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Touchscreens fucking suck for any real typing that you want to do; there's no tactile feedback to tell you where your fingers are, so you're constantly having to break focus to look at the typing surface. Plus there's a far greater chance for mis-typing, which will slow you down even further.

I feel like your opinion on this matter comes from a person who's never actually done any real writing... Try this on a touch keyboard, then again on a regular keyboard, and post your results. Assuming that you're honest and don't try to doctor the results to favor your existing beliefs, I wager the difference in WPM will be extreme.

Personally I find the key to RSI is *repetitive*.
When you move your fingers around more on the keyboard, the movements are more varied, and you get less repetitive movement.
That prevents less injury overall.
The only times I've ever had RSI twinges was when pushing the same keys (or keys that are very close to each other) over and over.
Usually while gaming.

Also, when using the mouse, and clicking the left mouse button over and over, or making the same small mouse movements. I avoided that by alternating mouse hands (right in the office, left at home).

My typing speed w/ qwerty is 86wpm on http://www.typingtest.com/ Astronaut text (which is kind of a hard text)
Actually, I got 67wpm on the Italian text, and that was after deduction for characters I couldn't type on my keyboard without using a Compose key :)

Actually its about 50 wpm according to this. Faster if I'm not transcribing something like in these tests. As I said, I hadn't tested recently.

TypingTest.com

I just tried it and got 75 WPM on a Qwerty keyboard.

I've thought of DVORAK once or twice, but I've seen a couple of studies suggesting that if you're already a reasonably good typer (60-70 WPM or above) DVORAK's benefits are small.

According to this site I type about 72 words per minute. I can't wait to get one of these and start typing 144 wpm! I am kind of worried about blisters on my fingers; I wonder if they include a free box of bandaids with these keyboards?

Free online typing speed tests (Java required for both):

http://www.typingtest.com/
http://www.typingpal.com/

Taken from:

Is Typing a Necessary Skill?

http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=116796&c id =9883355

http://www.typingtest.com/

So let me get this straight: I lay down a chunk of change to both look cool *and* type slower? Pft.

If anyone wants to check their typing speed go to http://www.typingtest.com/

This post made me curious what speed I typed at. I figured there were some free tests on the Internet, and sure enough there were. http://www.typingtest.com/ was the first hit from google. I went through it and managed 81 wpm and 74 wpm factoring in mistakes. I never took a typing class, but learned to type while doing sysop work back in the day when BBS was the word, and the Internet still very new.

Who needs a class for it? Just make sure your hands are generally in the right place, and practice, practice. I've never had pain or problems with my wrists, and I type quite often.

(although I do type incorrectly, I can hit over 80 WPM)

This comment made me realize that I had no idea how fast I could type (never took a course). So, after a quick search here are some free on-line typing tests:

TypingPal.com
TypingTest.com

Turns out that I'm in the 2nd decile with a respectable 58 wpm (mean is approx. 40, and anyone who claims >100 is either in the 99.8%-ile or is full of BS). A thorough analysis of typing speeds can be found here.

Anything above 100 wpm would put you in about the top 2/10ths of 1% of typists. Take this test and tell us how you do.

Now, try it again--only hitting the keys that you have visually checked the locations of.

I was surprised at how high a score I got (touch typing).. I hadn't taken a test since high school. Years of IT/programming work just seem to hone typing skills.