typing

Typing Speed Monitor for Google Chrome keeps tabs on your keyboarding prowess

Submitted by admin on Fri, 09/24/2010 - 09:00

 

Ever finished firing off a lengthy email and wondered, "Dang, I wish I knew how many WPM that was"? No, me either. But still, as a guy who writes a lot and often gets asked by people how fast I can type I just may give Typing Speed Monitor for Google Chrome a try and see what it tells me.

Install the extension and it takes residence in your browser actions area. As you type, it'll record your speed and monitor how often you press each key. In addition to good ol' QWERTY, Dvorak and Colemak keyboard layouts are also supported. TSM's pop-up heatmap provides detailed stats about your typing including CPM, WPM, total time, and keypresses per key.

No, 61 really isn't that great... But go easy on me, it's six o'clock in the morning and I haven't had any coffee yet.

Maybe I should re-read Jason's post on how to touch type like a keyboarding ninja...

Popchrom is an awesome text expander for Google Chrome

Submitted by admin on Tue, 03/23/2010 - 12:00

 

If you do a lot of typing on your computer, you owe it to yourself to install a good text expander. You type a couple of characters, and you get a whole phrase. It's a fantastic way to increase your productivity and reduce repetitive typing (except for your abbreviations, of course). For those of you using Google Chrome, there's a slick new extension which puts a text expander right inside your browser.

Popchrom lets you set up custom abbreviations which it can then expand in any typing field. You can also edit existing entries and delete those that you no longer need. To access the options screen, just click the Popchrom icon -- which the developer was considerate enough to put in Chrome's Omnibar (instead of in the browser actions area). There's also built-in support for time and date variables.

Once you've got your abbreviations set, you expand them by pressing ctrl+space after you type (ds + ctrl+space = Download Squad). It's pretty awesome.

Popchrom currently has trouble with Google Docs, Wave, and some WYSIWG editing fields. However, it's well worth installing, even with those hiccups (which the developer is already working to resolve).