I hear over and over from mechanical keyboard owners that they love their keyboard so much they wish they had more reasons to type on it. To save you some time, I did the research and came up with a list of activities that involve lots of typing. There’s something for everyone on this list, so find an activity and get typing.
- Video Games – if you aren’t playing Starcraft 2 or some other MMO, you’re missing out on some serious typing opportunities. Just use the keyboard shortcuts and not only will you be kicking serious butt, but you’ll be enjoying your mechanical keyboard with full N-Key Rollover and quicker key action times.
- Keyboard drumming. Yes, it’s a thing. Yes, you should see it.
- Get involved with Social Media by maintaining active Facebook and Twitter accounts. Find your friends, start talking about your life, and soon you’ll be typing non-stop! Be prepared, though, as to get the true typing potential, you’ll need to bare your soul and share every detail of your life.
- Two words: ASCII art.
- Use keyboard shortcuts for everything. Here’s a site with several lists of shortcuts to get you started.
- TyprX typing races. Improve your typing speed, race against others, eventually become the Ultimate Typing Champion.
- Text-based games. Long ago, video games had no graphics, just text. I know, hard to believe, but we had to use our imaginations and find the best ways to interact with objects via words. Check out a few and see what fun it can be to game without a mouse, without graphics, and without sound.
Start writing a novel, a book of poetry, or even the next great how-to book. Isn’t it said that everyone has a novel inside them? Sit at your mechanical keyboard and let the inspiration flow. Maybe you can be the next J.K. Rowling. In fact, November is National Novel Writing Month. The program encourages you to write a novel in 30 days. There are some special offers from sponsors to help you get your book published, making this a perfect opportunity to get started.- If you have one of our Das Keyboard Ultimates (or a Professional–don’t look at the keys), you can learn to use the Dvorak layout, which is a more efficient keyboard layout.
If you already use the Dvorak layout, try learning the Colemak keyboard layout.
- Write a daily blog or keep a private online journal. This can be a great way to start or end your day while organizing your thoughts, and enjoying your mechanical keyboard to it’s full potential.
