I have previously mentioned my "addiction" to Scrabble and it's new Facebook knock-off, Scrabulous, which is in danger of being killed by Facebook, as it evidently might be an infringement of Hasbro's rights. But I digress. Qwerty refers to the common computer keyboard. Look up there in the left hand corner.
Further, your keyboard may have dots or raised lines on the "F" and the "J" keys. They are part of the home keys (A-S-D-F for the left hand, J-K-L-; for the right hand). I took typing in both junior high school and high school. I was miserable as I had already learned to type myself. For the longest time, I used to have to look at the keyboard to make sure I was pushing the right keys. Now, I can pretty much look at the screen to see if things are correct. The backspace and the delete keys are still very much used in my world. Computers have made that so much easier.
So what's my point? I could go on about how secretaries are becoming less utile and more of a status symbol for executives as "typing" becomes easier and there are fewer occasions when someone needs to be asked to "take a memo." Or I could argue that the art of hand writing is rapidly becoming a lost art, but that is a blog post for a different day, as I could go on about that for some time. I really just wanted to show off this site I found, again courtesy of one of my most favorite sites on the web, kottke.org. The site has let me know that I can type between 35-45 words per minute. It tracks errors and tells you how fast you type. It's kinda cool.
4 comments:
Along similar lines:
I like TyperA - test your typing skills.
I'm averaging 72, with minimal errors, on both sites.
I used to have to look at my fingers all the time until I started my curent job. One of my first projects was word-processing two three-hundred page manuscripts (Grade 8 U.S. History: Books 1 and 2). Ugh! I increased my speed and accuracy, but felt like I was developing some kind of rapid-onset carpal tunnel. Thankfully, most of our authors are now technologically proficient enough to submit the bulk of their work electronically, and we have OCR software to scan the rest.
I've taken plenty of typing tests related to job searches in my life. These days I type about 70wpm with no errors. I can go faster, but I'm comfy at 70. I've gotten rather good with the number pad, too, although I don't remember my kpm on that right now.
Thank goodness I took typing in high school, too - a long, long time ago.
Do they still offer it? How do kids today learn the touch system?
dd
I came in at 51 at the site. Unfortunately, my ability to spell correctly kept getting in my way.
I learned to type in H.S., because it was a pre-req. for the computer programming classes.
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