[gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard

[Joel Deutsch]

Dave,

Maybe you're simply right, no matter what discussion has been going on in 
this thread. Believe me, I've been a good touch typist since high school, 
through several generations of typewriters and then more than 25  years of 
computers, the last decade or so using Jaws,and now I just can't deal with 
this laptop. The flatness, the lack of spacing, the way if my fingers fall 
onto something wrong I screw up everything or get bounced onto the Desktop 
mysteriously, etc., this is all mind-blowing. I've spent hours trying to 
deal with this, despite crushing headaches from a medical problem. I just 
don't think I can try anymore.

Thanks for the input. The way some people are talking, I thought if I just 
concentrate hard enough and try longer, I'll figure out where to put my 
hands and fingers. After all, they all say they did. But I feel like I'm 
batting my head against a wall, and I can't take it anymore.

Mumble mumble
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
To: "NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 02, 2010 5:48 PM
Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard


Joel:

This isn't necessarily a blindness thing.  Touch typing is just that,
touch typing.  We become very accustomed to a keyboard, it is
primarily a spacing thing, your fingers are used to the old
keyboard.  You can either stick it out or get a USB keyboard that
suits you better.

Personally I hate the small laptop keyboards, but keyboard preference
is a very personal thing.

Dave

At 02:14 PM 12/29/2009, you wrote:
>Hi listers,
>
>Okay, please come clean. I know some of us are totally blind and some are
>partial. I'm partial, myself, but I have no central vision thus can't read
>at all with my eyes. Only with Jaws, recorded literature, and so forth. So
>in dealing with this new machine of mine, which I'd hoped would be a handy
>tool, I'm at a loss.
>
>I thought I'd be able to get the hang of the keyboard with some effort. 
>it's
>an Acer with a number key pad so I don't have to learn the Jaws laptop key
>commands.
>
>but still there's no space between the keys and the sections of keys as I'm
>accustomed to on a normal keyboard, and no matter how patiently I sit and
>turn on Jaws Keyboard Help to explore and get the lay of the land, so to
>speak, I just am finding it nearly impossible to operate the machine.
>
>Please bear in mind that I'm a pretty damn good touch typist, plus a Jaws
>user from way back with the current release. Ordinary stuff like that is 
>not
>impeding me. But try as I might, my fingers just can't figure out where 
>keys
>are, except in small, lucky instances and a few keys I happen to have 
>taught
>myself by now. I don't think this is gonna work.
>
>I know I can get a USB keyboard to plug into this laptop, then set the
>computer within earshot and sit back with only the keyboard on my lap. But
>this ain't what I'd daydreamed about. I guess I didn't anticipate
>realistically how tough this would be to do blind.
>
>Please just tell the truth, guys. I think a number of you are using 
>laptops,
>at least as your secondary computers. How many of you actually use your
>laptops (mine's an Acer PC, for what that matters) normally, and how many
>use an auxiliary keyboard? Am I in a very low-skill class, sort of, if I
>can't figure out how to type on something like this the way sighted people
>do with their own laptops?
>
>Ug. Bummed out. thanks for any helpful feedback.
>and Happy New Year.
>
>Joel


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