The Dvorak Keyboard – Is it worth changing over?

Back in high school, I was never satisfied with my typing speed.  I could get up to 60 wpm or so, but I wanted to get better.  After a year of college, and significant exposure to the internet, I decided to learn Dvorak.  By this time, I could type at up to 80 wpm, but I was convinced I would never type much faster unless I changed.

For one month, I swore off QWERTY.  I was sorely tempted to give in because of the ICPC, but I stayed firm.  I started keeping a journal for practice, making nearly daily entries.  By the end of the month, I could type at about 50 wpm in Dvorak.  After another few, I could type as fast as I could before.

It has been a few years now, and Dvorak is well ingrained.  The computer has told me that I type as fast as 120 wpm, but generally I type from 80-100 wpm.  I still use QWERTY when necessary, but I type at ~50 wpm.  Fortunately, I almost exclusively use linux, and it is incredibly easy to change keymaps – ’setxkbmap dvorak’ or ’setxkbmap us’ (or loadkeys if you are outside of X).

Copying a linux vm with a static IP address

Copying virtual machines can be a little tricky – every different OS configuration can have its own quirks.

In the case of a debian installation with static ip addresses, replication is fairly straightforward, but it does have a thing or two that caught me off guard.

In addition to modifying the hostname (/etc/hostname) and ip address (/etc/network/interfaces), you have to update the mac address (/etc/udev/rules.d/z25_persistent-net.rules) in order to have your device recognized as eth0.  Of course, different distros have different files, but just grep for your old mac, and you should be fine.

I suppose this change applies equally to any time you change network devices…