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Nail It Now Typing Tutor Succeeds Where Mavis Beacon Failed |
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I used to be one of those digitally challenged people who had
to hunt and peck with two fingers around my computer keyboard. I never learned to type back in
high school, because in those days the girls took typing and boys didn't. Typing isn't one of
those intuitive skills that we just pick up, such as riding a bicycle or even using a mouse.
When I first tried those activities, the movement seemed totally unnatural, but in a matter of a
few hours, they were part of me |
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Why doesn't typing work that way? Blame the qwerty keyboard layout, which was implemented to
slow fast typists down, rather than to make keyboarding easier or more efficient |
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Ten years ago, I decided it was time to learn how to type. I bought Mavis Beacon's typing
tutor, which was the premier program at the time, but I never got anywhere. I recently
decided to make another attempt. This time, I went to AllTheWeb and entered
"typing tutor.". The first of some 100,000 references brought me to Nail It Now in
Australia, where Georgie (the system's developer) offers a Web-based typing tutor for
Canadian$26 |
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This one looked worth a try as there was nothing to load on my system. Your payment gets you a
password that lets you access the full manual. I printed the manual and as I went through it,
I kept thinking to myself that it was just too simple to be real. Nevertheless, I had made a
firm decision to stick with it for a while and set a weekend aside with the intent of increasing
my skills from two to perhaps half a dozen fingers and a start at getting away from my need to
keep looking at the keyboard |
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The first step was to assign simple expressions to the keys to make you remember them. Say it
out loud. Animals in the Snow Dig for Food Greedily--asdfg. Now type it 10 times. Where do you
find Animals? In the Queensland Zoo of course... your left pinkie goes up and down from the a to
get the q and z. Type aqz 10 times. I went through each instruction and the follow-up exercises |
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Suddenly, I realized I had passed my objective in just
55 minutes. I may have made loads of mistakes and still have had plenty of practice ahead of me,
but I was typing with 10 fingers and not looking at the keys. It was time to make the big
decision. If I really want to succeed, everything from now on--and that means all my real
work--must be done with 10 fingers and no looking at the keyboard, except maybe for numbers and
passwords |
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Georgie's mission was to teach you how to type text. The numbers will follow as you get more
proficient. Passwords are always a problem. With all those security schemes blocking the
display, you can never be sure what you enter unless you look at the keys |
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Having made the decision to quit all my two-finger activities and switch to my newly acquired
skill, I was preparing myself for at least one month of absolute hell. I work with two desktops
and a notebook and each keyboard has a different feel from the others. Things didn't go as badly
as anticipated, though. I didn't give up and revert to my two-finger standard. I'm still using
all 10, but faster and with fewer mistakes |
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While I certainly consider that to be a major
accomplishment, I get my ultimate satisfaction when I tell real typists about teaching myself to
type, then watch their reaction when they hear I was able to use all 10 fingers within the first
hour |
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Why did Nail It Now Typing Tutor succeed where Mavis Beacon failed? Many courses go through a
series of exercises to get you to use each finger and hand correctly. You may spend half an hour
each day, then go back to work. That means you are going right back to your old ways with your
two fingers and are almost guaranteed to forget everything you just learned |
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Nail It Now Typing Tutor sends you through a set of quick exercises and that's all. There was
no intent to make you perfect, just capable enough to apply what you learned to your real work
by the end of the first session. There was no second session. All I needed at this stage was
practice and I could use my real work for that practice. This reduced the likelihood that I
would go back to my old ways |
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Do I have any objections? You bet I do. I learned to type the same month I qualified for the
Canada Pension. I needed Georgie half a century ago |
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Marvin Silbert
Computer Review Editor
"Hub: Digital Living" magazine
Canada
October 9, 2002 |
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Copyright © 1998-2014 Nail It Now. All rights reserved
34 Tucker Avenue, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia
Phone: 61 3 9646 9511; email: georgie@nailitnow.com.au |
Tutors, Tutorials, Training, Tips, Education |
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