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

[broadmeadow.livejournal.com]

If this twisted hand syndrome becomes more serious than a mere nuisance you could always investigate one of these (http://www.smith-family-news.co.uk/2004/023-012.html) (a cykey chording keyboard). Victoria uses it as it only requires one hand; it also requires very little hand movement (the four fingers have one key each, the thumb has three to move between).

[pm215]

Be aware that the new models are rubber-key rather than the proper physical keys you can see in that photo. If you do want to investigate you're welcome to borrow the (new style) one that's sat in my drawer at work (assuming you can find keyboard, instruction book and the infrared receiver thingy for it...)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thanks, but I don't imagine it's a serious problem.

And if I'm going to go to the trouble of learning a new keyboard-use-pattern, I might as well learn to use a QWERTY board properly :)