Typing tips for PwP
 

There's a good chance that everyone else in the forum knows this already. In which case, please accept my apologies. But, in case there's others like me who find it difficult to type, and who haven't realised that the Accessibility settings in Windows can help them, they are worth looking at.

For instance, when I'm "off" I type with one finger, which is a problem if you want to type $. You can get around this in Windows 7 (I suspect it's much the same in all versions) by:

Start (icon normally bottom left)
Control Panel
Ease of Access
Change how your keyboard works
Turn on Sticky Keys
Apply

Now to type $, say, you press shift and let it go. Then, when you press the 4 key, you get "upper case 4", which is $, as required.

This setting makes more than the shift key sticky. For instance, the Ctrl key is sticky, so to save a file, you can press the Ctrl key followed by s; the Alt key is sticky, so to close a window you can press the Alt key followed by the F4 key; the Windows key (the key on the bottom row that looks like a flag in a circle) is sticky, so to move a window to the left press the Windows key followed by the left arrow key.

I also have problems with keys being wrongly repeated. For instance, I want to type the word forum but I get fooorum. Or when going back to correct the mistake I overrun, deleting good text as well as bad. To reduce this problem, you can slow the speed at which the cursor moves. From where we were above:

Click on the Keyboard settings link near the bottom.
On the Keyboard Properties tab you can increase the "Repeat Delay" and reduce the "Repeat Rate" by moving the sliders to the left. (I find about a quarter of the way from the left gives me the best results.)
Apply
OK

Has anyone else got typing tips?

John

John, thanks for the tips. One other alternative might be Dragon software. When my voice volume is loud enough I've had reasonable success using Dragon NaturallySpeaking voice to speech software. It's really unstable in Windows XP (I had to re-install it 3 times which was a major nuisance) but since my PC crashed and needed all new hardware, I upgraded to Windows 7. It works well enough now. It can be really nice talking into a microphone and having the computer type the words for me.

Steve

Songfellow,

Thanks for that tip. I tried the voice recognition software that comes with Windows 7. But after a hour going through the training exercises, I seemed to have made little progress. Is a hour far too short a time?

As an indication of my progress, here's the last verse and chorus to a famous English folk song that I spoke, not sung, very slowly:

Cherwell run will roads and ranting you all
All are written recklessly
Between old and rare outings clear and mountains
The great Loa" and state
Umpteen gradient galley
Telling it like a real thing
Instrument autonomy and tins
A kink I would rather be dead

A malevolent a remnant on mentions dwelling
A giggle at leisure there aren't more and why
A Arabia weight late on Monday
But I'm three men on Sunday

Kudos to the first person to name the song.

John

steadymouse
 

One of my PD problems is that when my tremor is bad moving the mouse accurately is difficult.

There's a neat, free piece of software that can reduce the problem. It can be downloaded from:
http://www.steadymouse.com/

I'm always relectant to download software off the web in case it contains viruses. However, I've had no problems with steadymouse.

It's written by a guy called Ben Gottemoller, to whom goes my thanks.

John

Further typing tips.

As my PD progresses it becomes worth learning more and more keyboard short-cuts. There are hundreds of them,but here are just 5 from Windows 7 (other operating systems will almost certainly have similar features):

Ctrl-A (control and A at the same time) select all
Ctrl-C copy
Ctrl-V paste
Windows-up arrow (the key with a flag inside a circle and the key to the right of the shift key) resize window to whole screen
Windows-right arrow resize window to right half of screen

I use a lap-top with a touchpad (NOT a touch screen). When I'm "off" I find moving the mouse pointer accurately enough difficult. It varies from minute to minute, but I find using a mixture of a finger, as normal, and a homemade stylus helps. The stylus is made from a used AA battery with a piece of conducting cloth running from the middle of one side over the positive stud to the middle of the other side. The cloth is taped in place.

John

PS no one has come up with a song title for what gave the voice recognition output. A clue: a British "This land is your land"?

Its a major annoyance to me, as I was a good typist before (60-70 wpm), Now it looks like it was done by a "break dancing chicken".

ol'cs mentions difficulty moving the mouse pointer and a lack of control clicking the mouse. You may benefit from using mouse keys:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouse_keys
This lets you control the mouse from the keyboard.

In general, it's worth making use of the accessibility options to make the system more usable.

John

http://www.steadymouse.com/
 

SteadyMouse is free software designed by a couple of geeks to assist people with the hand tremors that commonly go along with Parkinson's disease, Multiple sclerosis, etc.
Major Features:

Anti-tremor mouse filtering
Removal of accidental mouse clicks
Assistive "Icon Targeting" system
Quick enable/disable using the scroll lock key
Simple design for easy configuration

http://www.steadymouse.com/

In windows and android you can change your dominant hand. As well as mouse settings in windows. You can voice operate some android and windows installations. Windows 7 or above has native support. Change mouse settings in win 7 along with steadymouse.

You need a good microphone for windows like the yeti.