💉 😷
Two weeks I got the 3rd COVID-19 vaccine dosage. Yay!
On my first two shots I felt great, just a small ache in the receiving arm. This time however, as I tweeted “I feel fantastic” the next day I started to get the chills. You know, the classic symptoms when you get a cold. You feel, well, cold and have an overall body ache. I might’ve jinxed it 🤦♂️
⌨️ Trying a different keyboard layout
It has been strange. I started the week by challenging myself to try a different keyboard layout. I usually type in a Spain ISO QWERTY with an Apple Magic Keyboard.
I had read that Colemak is a much more performant layout for typing English. When you look at videos comparing QWERTY to Colemak you can clearly see the fingers and hands doing less travel with Colemak.
So on Monday I did the switch. Not only on the macOS but on the actual physical keyboard, moving the key caps around. Is not that hard nor dangerous if you are careful, just watch a video on YouTube for how to do it.
I started at a slow pace of 10 words per minute, compared to the 80 words per minute I could do with the standard keyboard. Yeah, it was a big dip in speed but that was to be expected.
The day after I was already at 20 words per minute, not bad but not great either. I was aware that it would take me weeks until I could confidently type fast and without looking down. That was ok. I was immediately surprised seeing how most of the English words I could do with mainly the middle keyboard row. Still, was it good enough for me?
What I didn’t account for is that it would slow me down even more when writing Spanish or Catalan. With all the à ó è ü that we use Colemak is not great. I was very, very inconvenient, to the point that I gave up. Even though my daily work is all in English I do use Spanish and Catalan, so that was a blocker for me.
If you only type in English, I would encourage you to checkout other non-standard layouts. It might surprise you!
Have you ever tried a different layout?
🍜 One miso ramen please
Oh, and this is how I started my week 😏 Are you a fan of Japanese ramen?
Have a great weekend!
Ricard