Two TinyMods and a Georgi

I've got two lightspringed TinyMods and a newly reinforced Georgi to try out! Reviews coming shortly.

Quick Tip to Stenofy Popular Typing Game

Jessica on the Plover Google Group writes:

Hey, just wanted to let anybody who's trying to practice while playing games that Epistory Typing Chronicles will work with Plover if you change the input setting from "enter" to "space" in Epistory and also have your space follow your stroke in Plover.

I also found out today that you can mod the Epistory dictionary, which would be a nice way to get some practice in of specific briefs, but the included dictionary is also a nice run for your money, with fingerspelling required for a lot of it.

People have been vexed in the past that Epistory wasn't Plover-compatible, so it's very cool to see that it's possible to make it work! I relied on typing games like Typestriker to get through steno school, so I'm really happy to see that the well-regarded Epistory can finally be used as a tool for steno learning.

Where's That Georgi Review?

I know I've kept y'all waiting for it for quite some time, but the truth is, the initial design of the Georgi featured connectors that were a bit fragile and unstable, and that's been a bit of a barrier to use for both me and several other Georgi customers. Germ is fixing them as they're returned to him, and all new units are being shipped out with reinforced connectors so that the problem doesn't recur, but I'm waiting to test the new model before I give my full review. Spoiler alert: The design in general is pretty dang fantastic, and if the solution he's come up with to stabilize the connectors actually works, this is gonna be a world class little machine.

ETA: Check out this video Georgi made of the newly redesigned connectors:

(Content note: Video contains some exultant F-bombs; those of delicate sensibilities might prefer to watch without sound.)

New Online Steno Diagram Generator

Di is on fire lately. Not only does she have a new interaction design book available for preorder, but she also made this online steno diagram generator that takes both mouse and qwerty input and can be great both for generating great-looking steno stroke diagrams (downloadable as SVGs) and for demonstrating how steno works in a quick and easy way to curious newbies. Check it out!

New Typey Type Features

Di's ever-improving steno tutorial and drilling site, Typey Type for Stenographers, now has flashcards, plus three new lessons: a new introduction, Roman numerals, and top 200 words spoken on TV. Fantastic work as always, Di!

Free Dictation

Longtime Plover ally and professional stenographer Christopher Day has been recording and uploading dictation suitable for steno practice, at speeds ranging from 60 to 220 words per minute. If you've been looking to supplement text practice with audio practice, give his YouTube playlist a shot!

Steno Vimitation

Check out this video of Codepoke's steno workflow using his new Vimitation dictionary! Codepoke says:

Combining steno with Windows shortcuts creates a "best of both worlds" situation, for those willing to take the time. Deleting chars, words, and lines, moving within a document, and switching between programs can all be done with a single stroke, and without straining for hard-to-reach function keys. Commands can even be made to repeat from 2-10 times by adding just one stroke. Deleting 3 words in vim is a 3-stroker. Doing so with the vimitation dictionary is a 2-stroker.