We all love you, shifty disco girl.

[venta]

Note to self: There is a shift key on the right of the keyboard. Look, it's quite big, just below the enter key. You should consider using it.

Because, you see, I don't. I use the left-hand-side shift key pretty much exclusively. Obviously, if the key I'm shifting is on the LHS of the keyboard, this can involve twisting my wrist round awkwardly. If I do it too much (as I seem to have done in the last 24 hours) I end up with quite a painful sensation in the outside of my wrist.

Does anyone have a deliberate policy (or know what their accidental policy is) on shift-key use ? When do you use right or left ?

If you were typing a long string of caps JUST LIKE THIS, how would you do it ? When someone noticed a while back that I occasionally use capslock for this kind of thing there were howls of disgust and derision as if I'd been caught out shagging a donkey, or somesuch. Do you ever use capslock ? Is there an optimal length of a string of letters at which it becomes "worth it" to use the capslock key ?

Further note to self: Hey, there's a Control key over on the right, too! Who'd have thought it ?

Comments

[wimble.livejournal.com]

I don't think I ever use the caps-lock key. I just fold my thumb back under my hand and leave it on the shift key.

JUST LIKE THIS

I used the left hand shift key for the text, keeping it held down. My left hand home keys seem to be F E W Q, so holding shift isn't too bad. Normally, to get to the middle of the keyboard, I have to move my hand across. With shift held down, I move my right hand to the left to compensate.

I was going to say I didn't use the right hand shift key at all. But then I typed the <cite> tags around the text, and found I was using the right shift key for the shifted punctuation symbols, holding it down with my right little finger.

[venta.livejournal.com]

You hold down the shift with your thumb ? Blimey. That is odd. Fourth finger, or occasionally little finger for me.

Now I'm thinking about it, I observe that I never use my left thumb at all, my right thumb does all the space-bar-hitting for me.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

See? Your thumb will atrophy and fall off. Mine gets excercise!

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

I found that it's difficult to observe how you type because, by becoming conscious of it, you suddenly lose the ability. But I noticed (and was never previously aware of this) that I too exlusively use my left thumb for the shift key (that is, I only use the thumb for that key, and I never use the thumb for anything else). Right thumb is similarly exclusively used for the space bar.

Damn. Now I'm going to be watching my typing all afternoon.

A few weeks ago, whilst using my computer at home, Nathaniel (aged 5) asked me why I used one of the keys so much. The key in question wasn't space, or anything worthy like that. No, it was backspace ...

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Listening to my typing, you might think I had quite a high typing speed.
tap-tap-tap-tap-tap. Say 5 keystrokes per "time-unit"

Ah, but two of those taps are backspace-correct.

So it's really only 3 keystrokes per "time-unit" :)

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Great. So now I get to obsess about how much I use backspace, too.

Which is, in this post, a grand total of three times.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

My left hand home keys seem to be F E W Q

<looks at keyboard>

You are a Martian and I claim my five pounds.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Nah, if you think about it, having those as home keys is a fairly natural corollary of having your thumb on the shift.

Wimble may still be a Martian, of course, mind.