Up to this point I’ve used a horrid hack of proper typing form where I utilized basically three fingers off each hand and so my hands do more moving than normal people do. This is because I never really learned to type and I just taught myself through hour after hour on the computer.
So I’m finally determined to teach myself to type properly. I have no doubt it will be difficult as I try to only type properly and minimize my hand movement as I type properly.
This should be interesting. It isn’t too hard, I just have to stop and think about which fingers I use to do the typing.
I taught myself to touch-type way back in the mid-late 80s both because I WANTED TO STOP TYPING ALL IN CAPS, and I wanted to be able to type faster and without looking at the keyboard. In fact, I still type like that. And I still manage ~100WPM with 97% accuracy on a good day. I took typing in high school – mostly as a fluffer course because Medieval History was full. In spite of the teacher’s best efforts to teach me proper typing style, she couldn’t get me to adopt it – and I still aced the course and typed much faster than anyone in it.
I do use my other fingers for certain characters – technically, the first three fingers of my left hand and first two and thumb (for space) plus pinky (for delete, enter, backslash, etc.) of my right hand. I seem to manage okay so I’ve really never considered it important to correct my habit. Of course, I’ve been typing this way now for about 20 years, so it’ll probably be a bit difficult to break myself of the habit. I admit to being a bit curious as to whether or not doing so would improve my accuracy and/or speed, though.
I type mostly with my thumbs, index fingers, and middle fingers, with an occasional Shift press by my right pinky; hunt-and-peck, in case you couldn’t tell. The thing is, I’ve been hunting and pecking for about seven or eight years so far, and by now, I more or less know where everything is, and I’m fairly fast and accurate. I’m not quite at the stage of not needing to look at the keyboard at all yet, but I don’t need to glance very often.
My typing style is atrocious – I pretty much only use my index fingers and occasionally my middle finger on my left hand for typing letters – but as a programmer, I’ve typed for so long like this I’m a reasonably fast typist. I’ve had thoughts of forcing myself to learn to type properly, but when I’m programming, I want to be thinking about my code, not my typing.
Well I’m reknowned on these boards for the excellence,not to mention the elegance of my typing and have received many flattering comments on my style and frequent solicitations of advice on all aspects of keyboard usage from other posters.
I did once attempt to learn to type properly on a portable typewriter but to attain the necessary force to depress the keys fluidly I needed to have fingers that could jab through steel plate or penetrate a rhinos hide and rip its skeleton out ,and before you say it I was a fanatical Karate practitioner at the time .
To my shame I gave up.
Many years ago when visiting the headquaters of I.B.M. Europe I noticed that young girls straight out of school could type completely accurately ,text at machine gun speed while looking away and holding a conversation entirely unrelated to their work.
But when you got to the top floor where I.B.M. were sending out traffic on secret and sensitive subjects to the rest of europe( and consequently access to that floor was severely restricted to specialists and very senior people ) you saw slow ,quite often 2 finger ,keyboard pecking .
(I suspect some of it was inverted snobbery ie. I’ve “arrived” so people can see by my poor typing how senior I am)
I have used that to consol my feelings on my keyboard agility many ,many times !
Hope it helps others.
Well, Geek, just Google “typing tutor” and you’ll find a whole mess of programs, many of which are free.
Of all the courses I took in HS, I still think the most valuable one was a half-semester typing class. Besides, back in those days, I was the only boy in the class, which got me some dates.
I don’t think that will work for the online courses.
This works very well. I used it when I was a kid, many years ago. Just recently, when I decided I wanted to type even faster, I bought the newest version. It’s still fun and interesting. This program will test your skills and then tailor the program for your weaknesses. The only problem with the system is you have to force yourself to type properly. If you use your normal 2 finger method, it wont be able to accuratly judge your skills.
My mom started teaching me to type at a very young age (around 8). She taught me herself and then bought me a much earlier version of this program. I then had to take typing for all of 7th grade due to changing schools halfway through the year. My first typing teacher was actually an author of typing manuals and she couldn’t teach me anything I didn’t already know.
I have one big problem with typing now. I think in very fast spurts and then I get massive brain farts. It’s very common to see me sitting at a computer with my fingers on the home keys, and sporting a blank look on my face.
Anyway, I type faster than I think so I finish typing my thought before I finish thinking it. This obviously results in a lot of incoherant rambling. Once the brain fart sets in, I forget what I wanted to say in the first place. I’ve come to the realization that typing faster may not be in my best interest.