Alex in Dvorakland, First Week

-day 1-

Bought myself a Qwerty keyboard and rearranged the keys.  That went well except for the j and the f holes, i had to file a tiny piece of plastic away.  But after the surgery all the keys on it worked smoothly!

-day 2-

Set up Gnome to use Dvorak.  It was easy, i just had to go to the keyboard settings and select “US – Dvorak”.  Then i used this guide to set up my pc for when i’m not using an X-Server. (like less than 1% of the time)

Now i was finally ready to start my classes!  I installed and started gtypist.  “ao ae au aa ss sn st sh … di du de do da dh dt … iu ie io ia ii …”

Typing Speed: Like an average Granny

-day 3-

Setting up my laptop to use Dvorak as well.  Ow and some more “tn ts th td te to ta …”

Typing Speed: Like an average 60 year old

-day 4-

“the tha thu … the mad hatter has a hat on his head …”

Typing Speed: Like an average 50 year old

-day 5,6 and 7-

I know most of the keys and my typing speed is going up, but it still is miles away from where i was with Azerty.

Don’t know if i’m going to stick with it.  This is a 3 weeks test and if i don’t feel more comfortable by then i’m going to switch to Qwerty.

The Joy of Choice

I have tried several GNU/Linux distro’s over the years, i “made friends” with some and “hated” others.  My top picks are Debian, Arch and Ubuntu/Mint. Each of them have their own strong and weak points.  Now i’m about to install one of them on my second desktop because the os installed on it now, Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy, got a bit outdated since the new Ubuntu came out this years.  It’s very hard to find updates or totally new software for it because most developpers only support Ubuntu 8.04 or higher at the moment.  I’m leaning towards the rolling distro’s (Arch, Debian) so that i wouldn’t encounter that “outdated because a newer version is available”-problem anymore from now on.  That leaves me with the choice of Arch, bleeding edge but with a chance of a bad update when you are unlucky, or Debian Lenny or Testing, mostly up-to-date but very stable.  I really love both and that doesn’t make my choice easier.  And to make it even worse, am i going to use my beloved Gnome Desktop or switch to the new KDE4+?  I use Gnome since i started using Linux, i love it and for some reason i never really liked the old KDE3+, but the new KDE4+ can look very good and i do like a lot of the “thinking” behind it.  Freedom of choice is great!  But at the moment those choices are making my head explode!