[geeks] grudging praise for a Microsoft product

[Phil Stracchino]

der Mouse wrote:
>> The problem with stickers or engraving is that if you are a touch
>> typist in your native language, engraving letters in a second
>> alphabet allows you to look at the keys.  In practice, many people
>> learn to type that second alphabet by looking at the keys instead of
>> learning to touch type.
> 
> And what's wrong with that?  Learning where the keys are is a
> semi-necessary step on the path to touch-typing.  It's how I learned to
> touch-type QWERTY, for example - I used to be hunt-and-peck, then with
> practice the "hunt" phase faded; as knowledge of where the various keys
> are migrated down out of my conscious, I started using more fingers.
> Even today I don't "formally" touch-type (as in, I don't necessarily
> use the officially assigned finger for the letter), but I no longer
> need to look at the keyboard and my speed is certainly well up in the
> touch-typing range.

Same here.  I do ... well, something on the order of about a six-finger 
modified hunt-and-peck ... my fingers pretty much know where they're 
going, I just tend to like to observe just to make sure.  In effect, I'm 
80% touch-typing, I'm just not doing it blind or with the "correct" 
fingers.  And it works fine, as long as I don't *think* about it.  But 
if I start thinking about what I'm doing, then I get the centipede 
problem and my typing goes all to hell.


I had a temporary elevated typo rate - by a factor of about 4-5x - when 
I first switched this 4000 in for my Natural Pro.  But I've been using 
it about a week now, my hands have learned the subtly different 
kinesthetics, and I'm pretty much back up to full speed again now.

I really have only two minor nits with the 4000:
(1)  It doesn't have the Pro's integrated USB hub, which I found to be 
convenient.  But then, it was only a two-port hub, and I don't think I 
ever used more than one port on each keyboard.  I have spare USB ports; 
it just saves me using an extension cable ... and I just found a spot 
where I can put my Smartmedia drive where I don't even need an 
extension.  (Just barely.)
(2)  I haven't figured out how to get the top row of buckybuttons to 
work under Linux.  But then, I couldn't make the Pro's buckybuttons work 
under Linux either.


-- 
   Phil Stracchino, CDK#2     DoD#299792458     ICBM: 43.5607, -71.355
   alaric at caerllewys.net   alaric at metrocast.net   phil at co.ordinate.org
          Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
                  It's not the years, it's the mileage.