That's right - you heard me, I look at my hands when I type! I'm not proud of it, but it's true. I just never learned to type correctly. Everyone in my high school was required to take a 7 week typing class during their junior year. The teacher of this class went on and on about learning to type the right way and how I would regret it if I didn't. I didn't listen. I don't even remember who taught the class, but if you are out there - YOU WERE RIGHT!

It's no good being in front of a computer all day and looking down at my hands. It slows me down. While I'm looking at my hands I'm spelling things wrong on the screen, missing words, doing bad things. By the time I look up I've typed two paragraphs of an email and I have to read it over to find mistakes. Sometimes I just fire off the email only to realize too late that it's so full of mistakes that it looks like a 3rd grader wrote it.

I've tried for years not to look down and to learn how to do it right. I've always failed. Then one day recently I went to a client's office to give a little help with a code problem they were having. I promptly sat down in front of her computer and realized in horror that half of the letters were worn off the keyboard! It was embarrassing, but I stumbled my way though the session, typing, correcting and cursing myself for never learning to just stop looking down.

However, I noticed something interesting by the time I left. I was slowly improving over the course of the session. Just in the 2 hours I was there, I noticed a significant improvement in my ability the "get it right the first time" when typing. I thought to myself, I need to steal this keyboard!

Unfortunately, my client caught me on the way out with her keyboard and I had to return it. But I still wanted a keyboard that would have the same effect, so I made one. I took a Macromedia User Group sticker and a hole punch and punched a buncha holes in it. I used those little round stickers to cover up all the keys on the keyboard. Any sticker will do, but it's more fun when you use stickers you are supposed to be handing out at CFUG meetings.

Viola! Instant learning tool. I'm going to keep my home keyboard set up like this and leave the work/laptop ones alone. I wonder how long it will be before I either go insane or learn to type correctly?

For the record, this blog posting was the very first thing I typed after doing this little experiment, and the hardest word to type (ironically) is the word "keyboard".