I type fast. Really fast. I usually cruise between 80 and 100 wpm, and I can peak out closer to 150 if I’m really booking on content I type a lot. Still, after having a recent scare with RSI (actually, an ulnar nerve inflammation), I’ve really had to be careful how much I type. While I’m 95% functional, I still do struggle with pain and discomfort and really have to be good about my typing position, taking breaks, exercising my hand, etc. One important step for me has been to really look at the things I do that involve lots of typing and minimize what I’m doing. This has involved really studying up on my vi and shell foo (where you can do ridiculous powerful things with a few keystrokes), using email templates for common responses (especially vendor PR people for the magazine who often need the same info), and automating lots of common tasks via Quicksilver magic. Honestly, if there’s one reason I couldn’t switch from a Mac right now, it’s Quicksilver. It’s so much more than just a blazingly fast launcher. There’s a ton of good quicksilver demos out there and one of these days I’ll put together a list of my favorite tricks.
Until then (mainly because I need to be writing an article now), here’s a quick tip that’s helped me. There are a number of non-free programs for the Mac to do email templates or text macros. That’s pretty ridiculous if you ask me when you think about what I basically need. Heck, a couple of notepad files always sitting around would only be a little slower (and with quicksilver, not much) and give me enough functionality. Fortunately, instead of buying typinator, textexpander (formerly textpander), typeit4me, or MailTemplate, I can just use RapidoWrite. Yeah, I didn’t link to the others for a reason — not going to support them for charging for such a simple function, no matter how many features or bells or whistles they add. Incidentally, this is one area that tempts me to return to Thunderbird. Quick Text for the TBird is a great example of what would be perfect for my repetitive emails. Oh well, until Thunderbird improves and gets better address book integration and increased stability, I’m stuck were I’m at.
I just started using the Quicksilver iCal extension. Holy crap! It makes me actually use iCal. It’s unbelievably nice to be able to schedule events based on what you’re reading without leaving the thing you’re reading.
Left by John on August 15th, 2007