Anyway, I switched to Dvorak close to three years ago now. My advice is to get an old IBM Model M keyboard. Besides the fact that they are simply the best keyboards ever made, the removable keycaps means that you can make a Dvorak board in about 10 minutes. It looks great, and can be switched back to Qwerty in about 10 minutes if you are so inclined.
As for switching over, it's really tough at first. The first fews days I could not type a paragraph in less than 5 minutes. But after a couple of weeks I was banging away. Now that I have used my board for several years, I have found I am silghtly faster, at typing - but with much fewer errors - so the resulting speed is considerably greater. And basically no physical stress after long typing sessions.
As for switching back and forth, when I first switched over I did not use Qwerty very much, so when I was confronted with any other computer in the planet my typing speed was awful. Gradually, I relearned Qwerty and can type at a reasonable speed on it now, but with tons of errors (my fingers have a tendency to hunt out the Dvorak location for keys) I even tried keeping my lesser used computer as Qwerty as practice, but switched it over recently as it was driving me absolutely nuts. (I can't stand Qwerty anymore, my fingers feel like they are doing some awkward dance every time I use one now)
Also, the Dvorak board is also good for other things, like the look of people's faces when they sit down in front of your computer. And it's also a great security feature too. Oh yeah, if you do this at work your coworkers will hate you.
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When they make a backlit, programmable, Dvorak, IBM Model M keyboard I'll bite.
Hehe, first post.
Anyway, I switched to Dvorak close to three years ago now. My advice is to get an old IBM Model M keyboard. Besides the fact that they are simply the best keyboards ever made, the removable keycaps means that you can make a Dvorak board in about 10 minutes. It looks great, and can be switched back to Qwerty in about 10 minutes if you are so inclined.
As for switching over, it's really tough at first. The first fews days I could not type a paragraph in less than 5 minutes. But after a couple of weeks I was banging away. Now that I have used my board for several years, I have found I am silghtly faster, at typing - but with much fewer errors - so the resulting speed is considerably greater. And basically no physical stress after long typing sessions.
As for switching back and forth, when I first switched over I did not use Qwerty very much, so when I was confronted with any other computer in the planet my typing speed was awful. Gradually, I relearned Qwerty and can type at a reasonable speed on it now, but with tons of errors (my fingers have a tendency to hunt out the Dvorak location for keys) I even tried keeping my lesser used computer as Qwerty as practice, but switched it over recently as it was driving me absolutely nuts. (I can't stand Qwerty anymore, my fingers feel like they are doing some awkward dance every time I use one now)
Also, the Dvorak board is also good for other things, like the look of people's faces when they sit down in front of your computer. And it's also a great security feature too. Oh yeah, if you do this at work your coworkers will hate you.