With all the new reporting methods on phones and from just watching people younger than me swipe/text, etc. I’m wondering how much of a dinosaur I am hammering away at my traditional keyboard?
I took a typing class in 8th grade and it turned out to be one of the best classes I ever took at any level of education. Honestly, I can kick ass on my laptop keyboard. I don’t know about WPM (words per minute) but I’m pretty accurate and have no problem reporting a lot of information in a few minutes. I do all the right fingers on the right keys and all that (any “hunt and peck” people out there?)
As far as hardware I’ve been using Lenovo laptops for years. Their keyboards consistently get top ratings and they just fit with me. Aside from inspecting I spend a lot of time on message boards (obviously) and couldn’t imagine another way of communicating. My handwriting is so bad I can barely read it. If not for typing I don’t know how I’d communicate.
I took typing in High School, and I agree, one of the things I for sure learned in high school that I use constantly. I learned on the old school mechanical typewriters. You had to dunk your fingers way down to get the key strike.
My typing speed is super fast, I know I tested like 65wpm, but at that rate my errors are too high, so I’m not quite that any longer.
That said, I hate typing on laptop keyboards. Having worked in IT for 30+ years, I had the opportunity to do that daily and it drives me nuts, I always use a regular full sized keyboard that I plug into laptops. The only thing I hate worse is those touchpads. GIVE ME A MOUSE OR GIVE ME DEATH!
The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog I remember that typing class. As I recall I took it to get out of something else. It wasn’t till years later that I found out the line above was used because it includes every letter of the alphabet. Shows you what I learned in that class. I know where the letters are on the keyboard, but I basically hunt and peck.
With hands beaten up from trades that’s all some of us can do. The most significant lack of younger people is proofreading. They don’t revise or reword their text because they don’t read it a second time. Many things sound right in your head but don’t look so good on paper.
My typing speed is that of an arthritic sloth with multiple errors per minute…sigh. In high school, my typing teacher suggested I drop the class and get into something else. Typing was the only “D” that I ever got in school.
I can type about 60 wpm without mistakes in both languages (EN / FR) with my eyes closed, best class I could have taken in high school aside from Microsoft Office. I hate laptops keyboards and even more those miniature keyboard on cell phone which is why I do all my reports in the office on the pc…
The computer didn’t exist when I went to school. We typed on these big old Royal manual typewriters. Electric typewriters existed but we didn’t have any.
I learn typing on an Underwood typewriter in high school. There was no marking on the keys, if you make a mistake on the last line of the page, you had to restart…
I’ve been using an ergonomic split keyboard for about 15 years which i can type reasonably well on. When I’m forced to use a traditional keyboard I feel like I have 10 thumbs.
Like Lon my high school typing teacher recommended I drop out of his class as there was no way i was going to recieve a passing grade…I took his advice and have been cruising along at about 1 wpm ever since…
From before Dragon! Today there isn’t much I can’t do on my phone without a dictation option. I can even convert to another language. That will freak out the Realtors!
Proof everything at the end, not each mistake at a time.
I hate fixed narratives. They never fit 100%, so I ended up correcting them to fit. Faster to just dictate the entire report. I invested in one of those supper phones so I can take pictures in complete darkness, macro, 100X zoom, add and remove objects. I can’t just type in another language, I can carry on a conversation with those subcontractors that don’t have anyone on site who can speak english.
I typed about 32 words a minute on the old IBM Selectric typewriter in high school. Unfortunately typing in HS dropped my GPA. I think I got a B/C and needed all A my senior year. I could have been faster but did not want to make mistakes. Now I type 65 words a minute with tons of mistakes. Thank goodness for auto correct and spell check.
