:fu qwerty: (Dvorak keyboards)

Most people when they hear the name Dvorak think of either a composer or a blank wall. However, Dvorak can also stand for a keyboard key arrangement.

So, what is the Dvorak arrangement, you ask? It looks like this:


Now, why on Earth would you want to use it, you ask? Well, the regular qwerty systemw as developed for typewriters soon after they came out. People were typing so fast that the keys jammed, and rather than just build a better typewriter, they re-arranged the keys in an inefficient way to reduce typing speed. Hence the qwerty system was born.

Of course, by causing one's fingers and hands to strain to reach common keys, this leads to higher incidences of carpal tunnel (30% higher occurance over Dvorak according to wikipedia). Also, although it takes a fair amount of practice, it leads to exceedingly high WPM and cuts down on wrist strain. This would be the part where I would brag about how it has increased my WPM, but I'm still learning it.

This keyboard arrangement requires no additional hardware of any sort, and is very simple to set-up. On the software end, follow these simple steps. On the hardware end, you could either by some snazzy key labels, or if you're cheap like me, use a marker and write the Dvorak key mapping on the right corner of the key.

So, does anyone else use this system? If not, would you consider learning it for the advantages it offers?

And yes, this entire thread post was typed using a Dvorak keyboard.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Capo:
.__.

Trigunnerz:
I knew someone was going to do that sooner or later in this thread. it just had to be you, didn't it?

Nehmi:
Well,a fter typing Dvorak style for a few days, using a Qwerty keyboard on my lappy feels a bit weird. However, in a few minutes my qwerty WPM returned to what it was before the switchto Dvorak.

Rock:
All I know is my wrists used to hurt after doing *typetypetype* when I did my Technical Writing project (32 pages lol), and with a Dvorak keyboard, they don't hurt after an equivalent amount of *typetypetype*

There's nowhere I can't reach.