A New Keyboard, an Upcoming Phone Call and ABW
Posted by Kirk M on 09 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: Just Thinkin
Such things be happening here in my small corner of the Blogosphere these last couple of days not the least of which is a finally buying myself a new keyboard.
One of the most frustrating things for me about this art of blogging is the typing end of things…meaning I’m not one…a typist that is. I’m one of those 2 to 3 fingered keyboard pokers that has to look at the keyboard in order to see what he’s typing. If I look at the screen like most touch typists are able to do then things stant turining pio likew ythis.
Anyway, to further enhance my frustration I was experiencing other than my lack of typing ability was that I was starting to get the idea that I should be using a higher quality keyboard then the old original HP beater that came with my computer three years ago. And as an old(er) computer tech and with all my experience in working with computers, data entry, writing tech manuals and then just writing alone, I knew how frustrating it can be if you weren’t using a good keyboard to get your work done. That became readily apparent as my blog here gained somewhat in it’s notoriety and I found that I simply could not put it off any longer. But what do I know about buying a quality, good for writing, keyboard. In a word…nothing.
Oh, honey!
Yes, I called upon the one I love the most to help me out with this little problem of mine. My 55 WPM (on a bad day), fingers a blur on the keyboard baby to accompany me to Staples to help me pick out a “keyboard of quality”. and what a difference it made indeed! Buying a wrist rest which I hadn’t been using previously also helped out quite a bit—strange as that might seem. Just think of the work I can accomplish now!
I still have to look at the keyboard though.
An upcoming interview(?):
Sometime this coming weekend, if all goes right, I’ll be receiving a phone call from one of the more wise and wonderful blogger’s out there who is going to pick my brain (such as it is) and hopefully we’ll spend awhile talking about all sorts of silly things and general nonsense that abounds in and around the subject of blogging and the world in general. This is not an “interview” as the strict definition goes where one party asks a second party a bunch of questions questions and the second party answers said questions–more like a real time comment session I think would be a more accurate description.
I’m going to be a rotten guy and not tell you this person’s name yet since you never know what’s going to happen in a week’s time these days, but I promise to let you know how it went after the whole thing is over.
Absolute Beginners Wordpress (ABW):
Things are back on track with Absolute Beginners Wordpress after getting derailed when my health went south for so long. But now that the VA has finally found something that works and with that new keyboard of mine I not only have one new chapter underway but two of them! Chapters’s 4 and 5 of the ABW series should be fit for publishing in the next two days or so. Then it’s maybe one or two additional chapters (I’m not sure how many more yet), some work on the “Welcome” type page and the basic series will be ready for the unsuspecting public and all the feedback they are willing to give me. It’s the feedback that’s going to round out the overall series into something more polished and complete. But the basic “draft” version will have all the information that is needed for the new Wordpress “do-it-yourself-er” to get their new blog up and running successfully and which is the whole point of the series in the first place.
Working on these two chapters today showed me how much more I can actually put into this series aside from the basics chapters themselves and still keep the overall site tailored specifically for the Wordpress beginner. As I said when I first started out on this endeavor, there’s plenty of other more accomplished Wordpress blogger’s out there who can cover the advanced end of things and that’s not an path I really wish to tread. I want to keep the series strictly for the those new to “hosting their own” but after all the ideas that popped into my head today whilst I was poking away at the keyboard I think it’s time to haul out pencil and pad and start jotting down these ideas for the future I think.
So that’s what’s been happening at Just Thinkin’ this weekend. Now I have to go reply to the comments I received today that I had to ignore while I was working on the series. Oh, for a winning lottery ticket so I could treat my honey to anything she wanted and to write all day long….in our new dome house we that we would have built…on the land she owns on the side of a hill…with the sounds of the forest all around…etc, etc, etc. 
Technorati tags: ABW, absolute beginner’s wordpress, wordpress beginner, wordpress
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2 Comments »
on 10 Jul 2007 at 4:44 pm 1.Jul said …
I recently got a new wireless keyboard to use with my laptop - one of those split ones with separated halves for each hand. I am now learning how bad I really am at touch-typing… my hands are constantly reaching across for keys that aren’t there!
on 10 Jul 2007 at 9:03 pm 2.KirkM said …
Hi Jul,
Eeeeg! If I ever bought one of those split keyboards (Microsoft?) I’d probably end up in the hospital while they tried to untangle the knot in my fingers. I’m sure I’d be all tied up (sorry about that one).
I’m still having to look at the keyboard and doing the old “poke and hope” method of typing while I watch my wife staring at her display and screaming along 55 or so. There’s just got to be an online typing tutorial for keyboard challenged folks like me.
By the way, I like the way you write. It’s always on the upbeat and you have a refreshing sense of humor.
And I’ve also looked in on your art blog…You’re good! What do you mean you were an artist (referring to your “Art Basel” post). You obviously are one! The one talent I don’t have. I can’t draw…period. Let alone paint, but I know talent when I see it.
See ya’