Quick Hand Massages Release Typing Tension


April 8, 2013

All parts of your body are involved in typing – your brain, your eyes, the muscles of your shoulder and back and legs, and even your ears if you’re doing dictation or listening for the ‘ding’ of your computer’s automatic spell-check feature that helps you quickly correct your mistakes. But the parts that do the most work, and suffer the most stress, are your hands and fingers. If you spend long hours each day typing, it’s important to take regular breaks to keep the circulation of air and blood going strongly through your body, and to rest your eyes as well as stretch out your muscles. If you find that your hands are starting to cramp or ache, you can try some quick hand massage techniques to help loosen muscles and tendons.

Start by making small circles with the flat of your thumb around the palm of your other hand. Keep that hand relaxed while you do the massage. Use enough pressure to reach deep muscles, but not so much that you’re causing yourself more pain. Make circles over the base of the thumb on that hand, and be sure to massage the thick pad of muscle between the thumb and forefinger. Turn your hand over and continue to use the thumb of the other hand, massaging these muscles at the base of your thumb and up to the webbing.

Move to the thumb itself, and use the thumb and fingers of your other hand to massage it from the base of the thumb to the thumbnail, on both sides. Do the same for each of your other fingers, then work your way back to the thumb again. As you move back to the thumb, take a minute to massage the webbing between each of your fingers.

Gently pull your thumb from base to tip, helping to elongate the muscles and stretch the tendons. Do this for each of the fingers. Some people may find that this causes their joints to “pop” as the fingers are stretched; in general, this is just a sound that is made by a bubble of gas escaping from the synovial fluid around the joint (a natural process) or of a ligament snapping back into place. However, if there is pain when your joints “pop” then don’t do this part of the exercise, and check with your doctor, as this often indicates arthritis.

Switch hands and repeat the massage. When you get used to the process, you’ll find it’s something that you can do even while standing or walking, so you could combine a quick hand massage with a break from sitting at your desk, which will be good for you all over.

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Turn Your iPad Into a Real Typewriter!


April 1, 2013

Touch-screen keyboards can be difficult to use sometimes, because the key spaces are closer together and smaller than on a standard keyboard, and even if you’re a fast touch typist you might find that this slows you down. But with this iPad docking station, you’ll get the benefits of modern technology and a great retro look and feel. Use the vintage manual typewriter keys to type as you would on any keyboard, and the specially-designed arm will softly strike the iPad’s smaller keyboard in the right places. You won’t wear out your eyes or your thumbs trying to use those small virtual keys, when you can benefit from technology that’s been tried and tested for decades!

Wait a minute ….

It was just an April Fool’s joke played on the internet community (some of whom believed it) by British company SpinningHat back in 2011. There are many forms of plug-in and virtual keyboards on the market that can make typing easier if you’re having a problem using your touchscreen interface, but a fake manual typewriter setup isn’t something that would likely save you time, and there’s no way one single striking arm could keep up with even average typing speed. In future posts we’ll look at some of these keyboard alternatives – and we won’t be fooling around, really! – but if you want to experience the look and sound of a 1930s-era manual typewriter, you can go to the DigitalFuture site and play with their virtual machine. The only thing missing is the paper!

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Fast Typing Tonics, Perfect Keyboard Skills


March 27, 2013

Location, location, location – that’s the key to the real estate world, and also the key to touch typing. You need to have your hands positioned correctly on the keyboard, and your fingers have to know exactly where all the letters are without your eyes having to help them along. When your hands are properly placed over the home row of the keyboard, you’ll be able to type in the fastest, most efficient way possible. The Fast Typing Tonics exercises in Typesy help you with specific practice routines to get your hands and fingers used to working on the home row, the top row, and the bottom row, or all three rows together. You’ll get exercises designed to strengthen your right hand and your left hand, separately or in combination.

You can practice these skills on your own as well, just by coming up with lists of words or phrases that focus on certain areas of the keyboard, or particular combinations of letters that give you problems. Remember, the more you practice, the more quickly your fingers will get the “muscle memory” that is essential to fast and accurate touch typing.

Here are some practice words that target different areas of the keyboard:

TOP ROW WORDS
typewriter
proprietor
perpetuity
repertoire
territory
potpourri
etiquette
propriety
prototype
pirouette
puppeteer

HOME ROW WORDS
alfalfas
flasks
salads
glass
alas
falls
glad
galls

LEFT HAND WORDS
tesseract
cataract
stewardess
aftereffect
exacerbated
reverberate
vertebrae
exaggerate
segregate
wasted

RIGHT HAND WORDS
lollipop
limply
polyphony
milky
million
homily
homonym
jolly
inky
hippo
jumpily
monopoly
kimono
knoll

ALTERNATING HAND WORDS
skepticism
endowment
dismantle
chairman
visitor
proficient
rifle
enchantment
problem
social

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Is a Typewriter a Musical Instrument?


March 21, 2013

If you’re young enough that you’ve always done your typing on a laptop or PC keyboard, you might have forgotten – if you ever knew – that typewriters used to be stand-alone machines. Electric typewriters had different “font balls” that needed to be removed and replaced, ink ribbons would tear or run out, and the loud hum of the machine was a constant noise in the office, along with the clacking of the keys.

But even before electric typewriters, the manual typewriter made a lot of noise. There was no electrical hum, but the keys that hit the paper made a lot more noise, and there was no [Enter] or [Return] key. The keys didn’t move, the paper did, because the paper was threaded onto a movable roller bar. In order to move from the end of one line to start the beginning of the next, the typist had to pull a lever (called a “carriage return”) sideways that returned the roller bar from the far-right position back to the left-hand starting position. That lever made a distinctive zzwiiiick! noise that punctuated the regular clicking of the keys. What’s more, most manual typewriters had a little bell that would ring when the typist was approaching the end of the right-hand margin, so that they would know that they were about to run out of paper. Unlike today’s computers, which automatically move the cursor to the next line, a typist using a manual typewriter could end up stuck at the right edge of the page, with all of the keys hitting the same spot, creating a big black smudge of ink instead of individual words.

With all the clicking and clacking, the bells dinging and the carriage return levers making their peculiar buzz, a busy office in the 1950s was definitely a noisy place! But “one person’s noise is another person’s music,” as they say, and there have been people in the past who have taken the sounds of typewriters and made them part of musical compositions.

One of the first was Leroy Anderson, a popular orchestral composer, who wrote the short work called “The Typewriter” in 1950. In 1968 the group The Lovin’ Spoonful used a typewriter as percussion on their single “Money”. And of course, the theme song from that 1980 working woman’s movie “9 to 5” is a natural place for the typewriter to play a musical part!

These days, with manual typewriters and even electric ones ending up more in antique stores than modern office buildings, we’re forgetting about the music that a typist makes. Well, most of us are forgetting anyway – the Boston Typewriter Orchestra is rescuing old machines and making new music. Learn about the BTO here, and the next time you see an old manual typewriter in the window of a vintage shop, remember that you can use it to create more than words!

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Tell Me A Story! Typing and Authors Past and Present


March 13, 2013

We’ve always told stories to each other, starting back in the days when those tales were spun by the fireside and passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. When those stories were written down – traced on papyrus, or chipped into stone, or scratched out by a goose-quill pen, or pressed in ink on sheets of paper – we could wander away from the fire and read stories to ourselves, or out loud to others. But from the very beginning, someone had to come up with those stories, no matter how they were recorded later. The tools that storytellers use have changed over the years, and authors today have the choice of pen or pencil, electric or manual typewriter (yes, they still exist!), computer word processor or voice recorder. Many authors find touch typing to be an essential skill, allowing them to record their words as fast as they come to mind.

One of the faster typists was the author Jack Kerouac. He used a manual typewriter, but instead of using individual sheets of paper, he threaded an entire roll of paper into the machine so that he wouldn’t have to stop the flow of words to change pages. He also didn’t go back to edit those words, which led to a comment from another author of the day, Truman Capote, who said, “That’s not writing, it’s typing.” Kerouac’s work is still popular and widely read, and one of his typewriters sold for over $20,000 at an auction in 2010.

Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) was the first American author to have a typewritten book published; he typed the manuscript for “Life on the Mississippi” (1882) on an early Remington model. Other authors, like Henry James, dictated to secretaries who would type for them. The imaginary author of the “archy and mehitabel” books was a cockroach who jumped onto typewriter keys one at a time. Real-life author Don Marquis used no capitals, because a cockroach wouldn’t be able to hold down the [Shift] key while pressing the letters.

While many modern authors have moved to the computer screen, Harlan Ellison and Cormac McCarthy say that they’re still using typewriters. It’s becoming harder to find typewriters, or people who know how to repair them, and soon all writers may be required to use electronic documents for their work – or go back to pencil and paper.

When there’s no barrier between creativity and creation – that is, when you don’t have to stop and think about how to type the words you want – then you’ll be writing faster. Of course, that doesn’t always mean you’ll be writing well! But the extra time you save by your touch typing skills will give you more time to go back to edit and refine your work. Whether you write for a living or not, good typing skills will help you succeed.

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10 Top Typing Tips


March 6, 2013

You might think that it’s only a question of getting your fingers properly trained in order to be a fast typist, but in fact your entire body is involved in the process of touch typing. Muscles, nerves, and tendons are connected throughout your body from your toes to your fingertips to the top of your head. If there’s tension anywhere, that stress is communicated throughout the rest of the system and will affect your typing speed. In order to stay relaxed and in optimal typing shape, follow these ten ergonomic tips:

Tip #1: Elbow Position. If your arms have to work hard to support your hands and fingers on the keyboard, that increases tension in your shoulders and neck. Make sure your elbows are comfortably supported and relaxed at the side of your body.

Tip #2: Chair Height. In order for your elbows to be in the right position, your chair needs to be at the right height so that your arms aren’t in an awkward position. However, your feet need to still be touching the ground, with your upper legs parallel to the floor.

Tip #3: Wrist Support. Don’t let your wrists dangle, or use too much effort to keep them in position above the keyboard. Try a keyboard shelf to adjust the height of your hands and forearms.

Tip #4: Desktop Height. There’s only so much you can do to adjust your chair height, so look also at the height of the work surface. You need enough height to leave space for your legs, but not so much that you have to reach up for the keyboard.

Tip #5: Monitor Position. You should be looking straight ahead at your computer screen, with the image at eye level, without having to tilt your head in any direction.

Tip #6: Monitor Distance. Keep the screen between 20 and 40 inches away from your eyes. If you have problems seeing the screen, try increasing the text display size. Don’t forget to get your vision checked regularly.

Tip #7: Arm Position. If your desk and chair are at the right height, you should be able to work with your arms flat, keeping your fingers and wrists in a natural, neutral position.

Tip #8: Wrist Position. “Neutral” wrist position means that your wrists aren’t bent forward or backward. There should be a relatively flat line across the top of your forearm over the wrist and to the back of your hand.

Tip #9: Optimal Visibility. Glare on your screen is bad for your position and your eyes, and too little light is just as bad. If you find yourself leaning forwards to squint past glare or see more clearly, reposition your monitor or adjust the lighting in your workspace.

Tip #10: Workspace Arrangement. Keep your desk de-cluttered and you’ll find that it’s easier to keep your keyboard and monitor in the best position. To help with both posture and efficiency, try using a document holder placed just to the side of your screen at the same height so that you can easily move your eyes between the paper and the display.

Check out Typesy Community and exchange ideas related to touch typing, keyboarding, learning, technology, and Typesy program itself. Login with your Typesy Account here: https://community.typesy.com/

What Are The Hardest Words To Type?


February 26, 2013

According to Martin Krzywinski, a Canadian specialist in bioinformatics (who should know about difficult-to-type words, given his last name!), these are some of the hardest words to type on a standard QWERTY keyboard:

pizazz
piazzas
pizzas
suburban
assuming
obstinance
foramens

The difficulty of these words was determined by the physical effort used to type them. Doubled letters can be hard, especially when the letter is typed with one of the little fingers, and that’s why double-z words appear on this list so frequently. Odd and awkward letter patterns, or groups of letters that are easy to confuse, make for hard-to-type words as well. In addition, unfamiliar words (like foramens) are hard to type, because the typist doesn’t have the advantage of “muscle memory” that comes from the repeated typing of more common words.

However, even words that might be typed often still can cause problems. If you look through typing-related forums or message boards, you’ll see words like existentialism, sovereignty, and dachshund (words that people find hard to spell in general, not just to type) but also words like their, which many people constantly mistype as thier, getting the two index-finger vowels out of order. If you’ve been touch typing for a while, you might have identified your own stumbling blocks: one or two words that seem to always come out wrong. Check the Typesy lesson list to see if there’s an exercise that you can use to focus on correcting those words in the future, or just spend some time practicing the words that slow you down.

Things that tend to really trip people up when they’re typing are often not related to letter order. One common error people report is accidentally missing a capitalization, or accidentally typing two capital letters in a row. These are definitely typing errors, but they’re also common enough that most word processing programs either automatically correct them, or allow you to set flags that catch and change the error as you type. We don’t recommend counting on this sort of automatic editor, but it might be a good backup.

What word(s) do you find hardest to type correctly?

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The Best Free Typing Games


February 19, 2013

As the developers at Typesy know, one of the best ways to get people to work hard at something is to make them think that they’re not working at all! In other words, when you make something into a game, people are going to want to spend time on it. If you’ve ever heard the expression “time flies when you’re having fun” you’ll know what we mean. That’s why Typesy incorporates games into their software, giving users the chance to relax and have fun while still focusing on improving touch typing skills. If you’re looking for other typing games, whether for kids or adults, there are more options on the internet as well. These free typing games will help train your fingers to be quick on the keys, and you’ll think you’re hardly working even though you’re working hard.

Try Typer Shark to get a challenge with fast-paced word and individual letter typing. You’re a deep sea diver looking for treasure, but watch out for the sharks! You’ll have to type the words on the sharks to make them disappear, and the deeper you dive, the faster the sharks get. Collect points and treasure, and improve your typing skills at the same time.

Come out of the water and into the henhouse to play Chicktionary for a real time-based challenge. In this game, you need to spell as many words as you can using the letters provided in each round. The faster you type, the more words you’ll be able to enter before the time runs out. This game is great for touch typing practice as well as vocabulary improvement and spelling skills.

The BBC’s Dance Mat Typing series also features chickens, but this game is designed for the very youngest children. This set of videos takes kids through typing basics, using illustrated cartoons and games and exercises. It’s a good way to introduce children to the concept of touch typing, and helps them avoid getting into the “hunt and peck” habit as they start using the computer more.

Another great typing resource for children is the set of arcade games on the SpongeBob SquarePants theme. Although only the trial version of this set is free, kids will love typing fast to keep their car speeding along the racetrack, and the SpongeBob connection will attract their interest and attention. The familiar arcade game format will also appeal to them, and encourage them to spend time on their typing practice – though they might not realize that’s what they’re doing!

Check out Typesy Community and exchange ideas related to touch typing, keyboarding, learning, technology, and Typesy program itself. Login with your Typesy Account here: https://community.typesy.com/

Is Your Computer Mouse Giving You RSI?


February 12, 2013

When you bought your home computer or laptop, or put in a request to upgrade your computer system at work, you probably spent a good bit of time thinking about the type of computer you wanted, and where you were going to put it. After all, you need good equipment to get good results, and having your computer in a convenient location where you’re able to sit comfortably and easily reach the rest of your work materials is also an important factor in getting those results efficiently and effectively. If you bought a PC, you might have even considered different types of keyboards, so that your hands could be in the most stress-free position for fast touch typing. However, you might not have thought much about the computer mouse you bought. After all, the mouse is off to the side, and it’s not generally used while typing, so it’s not really important, right?

Wrong.

If you spend a lot of time at the computer, you definitely spend a lot of time using a mouse, unless you’re working on a laptop and only using the touchpad. While touchpad usage can also cause problems because of cramped hand or shoulder positions, that’s a topic for another post. Today, we’re going to look at how the mouse you choose and use might affect your posture, your health, and even your typing speed.

What type of mouse should I use? Most people go with the standard “mouse”-shaped device that rolls on a trackball or uses laser tracking, where the point-and-click functions are done with the index and second fingers. If you find that your hand cramps after too much clicking, you may need to look into a different type of mouse or a different position. There are “joystick” versions of the mouse that change your hand position and use the thumb as well as the fingers for clicking, and these can relieve the strain on your hand. If you’re comfortable with your hand in the “writing” position then you might also look at a pen-shaped mouse, a new style that is getting good reviews.

Where should the mouse be located? Ideally, your mouse should be as close to the keyboard as possible, so that movement is minimized. You can buy platforms that allow you to position the mouse over the right or left side of the keyboard; generally with a PC keyboard there’s room over the numeric keypad for the platform, and you can move the platform out of the way if you’re going to be doing number input. If that’s not possible, make sure your mouse position doesn’t require you to stretch your arm forward or too far to the side. Think about using a wireless mouse to eliminate the cord and provide more flexibility in positioning.

How should I use the mouse to avoid RSI? Since RSI (repetitive strain injury) is caused by doing the same motions over and over, especially if those motions cause pressure or pain in muscles or tendons, one of the best ways to avoid it is to avoid making those motions too many times. While you’ll have to use your mouse for some computer functions, you can also accomplish many tasks with keystroke equivalents. Use the [Page Up] and [Page Down] keys instead of the mouse to move through a document, and learn command key sequences like [Ctrl]-[P] to call up your print menu, rather than clicking on the menu bar.

Check out Typesy Community and exchange ideas related to touch typing, keyboarding, learning, technology, and Typesy program itself. Login with your Typesy Account here: https://community.typesy.com/

Test Your Top Typing Speed With Transcription


February 7, 2013

Are you focused on improving your typing skills because you want a new job, or a better job? In a previous post we talked about some of the employment opportunities you’ll find opening up for you when you’re a top typist, including legal transcriptionist and medical transcriptionist. Transcription in general involves listening to an audio tape or file, or watching a video, and typing what is being said. Most people agree that for English language speakers, the average speaking rate is around 125 words per minute. If you want to be able to type as fast as people speak, that’s the target wpm you need to aim for. Don’t worry – it’s not an impossible goal, even if it seems like it right now. By using the techniques and exercises provided in the Typesy software courses, it’s possible to triple your typing speed; since most average typists start out at around 45wpm, you can see that the goal of 125wpm is well within reach.

One way you can get practice in transcription and challenge yourself is by trying to transcribe what people are saying on the television or radio. For this exercise, you’ll want to find a show that doesn’t have several people talking at once, but rather one person talking at a time. A nature show with narration is a good place to start, or any other documentary. The people hired to narrate these shows are selected for their speaking skills, so you’ll not have a problem understanding them, and they will be speaking relatively slowly. Take your laptop to the living room and type along with the words you hear – but don’t get too caught up in the videos of the cute lion cubs or the history of space exploration while you’re typing!

The television is useful for another typing exercise in transcription if you turn on the “captioning” option. The people who are typing in the captions have to type quickly, as quickly as the words come, but there will be a delay between the spoken words and the words that appear on the screen. You can test yourself to see if you can type the captions faster than they appear, or you can turn the sound off and type the captions as you read them on the screen. Is it faster for you to type what you see, or what you hear? Practice what you’re good at to get better, and focus on where you’re slower to improve your speed.

Check out Typesy Community and exchange ideas related to touch typing, keyboarding, learning, technology, and Typesy program itself. Login with your Typesy Account here: https://community.typesy.com/

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