While visiting a friend’s house yesterday, I attempted to learn the new technology of Ferret Phone Typing (FPT).  I had been informed that my friend’s ferrets had been used to demonstrate this technology in the past and thought I, as a new user of FPT, might be able to make use of these already skilled ferrets and my own Windows Phone 7.

In the course of this hands-on learning experience, I discovered some key tips I’d like to pass along to anyone else who may seek to try FPT.

1. FPT requires that you  determine whether you are left-ferreted or right-ferreted ahead of time. Use of the incorrect ferret orientation can lead to both an unacceptable number of errors and even dropping of the phone device while trying to utilize the ferret.
2. FPT should be attempted by gently scruffing the ferret in use and touch its nose gently to the phone in use. Note that the phone may need to be cleaned frequently and excessive use of the same ferret may result in phone damage due to gnawing.
3. FPT has a limited session time so it’s best to compose only short messages that can be easily completed during that session time. If longer messages are desired, multiple FPT sessions may be required.
4. FPT is not suitable for children as the ferret cannot be adequately controlled by a child to have achieve the precision necessary for FPT.
5. FPT is best accomplished using ferrets that are not already in “war mode.” Typically, ferrets that are just waking up or trying to sleep make the best FPT devices.
6. FPT should only be attempted with ferrets that have recently visited the litterbox as the ferret in use may become annoyed at process and make that annoyance known in a rather unpleasant manner.

I don’t remember how I first found The Passive Voice but I’m glad I did. It’s a blog written by an ex-lawyer that gives both writing insight and (most valuable to me) some insight into contracts and legal rights. Bear in mind that you should always hire appropriate legal advice when you need it and I recommend having someone review each contract you take, but I’ve picked up some valuable information from reading The Passive Voice.

Subscribe to the Passive Guy’s blog and read it consistently. Click on this link (goes directly to the posts flagged “contract”) and educate yourself on how various contract clauses work. You won’t be sorry!

While getting things back on track and working on my (two) steampunk stories, I came across a great reminder to myself. These are business rules penned by Robert Heinlein, one of the first science fiction authors I read while growing up and they hit me where it hurt – in my tendency to procrastinate.

His rules go simply:

1) You must write.
2) You must finish what you write.
3) You must not rewrite unless to editorial demand.
4) You must mail your work to someone who can buy it.
5) You must keep the work in the mail until someone buys it.

Time to put my eye back on the prize and get to WORK.

With the grey and damp we’ve been having around here for far too long, I’ve discovered a weekly bunch of fresh flowers in my office really seems to help my mood.

Here are some pictures of this week’s flowers – Tulips are in bloom!

Several years ago, I had to have surgery on my right hand & wrist. I’d suffered for a while with the writer-standard sort of wrist pain from overuse and long hours of typing but, thankfully, had never developed carpal tunnel or any other really nasty hand ailments. Instead I developed a ganglion cyst – a fluid filled cyst that is mostly benign until and unless it starts to interfere with function. In my case, the cyst grew large and parts of my hand went numb or tingled. Not a good sign. And my right hand is my dominant hand.

Surgery plans were made and while talking about my recovery with my surgeon, I remembered that I’d read about a keyboard layout that was supposed to be far more ergonomic and easier on your hands and wrists that the qwerty layout we are all used to. This is the dvorak keyboard layout, developed by Dr. August Dvorak and Dr. William Dealey in 1936.

Now the qwerty layout was designed in the days of typewriters with the individual letter keys that would swing up to impact the ribbon to imprint on the paper in the typewriter. If you typed too fast, the keys would jam and you would have to stop and unjam them before you could continue on. This layout just became the norm and persisted long past the days of those typewriters and into the modern age. Now all they do is make a keyboard less ergonomic and slower to use (in English, mind you, I can’t speak for other languages).

I am a touch-typist. I don’t look at the keys at all. My recovery from surgery would mean that I would not be able to use my right hand at all during the first week or two so I would have to resort to hunt-and-peck as well as the dreaded left-handed mousing. I thought this would be the perfect time to switch from qwerty to dvorak. So before I had surgery, I bought stickers for my keyboard keys rather than a whole new keyboard, printed out the keyboard map on paper and switched my Windows to dvorak layout. Done.

I did invoke my stubborn side. I was determined and I would not go back. Good thing I’m stubborn, too, because it took a while for my brain to rewire its knowledge of where keys are. It was probably about a month before I was fluent in dvorak and another two months before my speed exceeded my prior typing speed on qwerty. I’ve now been qwerty-free for two years. After my initial learning period, I no longer even put any stickers or maps on my keyboards because I don’t need them.

Which brings me to when life gets funny – a friend pulled one of my laptops to her and said “let me show you this” and tried to type a URL into the browser. Except she was typing qwerty and my laptop only speaks dvorak. The look on her face cracked me up and I told her that my laptop doesn’t speak the language her fingers did.

Pros of switching:

• Faster
• No wrist or hand pain anymore
• Geek cool factor
• No one borrows your computers

Cons of switching:

• Frustrating as hell at first
• Occasional brain farts where I forget where a key I don’t use often is
• Have to hunt-and-peck on other people’s computers now