We got a spam message yesterday on the UUG site. The post was entered into the Suggestion Box, which has the instructions, "You may submit constructive (or good, old-fashioned destructive) criticism using the following form. Should you choose to include your email address, it will not be posted anywhere on the spam-bot infested web."
How you can talk yourself into entering in an advertisement for a keyboard layout is beyond me. Seems to me like someone is really desparate for attention. Anyway, I was able to track down his email address and sent a response to him. Showing an unexpected level of politeness for a dirty spammer, he emailed me back. I include the whole thread for your enjoyment. ----- Suggestion Box suggestion by Anonymous Coward ----- On: Monday February 28th, 2005 at 11:56 AM Subject: [Website] Just thought this might be of some use to someone. Only about 26% of average text is typed from the home keys of a qwerty keyboard. Swapping, transposing, ETNI for DFJK would increase this to about 55.5%, more than doubleing typing efficiency for these eight keys. To narrow it down further, this would increase in the amount of average text typed from the four keys under the middle and index fingers by a factor of five, from 7.5% to 37%. This results in an overall reduction in reaching, or transverse motion, of the fingers by about 40%. While not as efficient as the Dvorak keyboard, it is much easier to learn. The transposed keys remain under the same fingers and feel very natural. While typing, the transposition can be thought out without benefit of a keyboard map. For those who might worry that they will not be able to go back to qwerty, the experience of many Dvorak users is that a typist can be bikeyboardal. Looking down at your fingers brings qwerty right back. The letters E, T, N and I are fairly easy to get used to but you may find yourself trying to type D, F, J and K from their old locations. I have found a keyboard remapping program that is free, downloads quickly and is very easy to use. I am typing this email on a keyboard remapped to the 'etni' transposition layout. The program is called 'Keytweak 2.11' and can be googled up by that name. It is available from several sites, including PC magazine and recommended by several keyboard manufacturers, including TypeMatrix. The creator of the program is Travis Krumsick. 1) After you have loaded the program click start. 2) Click the "KeyTweak" icon and a graphic of a keyboard will appear. 3) Click the "Full Teach Mode" at the bottom of the screen. 4) A box will appear. Click "Begin Teach Mode". 5) Press the key you want to reassign, then the key you want it reassigned to, in this case D to E. 6) Click "Remap Key#1 to Key#2" 7) The box will disappear and the scancodes of the keys will appear in the "Pending Changes" window at the bottom right. 8) Follow the same procedure (from 3) for E to D, and the remaining six remaps. 9) Click "Apply" and you will be asked if you want to turn off the computer to apply the changes. At the top there is also a clickable "Restore Defaults" to give you back your qwerty layout. I was able to remap in under three minutes and restore qwerty in thirty seconds, not includeing the restart. If you would like to determine if etni on the home row is comfortable for you, you might try typing the words below in the pretend mode, without lifting a finger. sea see sat late little tail nile tin lit tell lean till sin nettle silent line less nest ill lint ease asinine nine This will come out as: sda sdd saf lafd lkffld fakl jkld fkj lkf fdll ldan fkll skj jdffld skldjf lkjd ldss jdsf kll lkjf dasd askjkjd jkjd Many thanks, Stephen Kearney ----- End spam message ----- ----- Forwarded message from Andrew McNabb ----- Subject: UUG Site Suggestion Box Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 10:54:34 -0700 We received a submission to the suggestion box of the UUG website (uug.byu.edu) which was attributed to your name (Stephen Kearney). Please forgive me if you were not the person who posted this message. Your posting was indeed an eloquent exposition on the myriad benefits of the ETNI keyboard layout. I was very tempted to download Keytweak 2.11. However, I am already "bikeyboardal," typing fluently in both Dvorak and Qwerty and am concerned that were I to become trikeyboardal my friends would think I've become dexterously condescending. I really can't afford to lose them. My social issues aside, I am still confused. Your comments were posted to the UUG Website Suggestion Box. Please clarify what changes you are suggesting for the site. Would the site have been better if we had typed it in ETNI? Should we enhance the visitor experience by allowing forms to be entered with real-time ETNI translation? Should we put "sda sdd saf lafd lkffld fakl" on the front page? Thank you for your beautiful post, and thanks in advance for your clarifications. ----- End forwarded message ----- ----- Forwarded message from Stephen Kearney <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----- Subject: Re: UUG Site Suggestion Box Date: Tue, 1 Mar 2005 10:41:41 -0800 Esteemed Mr. McNabb, Any eloquence you see in my email is mearly a reflection of your own. I am afraid I am guilty of spamming. Suggestion boxes are open to...well suggestions. I do hope you will pass on the idea to anyone who might be interested. I realize it was impertinate of me to email your suggestion box. Extreem thanks for your kindness and good humour, Stephen Kearney Sfdphdj Idarjey ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Andrew McNabb http://www.mcnabbs.org/andrew/ PGP Fingerprint: 8A17 B57C 6879 1863 DE55 8012 AB4D 6098 8826 6868
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