Saturday, March 11, 2006

Typing Lessons

So I've made my semi-annual switch from vi to emacs, and as a result I've been making way more than the usual number of typos all week long. I find it worthwhile to switch back and forth every now and then, just to keep my skills sharp, and as much as I like the simplicity of vi there is something to be said for the power of emacs.

On top of that, I've also switched my desktop setup at home around a bit. In an attempt to keep from staring at the computer ALL the time, I've hooked the laptop up to the LCD display, giving me a hell of a lot of screen real estate, but also serving to keep things so entrenched in wires that I'm unlikely to get motivated enough to take it into the living room where it can distract me while I'm consuming the latest episode of BSG or Lost or whatever...

Oddly enough, the only keyboard I had lying around to use was a Das Keyboard I ordered on a whim a few months ago. It turns out to be a very nice keyboard (feels a lot like those old IBM keyboards that sound like a machine gun when you get a decent touch typist on them, but a bit quieter), although the lack of any markings on the keys combined with the switch to emacs has certainly been screwing with my productivity a little bit.

On the bright side though, it is giving me a hell of a refresher course in typing without looking at the keys. It's remarkable how many things I never really learned to touch type (numbers and special characters come to mind) that I use constantly, but necessity is a great motivation, so I am learning again...