The main drawback is after you get good on your Dvorak computer, you couldn't type for crap on a different computer unless you change the key layout (which assumes you have admin access).

I hope they void his warranty

Hasn't that whole 'Dvorak layout is better' thing been debunked?

Why do you hope that auer?? The Dvorak keyboard is awsome I changed my iBooks layout a few weeks ago.. and I still pactice my qwerty for other comtpuer's sake..

This is proposterous! Ingenius! Ridiculous! Erroneous! Incredible! Deplorable!

Neato.

I once had a colleague who told me that learning Dvorak is the surest sign of underemployment. I was, at the time, unemployed and learning Dvorak.

I wonder what he would have to say about blog commenting ...

This is hardly news. People have been doing this on keyboards for years. I did the exact same thing on my old 12" Powerbook. And if you do change it to Dvorak it is actually simpler to switch back to QWERTY anytime you want. I never cared to learn how to use 5 fingers to type but when I learned Dvorak it actually made me use all 10 fingers when I typed with QWERTY. All in all it was a plus for both typing styles for me.

But really it's nothing new.

I learned Dvorak one summer while I was in college. It didn't take long to learn, but there's really no reason to change the physical keys since you have to change the mapping in the OS anyways. Yeah, I hit the key labeled "H" and it types "D", what of it? I don't look at the keys, why do I care what's written on them?

To FlashSandbox (and those of like mind): it's not really hard to use another computer because (A) I learned QWERTY before, and the muscle memory isn't completely lost, and (B) the keys are all labeled!

Dvorak's being faster is an urban myth. Reason mag debunked it years ago: http://www.reason.com/news/show/29944.html

There is zero evidence that Dvorak helps people type faster. Studies and competitions have been done. (The "Navy study" is BS.)

Yet another blog posting a picture of a MacBook keyboard, reminding me that it looks just like a QWERTY calculator ;).

No, this is not a PC Zealot typing, just a MacBook Pro owner.

leave it up to a mac user to think that they are better then the rest of us.

Nope, I also own 4 PC's which alongside my MBP are all used for recreation. I was commenting on how untypewriter like and more Fisher Price the MacBook keyboard is.

I've had mine set on dvorak pretty much since I got it, doesnt void warrenty, they do replace the keyboard any time I have had to send it in for repairs.

Hey Joe Manning, they make decaf that's just as tasty as regular coffee. You should look into it.

I have a G4 Powerbook and those keys pop off pretty easily. it's a little scary to try the first time, but it's doable.

I'm mostly afraid of having to go back to QWERTY at work.

And I couldn't consider Dvorak til I get a dedicated computer for the wife.

Dvorak debunked here: http://wwwpub.utdallas.edu/~liebowit/keys1.html

Torque: How did you have a colleague when you were unemployed?

I'd like to know how much of a speed bump one gets from typing Dvorak. I type 100wpm on average with the standard qwerty setup--what sort of boost could I expect to get from Dvorak?

Michael: it doesn't quite work like that, at least for me.

I bought a Kinesis-ergo keyboard because my wrists hurt. They lay out the keys in vertical rows because that's how our fingers are designed to move (no diagonals=less stress). It kept throwing me, especially the N and M placement.

So I decided to learn the dvorak layout. One of the changes I decided to make was to get myself properly retrained by typing slowly and deliberately rather than using my "pinky of death" to delete my mistakes really quickly.

The end result is that I make many fewer mistakes when I type, there is much less stress, and from what I can tell my output is about the same. Either way I tend to be limited more by my brain than my fingers.

It is also my experience that switching between layouts is not difficult because I know how to type qwerty so well. I consider myself bilingual.

Michael:

I should have written "former colleague" or "former colleague turned friend."

Blame the error on my using a QWERTY keyboard.

Ah yes, the "myth" of Dvorak. The studies done that proved Dvorak was faster was, well, done by Dvorak himself. And they couldn't be replicated to any provable extent (i.e., all subsequent independent studies went either way with insignificant gains reported compared to the training involved). About the possibly interesting thing may be a claim that Dvorak reduces RSI. Maybe. But it's no longer a "speed king" advantage.

The reason they QWERTY keys were laid out wasn't exactly to slow people down, but to spare out common letter pairs so that the type would rest further apart on the type bar. It's when two type are close together on the type bar that they have a very good chance of sticking if you hit the keys very closely together. If you put them further apart, the "conflict" time becomes much lower so jamming the type is a less-frequent occurance.

In fact, QWERTY has several efficiencies built in it to make people *faster*. Like common letter sequencies use alternating hands (like "th", "gh" and such) or at least different fingers. (You can preposition fingers to hit the next letter soon after hitting the last one).

That's not to say there aren't drawbacks - some of the more common characters are on "weak" fingers like the pinky (a, p), but it seems to have done a good job. There's a reason why it's extremely common now and why Dvorak and other layouts have nearly all died out. (It was much easier to get Dvorak keyboards a decade or more ago). The explosion on easily-remappable keys in operating systems had little to do with it, I believe. (If you go to a different markets, like thumb-boards and stuff, they still use QWERTY even though hunting and pecking and thumb-typing are different actions).

GET A LIFE PEOPLE.

Yes, this will void your Apple warranty. Totally stupid, but that is how Apple wants to play it.

*sigh*...Dvorak debunkings debunked here:
[www.mwbrooks.com]

The "debunking" on the ironically named reason.com is highly questionable, and doesn't really stand up to scrutiny.

It *feels* right, though, because it's really long, and uses big, fancy words!

That is a bit random and I like th e keyboard how it is lol...I would never want to change it any way so yeah!!! I randomly came across this website and I saw you could comment so I made an account and I will probably never go on it again, aw well. It was fun whilst it lasted...