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Eshin Direct

September 3, 2004 New Frontiers

A quiet computer revolution is happening over in my flat. I’ve taken the decision to change over from PC-based computers to Apple. This was done with a costly purchase of a PowerBook G4 which I have yet to salivate over because the computer is being put together and installed with the necessary software. Two other people I know are also making the switch to Apple too.

While I’m reasonably sure that Mac computing has it’s own headaches and issue, I’ll be in better position to judge once I’ve experienced my first Mac. I find it’s so easy to have things shoved down our throats in the computing world that aren’t necessarily better or any more efficient.

And hence the second foray into a new frontier…

Dvorak typing.

Been trying out the Dvorak typing layout. Can’t really offer much in terms of whether its better until I could get it up to the speed of how I type under the QWERTY layout. I did find that typing the same text in some of the Dvorak learning drills using the Qwerty layout, that my fingers were moving around the keyboard more. From what I understand, this is the beauty of Dvorak with all the more commonly used keys under the “home” ten keys (err, middle line of your keyboard – ASDFGHJKL:).

The only concern I have is which system is better to use for scripting stuff, server admin and so on. As anyone who has been involved with these tasks knows, it’s almost a different language with different common letter/keystrokes being used. Maybe Dvorak offers increased speed and lessens the chance of RSI for English prose but might be as useful for typing in a whole bunch of command in a shell environment.

Oh well, things to learn…

If anyone’s interested in learning Dvorak or using it, it’s a doddle to do.

The Background Behind Dvorak
Converting to Dvorak
A Graphical Example of Dvorak

Thanks to Shaky for his bringing up of Dvorak in a comment to one of my posts.