This blog has been pretty quiet lately, but don't worry. I'll be able to start posting on a more regular basis pretty soon now. You also might have noticed that the Plover Wiki (I finally added that quickstart guide I promised!) and Aviary were down for a while recently, but fortunately they're now back online and will hopefully stay that way. The Google Group is still going as strong as ever. We're now up to 172 members! I'm hoping to add some useful pedagogical material both to this site and to the wiki over the next week or two, including an illustrated guide to sticking on the keytoppers you can buy in the Plover Store and the long, long-awaited fifth installment of Steno 101, which will be covering numbers, punctuation, and simple commands. For now, though, I leave you with a newly corrected version of the Steno Layout poster (previously the "C" was labeled "K", due to a mixup with the graphic designer), which you'll hopefully be able to purchase prints of via the Plover Store fairly soon, along with a straight-up alphabetical version, for those who prefer a quick reference without all the categorizations. Oh, and a very silly picture of me and the proprietor of Unusual Cards at Maker Faire, taken by my good friend (and open source philanthropist) Leonard Richardson. This is my current mobile steno rig, running Plover and writing into Vim. It's not the most graceful contraption you ever saw, but it got a lot of attention and I was able to hand out plenty of Plover stickers, which was pretty much what I was going for.
Holy cow! What goes on in a typical day of CART? Do you enter the job site by zip line through a ceiling panel?
ReplyDeleteLooks glamorous/dangerous.
Hahahaha! Glamorous it ain't. Fortunately I only drag this cursed contraption out on special occasions (gallery tours, networking, open houses, that sort of thing), and most of the time I'm very happy to be sitting in a chair with my steno machine attached to a nice solid tripod. The mobile rig is a bit wearing on the back and shoulders.
ReplyDeleteThat's a cool suit. Too bad it's heavy I guess. I'm looking forward to your cameo in Skyfall.
ReplyDeletePrompted by Amber I've been playing around rearranging the keys on the keyboard; for instance, flipping upside-down the thumb keys CVNM & the top row QWERTYUIOP{ seems to be fairly comfortable & promising.
Hi, is there a way to type other langages than English with this? (French for example)
ReplyDeleteMore accurately : is it possible to type multiple langages with the same method?
ReplyDeleteMirabai - If you did get to your CART jobs via zip line, maybe that would help get Plover some more publicity and perhaps give stenography an edgier image.
ReplyDeleteTOrTOISE - Please keep us posted on the keyboard modification. It would be great to have more options that people can try.
Anonymous - Yes! You can use Plover for French, Spanish, German - really any language that uses the Roman alphabet. I'm not sure if dictionaries are available for those languages.
I'm a proud speaker of Spanglish, so I have quite a few Spanish words in my dictionary.
Update on keyboard keycap switching:
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't work very well with the Sidewinder x4 because the keycaps aren't centered; so you have to remove several keys for every one you turn around. Not only that, but the keycap holes are a different size from my other keyboard for my Dell, they're a hair smaller.
So basically, for the Sidewinder, if you turn around the top row (which allows you to press individual keys a little easier but makes chording a little less so--basically you move your fingers a little less up or down) you have to remove the top row of number keys. :\ So the only thing I really reccommend is removing the spacebar (which you have to be careful not to break, since it only lifts upwards towards the other keys.)
I'm a bit disappointed but it's okay. It doesn't seem like there are any inexpensive curved NKRO keyboards & I would have to shell out for a real steno machine like Mirabai's 2-hander rig, which I won't right now. Also, more expensive keyboards are out of the question right now. I'm going to further look into what keycaps I can use with the Sidewinder. (Amber, where did you buy your R4s from?)
One thing I've noticed is that if I'm not going to use a curved keyboard I have to move the meat of my thumb under my hand rather than out to the side. This is very different from my usual stance, where my hands never touch the keyboard; it almost feels like I'm resting my hands although I'm not. I'm cautiously optimistic this change is for the better. I never used to be able to type on a laptop but I can now.
@Anonymous: French has stenotypie which I found via youtube.
Bids for City Stenographer next year at Boston City Council… Consider qualified bids that include a) New Scopist technology, b) new scopist software, c) Closed Captioning for folks with hearing loss, d) Open government principles and e) Plover, the Open Source Steno Program Ideas on developing free, open source stenographic software http://plover.stenoknight.com/
ReplyDeleteFirst: bravo on the work and effort! Well done.
ReplyDeleteI think the discussion about Qwerty/Dvorak (or any other standard keyboard) vs. stenography keyboard is a bit biased here. The issue is basically the trade off between memorizing shortcuts so you can type faster or not memorizing and typing slower. Most people would elect the second approach as the burden of memorizing is too high for them. Indeed, that is why it is mostly useful to those who have to type a lot - simple effort vs. benefits equation; or for those to whom the benefits are inherently higher for other reasons.
I think the "how to start" guide is a bit non-intuitive and the guide is not so intuitive either. The best way is to generate a set of simple lessons about specific combinations and so on, not the overall rules. Then, when those who study it have mastered some basic "vocabulary", introduce the grammar.
The issue is basically the trade off between memorizing shortcuts so you can type faster or not memorizing and typing slower.
ReplyDeleteThat's not actually true. While most people do memorize some shortcuts in steno (also called briefs), the vast majority of words in English can be written phonetically in steno, which doesn't require any memorization other than learning the steno keyboard layout, and which are still about three times more efficient, stroke per stroke, than qwerty or dvorak.
I think the "how to start" guide is a bit non-intuitive and the guide is not so intuitive either. The best way is to generate a set of simple lessons about specific combinations and so on, not the overall rules. Then, when those who study it have mastered some basic "vocabulary", introduce the grammar.
Yeah, I agree that the guides could be more intuitive and helpful to new steno learners. I definitely want to improve them. Thanks for your feedback! More drills and lessons would definitely be helpful, and I'm planning to include them in future editions of Steno 101.