I think I'm fairly good at touch typing, have attended a course a couple of years ago, figured out the locations of the buttons and just got better from there. By the time you have their location figured out you really just got to practice, which most of us do anyway.

If you're feeling especially saucy, look up the Dvorak (AEOUI) layout on Youtube. It might help you to scramble up the keys and thwart your old muscle memories. There are pros (fingers travel less and are used more evenly) and cons (QWERTY is still the reigning dinosaur, default game keybinds go wrong.)

Well, it is rather easy to touch type.
Ive been using the PC for a 10+ years now, and its sometimes more of a time thing.
For me i have to think about what I'm typing for a few seconds and then let myself loose.

But yes, its actually pretty important if you actually intend to do some coding. Just keep trying.

yeah, chatting really helps, & without voice communication of course. right now i'm half-touch-typing. Over the years of typing, i've come to memorize the places of each letter & symbol. But I still glance at the keyboard between words sometimes. It isn't really a bad thing. I just do everything i can to speed my typing up.

I've done a bit of coding myself, yet I don't touch-type at all. To be honest, when it comes to coding C or C++, it would actually be just as efficient for me to type at my current rate of 30wpm than it would to type 75wpm - there are a hell of a lot of symbols, including end-line semi-colons all over the place, and you have to think quite a bit when you're using those languages, because they aren't the easiest ones out there to learn.

I'm not about to learn touch-typing either, simply because I don't see the point when I only use it for typing up personal documents (I don't type up reports for college either - I'm not even sure if we're allowed to!), and when I can write almost as quickly than I can type, which is a more portable, more useful (examinations invariably completely disallow typing, so I'd rather not stunt my writing skills) form of communication.

As has already been said, keep your fingers on the home keys... not the actual "Home" key but the keys "F" and "J", with your other fingers sitting in a row. Your thumbs should be on the spacebar.

After that just start typing. Typing of the Dead didn't teach me to type, writing essays for school and wasting time on the internet did. Typing games cause you to cheat too often, or at least that was my case.

In general, I'd say just keep at it. Its not like you can't hit backspace. Eventually it'll just click. Whenever I see my non-gaming relatives attempt something with a PS2 controller I will be constantly telling them what buttons to push. Then they have to look, which fills me with amusement but illustrates the point that all you need is practice. Eventually you won't even think to use your left pinky to type in "a" or your right middle finger to type in "i".

I can type stuff without looking at the keyboard, but that's for general stuff, like names, this post, etc. Touch typing for programming/coding is a different matter entirely. In my case, my touch typing skills depend on the form factor of the keyboard.

I pretty much touch-type, but the only problem is, my left pinky is completely stupid. I can't use it to type. I also seldom use my left ring finger.

But I use all of the rest of my fingers just fine without looking at the keyboard ever. Is that unusual? I can type quickly like this.

Just spent ages typing up essays and soforth. Slow way to learn, but it taught me in a few months.

just practive doing it without )god damn i must be making shitloads of errors here typing w/ eyes closed , theres at least three so far) looking at the keyboard try doing something fun, try playing video games that rely on communication without voice chat or something, or just make all your forum posts blind and edit them later

ow. that was terrible i need to clean my desk.

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned it so far...

Das Keyboard Ultimate:
http://store.daskeyboard.net/prdaskeulorb.html

touch tuping is fun...

Yay only one error..

There are some Tutor programs on the internet I have been told. Practice Practice Practice *remembers that swan lake song*

The weird thing is that, when I rest my fingers on my keyboard, I automatically rest them on the home-row... and I can't touch type. I blame this awesome touch-typing game I played when I was a kid, with had the characters from The Lion King, and you needed to touch-type to help them. Evidently (this post is using my natural, not touch-typing, style of typing), it hasn't stuck, for the most part.

As to help, I suppose a game of some sort, something that takes away the feeling of monotony while still getting you to practice touch-typing regularly, would be quite helpful. It doesn't even have to be a game; it could just be something that you enjoy doing, but you are required to do for quite some time every day. Perhaps touch-type weh on The Escapist?

What I've found about touch typing, is that it's not so much remembering the exact locations of all the keys, as it is remembering the movement combinations for different words. Naturally, that's not all there is to it, as knowing the individual keys is helpful when typing new words or the like.

I have to say, practice practice practice here. Lessons are only so good, and the best thing for me was typing up entire stories. With a teatowel over my hands so I had to watch the screen and work off that.

(PS this post took about two minutes, all mistake corrections included. 5 years practice does wonders.)

Edit: Has anyone else found that there's no point to looking down, as the letters have worn off? I find it somewhat embarassing, but intensely amusing at the same time.

When I got my laptop, I learned to touch type because I'm really lazy and I love laying down while doing my papers, browsing forums, etc.

Keep working at it, it is a lot quicker to type like this.

And, to be boring, this entire post was typed with my eyes closed. It should be pretty accurate to what I'm thinking I'm typing in my head. Sometimes, i can feel an error even when typing like this and I'll hit the backspace key...like just now. I typed backspace wrong, but felt instinctively that my finger hit the wrong key,, and thuschanged the error. When I open my eyes, I will be terrified if more than three things have been typed wrong.

Crap. Three errors.

Labyrinth:

Edit: Has anyone else found that there's no point to looking down, as the letters have worn off? I find it somewhat embarassing, but intensely amusing at the same time.

New Keyboard so no... I broke my last one.