First off, I've been using QWERTY for a while now, but never actually typed properly with it (had a class on it ages ago, so kinda know how to do it). My fingers can find all the qwerty keys w/o looking at the keyboard though they usually press the keys however they feel like (I'm not even sure what they're doing since they pretty much do it automatically w/o me thinking) that ends up with a speed of somewhere around ~80 WPM.
Anyways, I figured I better actually learn how to type properly with the standard finger positions and everything, since I'd actually have more fingers to type with that way. From that came the thought that if I'm going to learn this, I might as well do it with a better keyboard design than qwerty. Which led to finding out about Colemak and this forum.
I will say right now though that I love making the caps lock into another backspace. It's such a brilliant idea, and I can foresee that left backspace being really useful for when I'm trying to write stories on here.
I also figured that making a progress thread here might help motivate me to actually see this switching thing through, since it's not easy, though I'm learning. Having a log would be nice to look back on too later.
Day 1:
Started with the typefaster program to learn this layout & jot my memory of typing technique again. After a few lessons, I could at least type some short messages on forums and IMs with Colemak, even though it takes a while to type out.
I then made an account on hi-games since I liked the idea of tracking my progress over time. Got a score of 9 WPM with it, which I guess isn't too bad for not knowing where all the keys are yet.
Day 2:
Managed to hit 16 WPM in hi-games, but I love this layout already. Fingers are already learning the right keys, but the top row messes me up a lot.
Hopefully this gets easier to use after a while of practicing and such, since I'm really liking this layout, and proper typing technique.
~L