanted to write "Catty" you would hit the keyboard twice Once for "KAT" and then for "TI". This confuses the typing games.

I hope that made sense.

It would be especially helpful if the game allowed you to customize your own words.

The route to better transcription

low_horrible_immoral — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 06:19:27 -0800

Looking for your transcription hints and tips! I've just starting transcription (ie, typing from digital files) on a freelance basis. I'm doing fairly well but I'm sure there are load of ways I could work faster and more accurately - Word shortcuts, playback software (at the moment I use ExpressScribe), optimising the time it takes me to check things.

Are there any transcribers out there willing to share their hints and tips? Anything at all would be useful.

Thanks!

Ache in my hand from using the computer. Solutions?

lunchbox — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 21:02:13 -0800

Ache in my hand from using the computer. Solutions? Recently I've had a very particular ache in my right hand while typing and using my mouse. I feel it around the inside of my hand, mostly around the knuckles of my middle and index fingers. Has anyone encountered this and found a solution that alleviates the ache?

I currently use an ergonomic split keyboard and a mouse pad with a wrist rest. (In general, I try to abide by the guidelines I hear about preventing RSI, but this problem seems to be eluding me.)

typing SMS from laptop

pompomtom — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:16:44 -0800

I have a macbook and I have a nokia N95 8gb. Is there any way I can type SMSs with the big keyboard?

how can i get paid to type?

austere — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 11:08:57 -0800

i believe myself to be quite gifted when it comes to typing. can this be parlayed into an income somehow? i have only a GED and have never been to college. i'm twenty four and have a slightly spotty work history. i am very personable and highly intelligent however. i don't really have any marketable skills and the only jobs i've excelled at tend to be administrative. when it comes to dull office jobs, i'm a superstar, but i absolutely hate that kind of work. the only real marketable skills that i have are my advanced computer proficiency and my extremely fast and accurate typing.

when it comes to typing, people tend to be blown away -- it's kind of funny because anyone can type, and most people do it well, more or less. however, anytime someone happens to see or hear me typing, a comment almost always ensues. it seems like data entry work tends to be 'bottom of the barrel' in terms of pay and regard. but i feel like there are probably teams/departments in certain businesses who do strictly this, and while admittedly half-joking, i could probably replace several above-average typists with my skill.

my mom has always suggested that i go to school to be a court reporter, but i lack motivation and follow-through with such a random idea as that, though i'm not entirely disinterested.

so i guess my question is whether or not it's possible or in any way realistic to hope for an opportunity to make decent money from typing. i am very dependable with most any sort of administrative work, even if somehow advanced, but i guess i just have a hunch that no one really pays people well to type, because in the end it's still 'just typing'. but as far as the work itself goes, i've got to be about as good as it gets.

i had a job once that required entering orders of athletic jerseys into a database prior to shipping them, and after a few weeks of being hired (this was in a warehouse that paid shit and had no interest in retaining employees - i made $5.50), i had developed this sort of rythm with the software we used and i would just fly through every order. it was funny to even me, as i would just kind of get into 'the zone' and would be entering the information faster than i could think about it. on a few occassions, management emerged from their air-conditioned offices with a stopwatch and would just stand there and watch me work, amazed at my proficiency. there were a few others who would do the same thing as me, and i must have had ten times the output. but in the end nobody ever acknowledged this as a valuable skill. i'm sure there are other companies who would have been more perceptive, but still.

so as data entry tends to be peon work for the most part, i'm sure the turnover tends to be high. so is there any way to subvert that notion and to get real recognition for this skill?

thanks mefi!

any ideas? thanks mefi.

Keyboard rearranges letters

Jeanne — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:39:05 -0800

My keyboard is substituting letters: a and q are switched, z and w, punctuation rearranged; It is not the keyboard hardware itself - tried with a different keyboard; I rebooted; I am at a loss for what else it could be: Sorry for weird punctuation:

Prose with a text editor

philosophygeek — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 09:46:52 -0800

I'm beginning the long process of physically typing my dissertation, and I want to tap the hive mind for how to make the best use of my text editor. Yes, I said text editor: I know that programmers swear by emacs/vim/whatever for physically manipulating text, and I want to know what tricks they know that will be useful for someone writing actual English, not just code. More details: I've become quite well acquainted with the text expansion functions of my text editor (Textmate, fwiw) to save my fingers on long technical terms or words I type frequently. What I'm looking for are other ways to save wear and tear on my hands. A lot of text manipulation tricks by experienced text editor pros seem more oriented towards working with code than with prose. If you can explain how some of their macros, etc. can be fruitfully used in non-code settings, I'd love to hear it. Essentially, I'm looking for help in thinking about *how* to use the text-manipulation power of text editors for my writing, not just a list of "here's cool things you can do with a text editor that you can't do in Word." Give me your usage scenarios and examples, and make me look forward to the physical typing of the dissertation!

Clicky Keys

Yakuman — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:47:52 -0800

Is is possible to record the sound of someone typing and then decipher what keys are being pressed?

Help me, Metafilter? Or, hel me etafilter?mp

minus zero — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:32:10 -0800

My laptop keyboard cursor randomly backtracks one space as I type. This only seems to happen in Firefox. Has anyone else had this problem, and how do I fix it? I'm running an acer aspire 2000 cl32 laptop, and the latest version of Firefox, although this problem began before my latest update. It doesn't happen in other text applications like Word and Notebook (which is where I'm typing now).

It's not due to the edge of my hands pressing down on the touchpad. It's also not due to any keys sticking, as far as I can tell. The problem seems to go away if I restart Firefox, but there are only so many times I can do that before it gets annoying.

Is there anything else that I'm not thinking of? Googling comes up with other users with the same problem, but no solutions.

Hep me metafilterl (ees?)

Why do I keep accidently typing homonyms instead of the actual word I meant?

public — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 06:37:32 -0800

Why do I keep accidently typing homonyms instead of the actual word I meant? e.g. Pear instead of Pair. Sometimes it gets worse and I write things which share even less in common like pardon and person. I've done this for ages now and then and only do it when I am typing quickly and conversationally, in a direct brain to keyboard sort of way.

The second example reminds me of that little meme that went around a while go that started "Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy..."

Does it have a convenient name like typo? Does anyone else do this?

Touch typing, minus one finger

Jeanne — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 09:15:59 -0800

I'm losing the use of one of my fingers. But what I'll miss most is the touch typing. How to relearn it? In February I'll be having surgery for a benign bone tumor in my right pinky finger. Unfortunately, the tumor is close enough to the joint that my doctor says I'll lose the joint.

I'm a librarian in my day job and a novelist in my night job. I type a lot. Do you know of any resources for relearning how to touch type with one unusable finger? I know of one-handed keyboards, but it seems that, if I've still got nine fingers, it would be better to use them all.

(Super extra bonus question: if you have any experience with this kind of hand surgery, I would really appreciate hearing about pain levels and recovery time and when you were able to go back to work and anything else you think might be helpful. I'm mildly freaked out about this.)

Is it really worth learning Dvorak given that friend/libraries/internet cafes all use QWERTY?

man down under — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:34:03 -0800

Is it really worth learning Dvorak given that friend/libraries/internet cafes all use QWERTY? I recently started learning to touch type using keybr.com and have heard many arguments for Dvorak over QWERTY...I don't question the efficiency of the Dvorak layout, but am concerned that putting all of the effort required into learning to type Dvorak will be incredibly irritating when I'm forced to type QWERTY in the future...

How do other Dvorak typists find the transition between the two?

Any coping strategies?

Why am substituting one bird for another when I type?

grumblebee — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 11:47:08 -0800

I'm making a certain type of typo more and more frequently. Should I be worried? I know everyone does this to some extent, but I've greatly increased the amount of word substitutions I make when I type. I read my sentences back later, and I find I've written things like this:

To free or not to be. Hat is the question.

Most of my mistakes are of that sort: substituting rhyming words for the words I mean to type. When I proof my text, I'm always totally surprised to see the substitutions. I have no sense of making them when I'm typing.

Now, this is probably a wasted question, because I think I can answer it myself. Over the last few years, my typing speed has increased tenfold. I can now type almost as fast as I can think. And I've noticed the errors increasing as my typing has gotten faster.

But I also know that people make these sorts of substitutions when they've suffered some sort of brain disorder. (I'm embarrassed by how hypochondriacal this sounds.)

I don't have any other symptoms. I feel fine and healthy. My thinking is clear. My motor skills are the same as always. I'm just spooked by this sudden onset of typing gaffs. When I read my words back, I find at least one or two per paragraph.

I know you're not my doctor, but do you think this is even slightly worth worrying about?

Where to find a non-wiggly folding table?

mizrachi — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 21:47:07 -0800

Where can I find a sturdy, non-wobbly folding table? It'll will be used only to support a laptop and should not wiggle or shake as I type, as most folding tables seem prone to behaving, and should fold up and fit somewhere out of the way.

This one is a bit too big (and expensive) but is along the lines of what I mean.

Autocomplete in Pages?

spaceman_spiff — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:14:29 -0800

How can I get Pages to mimic Open Office's autocomplete? I've recently made a partial switch from Open Office/NeoOffice to Pages. I like the way Pages does styles, and it's a lot lighter weight on my Powerbook than OO/NO. But it's missing my absolute to-die-for favorite feature - autocomplete.

In Open Office, as I type, words longer than a certain threshold are added to a list; if I type the first 3-4 letters of a word in the list later on in a document, the rest of the word appears highlighted after my cursor, and I can choose to hit enter and complete the word, or just keep typing. It's absolutely fabulous, and my wrists are complaining bitterly about Pages' lack of a similar feature. Is there a plugin or hack - or best of all a checkbox I missed - for Pages that would replicate this feature?

How to figure out the desk height that is good for you?

wfrgms — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 14:02:05 -0800

From a ergonomic and comfort perspective, what measurements do you look for in a computer desk or work area surface? Specifically the height? I'm in the planning phases for building a desk into an odd shaped area of my apartment. Once it's in I won't be able to change the height (without a lot of effort.) I'm also planning to mount my LCD monitor to the wall over the desk.

I'm wondering if there are general rules or guidelines for positioning desk surfaces for comfort and use. What surface height is most comfortable for typing and mousing around? At what height do you like your monitor positioned? Suggestions regarding posture, distance from keyboard or monitor, and anything else I'm not thinking of are also welcome.

I realize this is very subjective, but I'm trying to get an idea of what other people look for in their optimal setup. If it helps I'm 6'1".

Thanks for any suggestions! :-)

Help save my wrists from RSI!

jasminerain — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 11:11:11 -0800

I want to learn the emacs keybindings, mainly for moving around in a block of code, and selecting text. What's the best way to do this? I essentially type all day. A good portion of that time is spent programming (probably 6 hours a day averaged over a week). Recently, my wrists started bothering me. A few days of rest from typing, an ergonomic keyboard, and AntiRSI fixed it (as in, it doesn't hurt anymore), although I plan to be more careful about it from now on.

I think much of the problem is caused by the way I navigate through code though. I use my mouse much too often. I edit code much more often than I write new code, but I haven't learned the keybindings for moving around and selecting text, so I mainly use the mouse.

I work in Mac OS, mainly in XCode or Textmate, and I have my system set up to use the Emacs keybindings for navigation. I even wrote a little chart of the keybindings and taped it to my monitor. The problem is that it's still much easier to use my mouse (especially for operations that are like: copy this line of code over here, and change the name of the first argument to this).

Also, I find selection to be difficult to figure out. I don't understand how to get the selection I want (and this is a large part of why I don't use the keybindings), so I just don't use it, because I get much better results with the mouse.

How do I overcome this barrier and actually learn the keybindings well enough to use it over the mouse?

It would be ideal if I could learn them in my day-to-day typing, but if you have a method that requires me to sit down for a few hours and just learn them, I could give that a try too.

Thanks!

MacBook Pro keyboard sensitivity

veggieboy — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 08:31:48 -0800

Can the sensitivity of a MacBook Pro keyboard vary? Can it be changed? A friend bought a MacBook Pro almost exclusively for its keyboard. He's a writer. Because typing is his livelihood and can do a real number on his hands, this sort of thing makes more difference to him than it does to me and to most other people.

So he spent some time on a MacBook Pro keyboard at a store, decided it was OK and then took the plunge.

But now that he has the machine at home, it doesn't seem right. This sort of thing is hard to describe, but the keys feel a little "sticky" and like they need to be punched harder on this machine than they did on the machine he tried at the store.

Has anyone experienced this? Could it be because the display model at the store was "broken in"? Taking a hit on the restocking fee is an option if this is never going to get better, but if it's a matter of breaking it in, how long would this take?

If it's not a matter of breaking it in, is there any way to change keyboard sensitivity? I know about the keyboard system preferences, but maybe I've missed something.

Short of an external keyboard, are there any possibilities to improve the situation? Thanks very much.

Looking for a non-superfluous third nubbin

Blazecock Pileon — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 16:38:16 -0800

iNubbin for iPhone? The keyboard for various iPhone apps can be, well, inconsistent in how corrections are done. So I'd like to improve my typing accuracy.

Is there material to make a little, pointed "thimble" that will conduct through the fingertip skin to manipulate the pointer on the screen?

Any ideas to help a stroke victim communicate?

disclaimer — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 05:34:10 -0800

I need an economical way for a stroke victim to communicate via a simple keyboard or typewriter, or other simple method. A family member had a stroke and is immobilized on the right side, and has rheumatoid arthritis on the left side. He can say yes/no, but has no way to communicate any real thoughts, and we're all sure he has something to say. :)

We're looking for a cheap, easy way for him to basically hold a pencil or stylus, and tap a keyboard. I'm thinking of a kid's laptop toy, but I don't have a lot of time to look - the "solution" needs to travel with my brother in law early tomorrow AM. I also have considered a small whiteboard but I'm not sure there is enough motor control for writing (he is out of state).

Anyone have experience with this? Any suggestions? My thanks ahead of time.