Confessing Evangelical

With apologies to anyone for whom this may be old hat, this is great fun: Dasher, a unique keyboard-less text input system.

Instead of typing, you use the mouse to zoom in on letters as they appear on screen. Like a mobile phone's predictive texting system, once Dasher has an idea of what word you may be trying to write, it makes the letters of that word more prominent - allowing the occasional exhilarating experience of writing most of a single word (such as "experience") with a single, bold sweep of the mouse. Experienced users can apparently achieve up to 39 words a minute - far more than with a conventional onscreen keyboard.

If this sounds completely baffling, then I suggest you give it a try, using the Java-based in-browser demonstration. The site includes tips for novices, and a fuller three-page explanation.

What's the point, I hear you ask? Well, partly just the heck of it, but this page suggests some constructive uses: for text input on a PDA; for one-handed or (using an eye-tracker) hands-free typing. It is ideal for many people who have disabilities that prevent them from using a conventional keyboard.

But it could also be useful for password entry on a system where security might be a concern - for example, a shared computer, or your parents' unpatched Windows XP machine that's probably festooned with keyloggers (though I have a better, set-the-controls-for-the-heart-of-the-geek solution to that one, which I may pass on at some point). The password can be entered using Dasher, and then cut-and-pasted into the password entry field.

Or the whole thing could turn out to be just a diverting curiosity - but hey, that's better than nothing, isn't it?

(And no, I didn't type this post using Dasher. Just this parenthesis.)