Back From Hiatus! Many Updates!

So my last post before my kid was born (the reason for the Plover Blog hiatus; sorry about that) was about Ted's presentation at PyGotham 2016. The video for that talk is now live! Embedding is disabled, but you can view it here! It's really fantastic.

Speaking of Ted, he also wrote an excellent review for a new affordable steno machine that recently hit the market, the StenoMod. I was given a review model StenoMod myself some months ago, and I've been meaning to write a roundup of how it compares to other low-cost steno machines such as the SOFT/HRUF, Stenoboard, and Planck (spoiler: it fares extremely well), but I haven't gotten a chance to sit down and write it yet. Ted says most of what needs to be said, though. It's become my go-to recommendation for new Plover users who want something that's a little less bare-bones than the Zalman.

On the learning front, a great new tool called Steno Jig by Joshua Grams has appeared on the scene. By default, it drills a list of common words, but his GitHub page has instructions on how to customize it. His numbers drill, which generates silly random sentences, is particularly fun. Very simple, but well designed and quite useful.

T-shirts are finally shipping for supporters of the Steno Arcade campaign (I haven't gotten mine yet, but hopefully they're coming soon), and they're working hard on adding new playable tracks and making the game compatible with screen readers.

Our dauntless developers continue to make constant improvements to Plover. There's a new release in the works, so stay tuned for that. I'll do my best to keep on top of Open Steno Project news from now on. My kid is a ridiculously easy baby, so I don't really have the New Parent excuse for my slackitude going forward; expect to hear more soon!