Here’s a brief tip: Rebind your ctrl key to capslock.
Save yourself from the pain. The contorted positions we developers strain our hands into will eventually break them – Emacs & Textmate users, you know what I’m talking about. Do yourself a favor and rebind your control key to capslock. You can do this under MacOSX by going to System Preferences > Keyboard & Mouse > Keyboard > Modifier Keys. Change the settings to look like the following and you’re set.
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http://pfuca-store.stores.yahoo.net/haphackeylit1.html has control and shift in the “correct” locations.
Hmm, I don’t know about that, but I might rebind my caps lock key to control.
I’ve actually rebound my capslock to Backspace for quite some time now. It’s very convenient because it’s on the home row instead of way over in the corner, and you can easily reach commands like CTRL+BACKSPACE (delete word).
My hands would ache mercilessly if I tried to cantilever my pinky over to hit a key that I need as often as I need the control key under Emacs! You’re entirely correct, of course, that having Ctrl to the left of “A” would be much more comfortable than having to twist my hand so that the pinky can strike the lower-left corner of the keyboard. But, really, both options are pretty terrible, and — from the occasions where I have to use someone else’s computer — I know they are both options which cause me physical discomfort and, soon, pain.
The One True Location for the Ctrl key is down where your thumbs can reach it. I always use Dell laptops, and always immediately map the thumb-friendly left-Alt key to Ctrl. The right Alt key becomes my Meta key. The result? I can type along all day and hammer out whatever complicated Emacs control sequences I want, without my eight normal fingers ever leaving home row! My hands get to remain just as they usually are, comfortably atop the letters, while my thumbs — whose joints let them range orthogonally to the rest of my fingers — dictate whether the “A” that I’m hitting with my left pinky is a normal “A”, a “Ctrl-A”, or a “Meta-A”.
I do deign to hit the Shift key with my pinky, I suppose, now that I think about it, and it’s probably the least comfortable thing I do. Hmm. Wonder if there’s some way to bring Shift down to my thumbs too?