Alexander Sidorenko
Yalta, Ukraine
I was born in Yalta (Crimea, Ukraine) in 1990. At present I live in Sebastopol and study at Sebastopol National Technical University.
The first computer appeared in our house in 1997. Since that time I have been developing my skills of typing (at that time I was only able to type using my two index fingers).
When I was 14 I came across a non-registered version of "A Solo on a Keyboard 4.0". The programme demanded great patience and strong will... That's why I was exercising hard for two months stopping at especially critical moments. It was allowed to do up to 40 exercises without being registered, after that I had to use the training mode where I inserted my own pattern text and practised on it. Since all the exercises in the version of Solo were open for viewing, I was able to do all the 100 exercises and in such a way I learned to type using 10 fingers.
Paying no special attention to those new skills, I just typed till July 2009 until once having typed the next phrase in Google, I found myself on the site of ErgoSolo. I was greatly impressed by their touch-typing simulator and it got me head over heals into touch-typing. By that time my average speed was about 350 c/min. There (and partially in "Race on a keyboard" online) I practised for two months. After that quite by chance I discovered klavogonki, and that site became the starting point for improving touch-typing (nickname ant1k).
Since that very moment my race after the leader has been going on.
Among my interests and hobbies are touch-typing, English, mountain climbing, music (I prefer sweet melodies in the trance style) and playing the guitar.
I first participated in the Intersteno contest in 2010 (many thanks to Lukina Eleonora Alexeevna, who sponsored and helped me in everything). Unfortunately, due to some technical problems the final result was not quite satisfactory, so the beginning was quite a mess.
But I'll do my best to improve and perfect, and I wish it to everyone!