I use Dvorak. It’s no faster and no more accurate, but it does tire out your fingers a whole lot less, and just typing one sentence in Dvorak will enable you to see why. I switched to Dvorak after a bout of RSI, and the RSI never came back.
If you work someplace that allows you basic administrator privileges, or just has a friendly systems administrator, it isn’t very difficult to change the keyboard layout in Windows. It can be set on a software level, or you could just bring a Dvorak keyboard in to work.
Unfortunately, half the jobs I’ve had wouldn’t allow this, so it’s not a guaranteed solution. And the software switch is only useful if you have a cover you can throw over the existing keyboard, or can touch-type sufficiently well.
Still, don’t think being employed eliminates the Dvorak option. I looked in to it just recently to make sure that learning Dvorak wouldn’t give me too much of a headache at work :)
That’s actually something I’ve never seen pointed out about Dvorak—every comparison seems to be about the speed relative to QWERTY. (Oh, the Wikipedia article mentions it in the first paragraph.)
I use Dvorak. It’s no faster and no more accurate, but it does tire out your fingers a whole lot less, and just typing one sentence in Dvorak will enable you to see why. I switched to Dvorak after a bout of RSI, and the RSI never came back.
del
If you work someplace that allows you basic administrator privileges, or just has a friendly systems administrator, it isn’t very difficult to change the keyboard layout in Windows. It can be set on a software level, or you could just bring a Dvorak keyboard in to work.
Unfortunately, half the jobs I’ve had wouldn’t allow this, so it’s not a guaranteed solution. And the software switch is only useful if you have a cover you can throw over the existing keyboard, or can touch-type sufficiently well.
Still, don’t think being employed eliminates the Dvorak option. I looked in to it just recently to make sure that learning Dvorak wouldn’t give me too much of a headache at work :)
del
That’s actually something I’ve never seen pointed out about Dvorak—every comparison seems to be about the speed relative to QWERTY. (Oh, the Wikipedia article mentions it in the first paragraph.)