Bit Literacy - Mark Hurst [57]
Managing passwords: My wsj.com password is stored as “wpw”, my ebay.com password is stored as “epw”, and under “pw” I store a default password that I use for all the unimportant sites I register for. To log into any site, all I have to do is remember the abbreviation in the bit lever. That’s much easier than memorizing dozens of different passwords.
Typing HTML phrases: Techies will find this most useful. I’ve defined “ahr” to yield “”, a common chunk of HTML code that sets up a hyperlink. Whether I’m in a text editor or a Web browser’s editing window, I can create these key HTML strings quickly and error-free.
A bit lever must work in every application on the computer—from the text editor to the Web browser to the file system. This is why a feature like Microsoft Word’s AutoCorrect is insufficient, since it only works in one application. There are many bit levers available, but here are three good, inexpensive options: Mac users can choose between Typinator (available at ergonis.com) or TypeIt4me (available at typeit4me.com), and Windows users can download a bit lever called ActiveWords from activewords.com. (Apple and Microsoft haven’t yet built bit levers into their operating systems, but they should.)
The key to using a bit lever is to start slowly, defining a few abbreviation-expansion pairs every week to see what “sticks.” Which do you naturally remember? Which do you use a lot? It takes some time to get really effective with a bit lever, but like any good investment, the returns compound over time. In over ten years of using a bit lever, I’ve built up well over a thousand abbreviation-expansion pairs. I use many of them on a daily basis—to correct a misspelling, retrieve a password, or type some text.
Perhaps the most important aspect of a bit lever is that it invites continual improvement. I’m still adding new expansions so that my typing keeps getting faster and more accurate. Like bit literacy itself, a bit lever works best with long-term practice.
Finally, a word of warning: if you use a bit lever diligently for a few weeks and begin to realize its benefits, you will never want to use a machine that doesn’t have one. You will resent every Internet cafe PC that stupidly requires you to type every character, and typing on friends’ computers will feel impossibly slow. Once you experience improved productivity, you’ll never want to go back.
Avoiding the mouse
When using any software application, the bit-literate user should avoid using the computer mouse and try to use a keyboard command instead. Like a bit lever, this practice takes time to adopt but can significantly raise your productivity.
This is not to say that the computer mouse is unnecessary; far from it. I often reach for the mouse to root around in the file system, move documents around, or accomplish an obscure task on the computer. The mouse is also a constant necessity online, of course, for clicking links and buttons in the Web browser. But in many common tasks the mouse is much slower than the keyboard. To work most productively, the bit-literate user should keep both hands on the keyboard (fingers resting on home keys), never reaching for the mouse except when the keyboard can’t accomplish a task.
The bit-literate ideal is to engage bits at the speed of thought: finding, viewing, creating, editing, sharing, and deleting bits as quickly as your synapses fire. This is an achievable goal if all ten fingers are on the keyboard, but not if one hand is constantly reaching over to grab the mouse. The mouse requires too much physical movement; the keyboard is the fastest, most efficient input device we have.44
In most software applications, common commands are accessible via the keyboard. One example is the Save command, available in most Macintosh applications via the easily-typed command-S keystroke. Windows programs usually assign the Save command to the wrist-contorting combination of control-S. (This, by the way, points to one of Microsoft’s all-time biggest user interface blunders. The most common Windows commands rely on the control