Re: Behind the Times? (was Re: Conventions)

In article <synthfilker-6D68B7.16440715102005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Joe Ellis <synthfilker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>In article <IoF13D.n39@xxxxxxxxxxx>,
> djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx (Dorothy J Heydt) wrote:
>
>> In article <synthfilker-03D08A.14273415102005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
>> Joe Ellis <synthfilker@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>> >More likely my PowerBook G4 is a bit more ergonomic in design than
>> >whatever you use... or I work closer, giving my thumbs a better angle
>> >relative to the keys.
>>
>> Well, I do not now use anything that has a trackpad/whatever. I
>> have a ThinkPad, currently not working (bad power supply I
>> think), that had a little bitty orange button installed in the
>> *middle* of the keyboard. I couldn't use that either.
>
>Those little mouse joysticks were ludicrous.
>
>> I hold my hands above the keyboard the way I was taught in typing
>> class in high school.
>
>Ah, well that's it then. I don't have that particular handicap.
>
>> My eight fingers strike straight down onto
>> the home keys and nearly straight down onto the other keys. I
>> use my right thumb to hit the spacebar, and it's the side of my
>> thumb that hits it. To hit the spacebar, or anything, with the
>> tip of my thumb I would have to rotate my hands nearly ninety
>> degrees inward, which would be uncomfortable and also remove my
>> eight fingers from their position above the home keys. If your
>> PB uses anything like a standard keyboard layout, I don't see how
>> you can hit anything with your thumbtip without rotating your
>> hands inward. What DO you do?
>
>I rest the heel of my hands on the computer case, pointing inward at
>about 90 degrees (which I don't find uncomfortable at all.. using the
>laptop in my lap... what a concept...) and just drop my thumb(s) down to
>reach the touch pad.

Do you type a lot? Any trouble with carpal tunnel syndrome?
Typing with bent wrists is really hard on the tendons.

Home keys? I never drank that kool-aid. Of course,
>when I was in high school, electric typewriters were still high-tech,
>typing was considered a "secretarial' skill...

Me too. I had a piece of luck, in that when I got to that high
school (counting on fingers ... would've been about 1956)
somebody goofed, and instead of putting me into the one-semester
"Personal Typing" course for the college-bound, I got put into
the standard year-long typing course for the office-bound. The
result was that I really learned to type.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@xxxxxxxxxxx
.

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