Keyboards, continued

[unixronin]

About two weeks back, I mentioned keycap wear issues with the Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000, and these keyboard stickers made by Meri Distribution, which I hoped would fix the problem.

Well, they did.  For about a week and a half.  They're wearing at an extremely rapid rate.  There is already severe wear (which is to say, large white patches where the letters were) on six keys, and moderate wear (small white patches not obscuring the letter) on three more.  So that, unfortunately, was a nearly complete waste of twenty dollars (for two sets, while I had a discount code to use with the vendor).

It's a shame, because they really are extremely clear and readable, even in dim light.

(Note:  I consider this in no part a failure of the vendor, "Baron Bob".)

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Well, sort of. I've never learned properly to formally touch-type as such. But I use up to two or three fingers on each hand once I get going, and don't really have to look at the keyboard once I get going, as long as I don't think about it. But if I start thinking about what I'm doing, then I have the centipede problem. "Which foot do I move next? This one? No wait, that—" [*CRASH*]

As long as I don't start thinking about it, when I do look at the keyboard, I'm not really looking for individual keys so much as maintaining visual reference so that I know where my hands are relative to the keyboard. As long as I know that, my hands pretty much know where the keys are, enough that I usually know I've made a typo even before I see it on the screen, because the keystroke felt wrong. I may have to glance at the screen to see which wrong key I hit, but I know I hit one, frequently well enough that I can correct the typo without looking to see what I actually typed.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

I learned to touch type after the eight grade in summer school. I was never very fast (about 30 wpm), but I could code at that speed when I got going. Not needing to see the keyboard is a huge advantage! I highly recommend that people who use computers regularly learn touch typing. The problem then is that you cuss the mouse, that makes you move your fingers from the real keys...