Hello everyone.  I just thought I'd join in and share my experiences with trying Colemak.  I'll answer the questions recommended in the sticky directly.

* What layout you've been using beforehand, and how long you've been typing with it
I'm 23, and I've been regularly been using a computer since I was 8 or so.  Of course, that was QWERTY, so about 15 years.  My max speed was around 100 wpm according to typingtest.com.  I touch type, but not the exact correct way.  I know proper form, but I don't think it's actually best when you have to leave home row so much.  My brain seems to have come up with its own optimizations to deal with the layout, including resting some fingers on the top row since all of the good ones are up there.

I tried Dvorak at the end of last year for about a month and a half total, cold turkey about 2 weeks in.  I got to 65 wpm or so during that time (again, according to typingtest.com). I was happy that proper form actually helped here.  I actually really liked Dvorak except for the L and R positions, and ctrl Z, X, C, V.  I considered Colemak after finding those Dvorak issues really annoying, but I still stuck with it because I felt Dvorak’s was more well-tested.  I realize Colemak development had modern computing on its side (computing travel distance and repeats and the like), but I don’t know anything about Shai Coleman, and while not knowing about the creator doesn’t say anything about the quality of the layout, the fact that I knew about Dvorak was more comforting, in a sense.  And I liked how Dvorak was an ANSI standard and already preinstalled. (But it turns out installing Colemak is pretty painless after all).

After a bit of deliberation, I ultimately decided that it couldn’t hurt too badly to at least try and compare.  I could always just switch back if I wanted to. Besides, while Dvorak had those few annoyances I mentioned, Colemak had no apparent flaws or potential annoyances!

* How long you've been using Colemak for, and how many estimated hours per week you've typed with it.
I’ve typed in Colemak since the 22nd (7 days ago). I’ve typed maybe…20 hours, but a lot of that time is programming in a Matlab heavy week (which is more thinking than anything else).

* Mention the methods you used to learn the layout.
I spent the first day learning the positions, and then I went cold turkey from there. That means I’m typing this post in Colemak.  I used the tutorials on Typefaster for the first few days, but now I’m just learning by using in my day-to-day.  Instant Messaging, imo, is the BEST way to get speed, especially when your friends type 80-120+ wpm.  Gotta keep up!

* What operating system you're using.
Windows 7 – 64 bit

* If you mention typing speed, mention what way you used to measure it. Use one of the typing tests to measure it.
Here is my daily progress, taken at the end of the day. It refers to my MAX speed, but, at this point, that is close to my average. I use the 1 minute hi-games.net test.

I think I would have increased a little faster if I came directly from the more similar QWERTY layout instead of coming from a Dvorak stage, during which I could not type in QWERTY without quite a bit of difficulty.  One thing I’m liking about Colemak is that I somehow regained my ability to also type QWERTY which is good for quick things on other computers.

* Share any tips about learning the layout.
As I’ve said earlier, instant messaging is probably the fastest way, but I’d wait a couple days after converting so you don’t annoy your friends too much by being so slow.
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* Please post updates to your experiences as a reply in the same thread of your previous experience.
I’ll try to keep up with my graphs on max speed and update regularly.  Probably a week from now I’ll see if I’m still increasing in speed.