[Mark Rejhon]

That's true. You'll just have to practice homing in the keys, usually by putting your thumbs on top of the shift keys or spacebar, then moving the thumbs upwards from there. Put both thumbs on the spacebar, slide thumbs two key rows up so that your thumbs are on top of G and H ... then spread apart so your thumbs are on F and J.

I've never had a problem homing without looking, but this may be a good training aid. In no time, you'll be aiming directly at the F and J home keys without needing to hunt for the home keys.

Another way is that, at first, you can "cheat" temporarily by glancing in order to initially aim the thumbs at the home keys, before you stop looking while typing...

[lcater]

Mark, great article, now how about one for the new keyboards on the 7100 series? Somedays I wonder what the dictionary is thinking if I rapid type without looking. It may be my fat thumbs hitting the wrong keys, or maybe it really is some bizarre language that RIM has put in to get the last laugh. My wife sure did after I sent her a message while under the influence. I had been out holding that day, but since holding=golfing the message sort of lost it's point. I think the time is ripe for a BB Synonym dictionary based on the various words you can type with the same keys. For example:
skill:skull
are:see (this one is annoying!)
deaf:dead
is:us (another annoying one)
art:set
for:foe:doe
test:tray
dog:fog:doh
cat:vat:cay


How about a contest for the most words created by certain key combinations?

The dark side of this list, would be those words which appear to have no meaning and would be questioned on many a scrabble board.

It does sort of remind me of the old Newton days. But, I do love my 7100r just the same.

[siddharth]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.0) BlackBerry8700/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/149)

Hey Mark,

Let me first tell you that I am elated at receiving a response and a pm from you. I am posting the text I did yesterday (I'll try).

I am quite average (in your comparision) with my typing speed at about 80wpm. I have reached a high of 94wpm on my notebook. But I usually get 75-80 without any problems. I got my BB 8700G about three weeks ago and read this post on thumb typing about two weeks back. I practised and tried to do a crash-course of sorts with typing and got to Step 9-10 in a hurry. This was helped as I was using the Nokia Communicator (though did not use if for e-mail as much). I had a speed of about 25wpm on my BB on the day I read the post and thanks to all the practical advice from you I have managed 48-50 wpm now. Today I recorded 52 wpm which is my highest but get 45 wpm with relative ease.

I thank you for all the advice on typing. I must say your post was worth thousands of dollars of training program for me.

THANK YOU Mark.

Cheers.

[Mark Rejhon]

THANK YOU MARK.

You're welcome!

I routinely impress people by typing on the blackberry BEHIND my back as a demonstration of my BlackBerry touchtype ability!

It's much harder than simply learning BlackBerry touchtyping, but that is something to try out... Even though I'm the writer of this FAQ, I'm usually only 95% accurate when I do this (one typo in a sentence).

[flash24]

I'm learning.. hahah

[Liv]

This guide is stinkin' awesome!
It reminds me of my 10th grade computer typing class. w,w,w,w...t,t,t,t...u,u,u,u. Ha
I usually type over 125wpm on a computer keyboard so I am curious to see how I would do on my 7130c.

[Mark Rejhon]

I have now edited this keyboard FAQ to cover the 8700 series, and to make a note to exclude the 8100 series (since that model is SureType too).

There are minor differences in punctuation typing for the 7XXX series versus 87XX, in which the ' apostrophe, the " quote, and the @ at sign are in different locations on the 7XXX series versus 87XX series.

I also added a new section, because it is a common typo that causes a BlackBerry typist to pause/stall:

Memorize how to quickly correct accidental presses of SYM key
You will often make the mistake of hitting the SYM key often, when practicing to thumb touchtype. If you hit the SYM key and you get a popup menu of punctuation marks, simply hit backspace to clear this screen. You're simply backspacing an accidental SYM keypress. You can also clear an accidental SYM keypress by hitting SYM again or the Esc buton, however, it is strongly recommended to be consistent: Automatically press the backspace key everytime you feel you hit a wrong key (including the SYM key). Before long, you will be automatically hitting the backspace key anytime you press the wrong key, including the SYM key before you notice the SYM menu pop up.

If you are already a big-keyboard touchtypist, follow the whole FAQ and you can break 50+ WPM pretty easily on the BlackBerry within a couple weeks or a month. Several people have followed this FAQ to full success. Adapt your existing touch typist memory to the tiny thumb keyboard -- Yes, it is possible!

[Mark Rejhon]

Originally Posted by Liv

I usually type over 125wpm on a computer keyboard so I am curious to see how I would do on my 7130c.

This guide is optimized for full QWERTY BlackBerry units, so would not be ideal on the 7130c, however I have seen many people exceed about 50 WPM on a 7130c after some good practice.

You could improvise this guide for SureType BlackBerries, but there are very different instructions for SureType models, and different considerations as well.

[princessbberry]

i just got my new blackberry pearl about 3 weeks ago..i was wondering if there was a setting that allows you to not capatalize the first word in every sentence w/ out doing it manually, and also when you first start the txt message. thanks!

[MadDog_]

Man, I LOVE this manual. I'm trying to start practicing on a regular basis, and from what little I've done, my speed and accuracy have picked way up.

One thing that Mark mentions are the bumps that are on the home keys (f & j) of a PC keyboard. Does anyone know if there's an aftermarket BB keyboard available with this? It would REALLY help (me, at least).

[Mark Rejhon]

For me, I can confirm that the BlackBerry Bold is better for thumb touchtyping than Curve is. The keyboard is wider and less likely to hit adjacent keys. Even though it looks similiar to the 8800 keyboard, it feels nothing like the 8800 keyboard in actual thumb-feel.

I can easily hit 60 WPM on the Bold for regular writing with a very low error rate, and I might be hitting 70 WPM in small bursts.

[rakhan]

i have balckberry 8707v i try to change sim cord my other fone sim cord and my blackberry fone is locked how i can open lock please let me know thaks

[tita]

I saw Kim Kardashian looking through somebody elses text while in her own phone. I would like to know how is this done. please...the phone also says something about multiple phone numbers that you can use in your BlackBerry Help! thanks

[Mark Rejhon]

Link to Youtube video of me doing 75 words per minute on BlackBerry Bold:

YouTube - 75 Words Per Minute on BlackBerry!

[daphne]

WOW! I would not have believed that if I didn't see the video. I can't type that fast on a regular keyboard.