Park Cursor Aside Moves The Mouse Cursor When You Start Typing

Have you ever had issues with the mouse cursor being in the way when you started to type on your computer? Since you usually activate the text field with the mouse, for instance on websites, you often end up with the mouse cursor being in the way. With the mouse cursor blocking some characters in your text, you sometimes need to move it around, for instance before you start editing the text that you cannot see because of the cursor.

I reviewed Auto Hide Mouse Cursor back in February here on Ghacks, which automatically hid the mouse cursor after some time of inactivity. While that sounds very handy when watching videos for instance, it also offered a solution when using the keyboard on the computer. The program hid the mouse cursor on mouse inactivity, and let you use the keyboard and other input devices as usual.

Park Cursor Aside is another free program for that purpose. It automatically moves the mouse cursor to a designated position on the screen as soon as you start typing. The default setting moves the mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen after three keystrokes.

The portable program works right after you start it up on your system. A right-click on the program icon in the system tray open a context menu with options to disable the program functionality, and to configure the program’s settings.

The settings menu, which you see in the screenshot above, allows you to change the following preferences:

Change the position the mouse cursor is moved to (1=top, 2=right, 3=bottom, 4=left, 5=center)Change the number of keystrokes that are required before the mouse is moved away (from 1-9)Park the mouse a few pixels away from the screen edge, useful if you have a toolbar there for instance that gets automatically activated when the mouse moves into the regionSlide mouse to parking position. This visualizes the movement to the selected positionPark mouse related to screen (1) or active window position (2)

Park Cursor Aside is not as flexible as Auto Hide Mouse Cursor. Especially the fact that the latter does not move the mouse may be more to the liking of users who would like to hide their mouse cursor when they type. That does not make Park Cursor Aside a bad program. On the contrary, it will definitely attract users who find it useful.

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About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Monday March 26, 2012 -
Tags:mouse cursor, portable software, windows software

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Keyboard Training, A Playful Typing Tutor

Improving your typing speed and accuracy can really speed up your day to day computer activities. Instead of using the one-finger method to hover like a hawk over the keyboard, you could improve your performance with the help of typing tutors. These programs help you improve your typing speed and accuracy. Depending on the program, they show you how to place your hands over the keyboard and which finger is linked to which key on the keyboard.

Excellent programs for this task are the Online Typing Tutor which visualizes this nicely, or the desktop apps Rapidtyping or Bruce’s Unusual Typing Wizard.

Keyboard Training is a lightweight typing software for the Windows operating system that’s packs the training into a little game. When you start the portable program you are presented with a minimalistic keyboard (azerty layout by default, option to change to qwerty in the options).

A click on keyboard training > new game starts the game. Your only task is to hit the highlighted letter before the time runs out. Whenever you hit the correct letter, you increase your overall score. When you miss or when the time runs out, it is game over. The game is set to easy difficulty by default, which gives you 20 seconds to hit the right key on the keyboard. Three additional difficulty levels are available which reduce the available time to hit the correct key on the virtual keyboard.

The biggest issues with this approach is that the program does not support a full keyboard, and that you do not learn how to position your hands to type on the keyboard. The one-finger method works as fine as the ten-finger method, at least for the easier difficulty levels.

If you are serious about learning to type, I suggest you take a look at some of the alternatives listed above. If you prefer a minimalistic playful experience, you might want to download and try out Keyboard Training instead.

Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook or Twitter. Computer Keyboard Typing Course
Increase Your Typing Speed With Typing Games And Tests
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Bruce’s Unusual Typing Wizard, Learn How To Type For Free
Windows 7 Training Kit For Developers About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Friday March 9, 2012 -
Tags:typing software, typing tutor, windows software

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