Hi,

I started using Colemak about 4-5 months ago. I am now almost at my previous qwerty speed, and will probably pass it in an additional few months.

I first started to look for a new keyboard layout about a two to three years ago. I experimented with dvorak for a short while, but given that I am working with UNIX-like systems and do a lot of command line work, the 'l' and 's' placement was extremely annoying. It was in-fact such a big problem that I gave up. If I would have been doing non technical work where I do not have to type the command "ls" as much as I do, my story would probably have ended there, and I would most likely be a dvorak user now.

I went back to qwerty after this. At this point I was not properly touch-typing, I was looking a lot on the keyboard, though I used all my fingers to type. I was never able to learn to touch type properly, due to the fact that i have fairly short fingers for being a guy, and the fact that due to genetics my pinkies are bent inwards quite a bit. This ment for example that it was impossible for me to hit the return (and not to mention the backspace key) without lifting up and moving my hands.

A little more than a year ago, my hands started to feel strained from keyboard usage, so I decided to get a Kinesis Advantage keyboard. Getting this keyboard meant that I finally was able to start touch-typing for real (return, space, backspace and delete are conveniently under the thumbs on these keyboards). Having switched keyboard to something non-standard, my typing speed naturally reduced in the beginning, but after one month on the Kinesis, I had surpassed my previous speed, and after six months I was typing very fast, a lot faster than basically every one I know except for maybe one person. This from being a rather slow typist compared to most of my friends felt rather good. Most of the strain that I felt in my hands went away thanks to this.

Still, there were room for improvements. I was moving my fingers a lot more than necessary. I was considering switching to something like Arensito, which was designed to be used with the Kinesis, but the fact that it is very cumbersome when using a "normal" keyboard which I have to do when I am using a laptop, was rather problematic. Also, the Arensito layout is/was only available for X11, and working in heterogeneous computer environments, this is a major problem. I am mostly using Linux, Solaris and MacOS X, but have to work in Windows occasionally. On my previous job, we had a standard for corporate PCs with Windows, while all programming was done on UNIX systems, meaning that I was using Windows with a fullscreen Cygwin running remote X sessions. Not the best environment, but it is not so uncommon that one might think. Non the less, the point here being that I needed a layout that was available for Mac OS X, X11 and Windows (I ported the Arensito layout to the Mac OS, but I had to rely on that I could reprogram some of the keys on my Kinesis for this to work, and I have no idea of how one writes a keyboard layout for Windows, and I do not feel like doing it).

About half a year ago a stumbled across Colemak, and seeing that it was available for all the platforms that I needed to use, it was not suffering from the 'l' and 's' problems, and as a bonus, q, w, z, x, c and v were on the same places as on qwerty, meaning that I did not have to re-learn the common keyboard short-cuts, I decided to give it a try.

I learnt the layout in about one day by just using it (I am not much for typing training programs), and was a confident typer on Colemak after about one week. Now, after about 4 months I am approaching my old qwerty speed, and I am a lot faster than my original pre-kinesis typing speeds. I expect that I will exceed my kinesis qwerty speeds in about a month or two. I also feel a lot better by not having to move my fingers that much as I needed with qwerty.

In conclusion, for me the most important thing was throwing away the old style keyboards and getting a proper one like the Kinesis. Switching layout has also helped me to reduce the strain in my hands quite a bit. And it is superior to Dvorak, at least when working with the command line in UNIX systems.

I am very happy with Colemak and I like to thank the designer for the good work that he did. And I recommend it to anyone that feel like improving their typing.

/ Mattias

PS! A tip for those using Kinesis keyboards: swap places on the caps and the esc key. You do not need the backspace key replacing the caps, since the backspace is already in a very convenient place. This is especially good if you do work with either the vi or emacs text editor. DS!