Dvorak, when the walls fell

I'd heard of the Dvorak keyboarding method years and years ago, but I never really got a handle on it or why it was better for me. Then last week, I came across this post on boingboing linking to a very informative e-comic that outlined exactly why I should switch.

So I hitched up my pants, spat into the brass spittoon and said "Y'all know me. Know how I earn a livin'. I'll catch this bird for you, but it ain't gonna be easy."[1] Metaphorically, of course.

Literally though, I set up the Dvorak keyboard on my Thinkpad (it's included as a option in the Regional Settings portion of the Control Panel), took an old keyboard apart and reassembled it Dvorak-style -- for referral purposes only, you don't need a new keyboard to learn Dvorak -- and went online to find some typing tutorial software that would help me learn. I eventually went with Ten Thumbs and their cool viking cartoon helpers.

I dug in with both hands (ha!) and began to see why Dvorak can be such a blessing for touch typists. All the main letters (s,t,n,a,d,o,e,i) are on the main "home" row. A lot less finger movement means more efficient and presumably faster typing.

Then I started to run into the problems:

1. O.M.G. was I slow. I'm a pretty fast touch typist on QWERTY, roughly around 75-90 WPM when I really get it going. With Dvorak, I went back down to 18-25 WPM and I could not stand it. Emails, chats, writing technical documentation -- I do a lot of writing in a day, and I literally kept forgetting what I was trying to type because it was taking me so long to type it. I know that it's idiotic to think that I would be as fast a typist right away, and I certainly was improving after only a few days, but it was giving me headaches to try and rewire my brain like this.
   
2. Copy/Paste - on your normal computer keyboard, CRTL+C and CTRL+V are the copy and paste shortcuts. But in Dvorak land, C and V aren't beside each other anymore (for the record C goes in the "I" position and V is in the ">" position, QWERTY-wise). I wound up losing efficiency with my keyboard shortcuts.
   
3. Multiplicity - I work with a lot of computers. A lot. I have 5 systems in my office, plus my wife's iBook, and literally dozens and dozens of other virtual machines both here at home and remotely at work. That's just too much pain to set each and every one of those up with the Dvorak layout (not to mention that my wife was having none of this madness, so there'd have to be both layouts on several systems to support both of us).
   
4. Keyboards - I mentioned that I took apart a keyboard and set the keys up in Dvorak layout, but most keyboards today are "formed" to a physical design and you can't just move keys from one location to another on the keyboard and have it look normal. The alternative is to paint or tape over the letters and put the Dvorak keys in place. Way too much hassle.
   

So in the end, I pulled the plug on the Dvorak experiment. I think for someone just learning to touch type, or someone who only has one computer, it's definitely a great choice, and I admire all the proponents who swim against the stream to keep this alternative alive. But I've got deadlines to keep and miles of documents to write before I sleep.

[Those of you wondering about this post's title: see here]

Launchy

I just looked over my last few weeks of posts, and I can't believe I've forgotten to talk about Launchy!

I found Launchy courtesy of my constant perusal of Mac OSX sites that always hype Quicksilver (more detailed explanation here), a powerful keyboard based application launcher. So without having OSX to play with, I went looking for a suitable Windows alternative.

And so I found Launchy.

Launchy is great stuff -- hands down one of the most useful software tools I've installed this year. Just hit the "Alt" and "SpaceBar" together and this slick-looking bar pops up:

Not that much to look at, but if I start typing:


And if I keep typing, I get what I'm looking for:


(I could have also used the down arrow to pick the iTunes program out of the drop down box).

What Launchy does is index your Windows Start menu, programs directory and bookmarks and then helps you to find what your looking for, then launches the appropriate executable file to start the program or bookmark. I've pretty much stopped using my Start Menu, Quick Launch toolbar and desktop shortcuts since I put Launchy to work for me. And it learns too, putting the programs you use more often higher up in the returned results. You can of course, configure it to avoid certain directories or document types that should not be indexed.

Other cool features:
* Built in searches: just type "IMDB" or "Google" and hit the Tab button. You'll get a vertical bar "|", after which you can type your search term and it'll open your browser and retrieve your search results for that engine:


* Directory launching: Launchy also knows all about your "Documents and Settings folder", bringing you the ability to retrieve (and launch) documents from your "My Documents", "My Music", etc. folders:



Give Launchy a try -- you will be glad you did!

Hey Developer: they're MY documents, not yours

A bit of a rant today, I'm afraid.

I've never been a huge fan of how Windows organizes a User's programs and files. The move to "My Documents" and "Program Files" in Windows 95 (if I recall correctly) made things probably worse than in the Windows 3.1 and DOS days. Now we found ourselves subject to programs installing into "C:\Progra~1\Micros~1\" and user files winding up inside a hodgepodge of folders like "C:\Documen~1\Steve~1\Access~1\" and so forth.

Vista has made things a little tidier. Users are still given an individual "home" folder, but it's in a more reasonable place: C:\Users\Steve -- no more spaces in the filenames. However, they're still using the poorly named "C:\Program Files\" folder as a destination for program installs. Why, oh why, can't we just have a "C:\Programs\" directory instead?!?! It's less than 8 characters, and there's no spaces. It would eliminate all the "~1" garbage now and forever.

Honestly, though, I'm digressing. The point of this post is that I took a close look in my "My Documents" folder today, and I was just disgusted to see how many other applications feel that they have the right to install their related files into MY documents folder, without so much as a by your leave. 10 different applications had all dumped settings and output files into my home location!

A few points for every application developer to take note:

1. Settings for your application should go into an appropriately labeled sub-folder under the User's "Application Data" folder, not into this documents folder, where a User can easily change and/or delete your application's settings.
2. If an application needs a spot for temporarily downloading files (for updates or whatever), this is NOT the place for that. Use one of Windows' myriad of temp directories, or create your own under the User's base (C:\Documents and Settings\\) directory. And for the love of all that is sweet and good -- if you absolutely, positively have to, have to, have to, create a temporary folder here -- CLEAN IT UP WHEN YOU'RE DONE!! I have no need to see the ugliness of your update system's directories and files, especially in amongst my personal documents! Augh!
   
3. If you have any sort of graphical installer -- and this is Windows, so 99% of you do -- during the install, make sure to ask the user where they want to install the program. Sure, having a "Program Files" folder preset as a default is great, and some folks will be fine to just hit the "Next" button, but be sure to include an option for users that don't like to default to the C: drive, or who use a separate "Programs" folder. And make sure your application knows how to deal with this scenario. It's no good asking for user input if you're just going to ignore it.
4. Also ask the user where in the Start Menu they want to have your shortcuts. I cannot stand Start Menus that spew out to multiple columns. I have my own organization, and I ask that you respect it.
   
5. If you do require a place for user specific settings and update temp files to live, provide an Options panel choice so the user can pick where to put these files. Don't leave the location option specified in a lonely .ini file somewhere, and the only place that option is documented is in the .ini file itself. Likely the average user won't be bothered to change it, provided your location makes sense, but it's a great feature to have for the advanced user.
   

Anyway, I'm off to get my delete key out for these morons who don't respect my computer, and won't leave my documents alone.

Smart DB2 searches

As a follow up to my earlier post about using keyword searches in Firefox, it's simple to run searches of the DB2 documentation, straight from your Firefox address bar:

1. Create a new bookmark. Select "Organize Bookmarks" from your Bookmarks menu, then click "New Bookmark..."
2. In the Properties for the new bookmark, fill out the fields as follows:
   Name: DB2 Quick Search
   Location: http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/db2luw/v9/index.jsp?tab=search&searchWord=%s
   Keyword: db2
   Description: DB2 Information Center Quick Search
3. Click OK

Now you can run all your DB2 documentation searches from the Firefox address bar by simply typing db2 in the address bar (e.g. "db2 db2look")

Firefox Keywords

A quick tip today -- get rid of the Firefox search bar. I came across this site that explains the concept of smart keyword searches in Firefox. This lets you move all the search functionality of the search bar into simple search keywords.

It's as easy as adding a new bookmark to the search portion of your desired site and assigning a short keyword.

(image from johnbookma.com)

Then, instead of typing the search query into your Firefox search bar, you just type the keyword, followed by the search query into your address bar. In this example, it would be "g widgets", which takes us to: http://www.google.com/search?q=widgets

More importantly, any site that has a search field can be added as a new keyword. Just right-click in the search text area, and select the "Add a keyword for this Search ..." option.

Once you've replaced all the search bar choices, you can remove it by right clicking any toolbar and then select the "Customize ..." option. Drag off the search bar, and you've saved yourself some toolbar space, as well as sped up your searching.

Very, very handy.