New Versions of the Spanish and German Accents Programs

For the newest version, please click here.

Some pretty big changes:

1. Merged US and UK versions. This means that it doesn’t matter what kind of keyboard you have any more.

2. The Caps Lock key will be disabled. This is to prevent accidentally turning on CapsLock when typing accents.

3. Instead of a hotkey, the help file can now be triggered by right clicking the tray icon and clicking “Help.”

4. Significantly improved compatability with other programs with hotkeys involving the Tab key.

5. Admin mode shouldn’t be necessary any more, but this is based on a limited sample of users.

6. To minimize confusion, I’m not linking to the source code here. You can look for it on the “Downloads” page.

7. Some minor stuff like no more underscores in the names and smaller file sizes due to compression.

Grab them while they’re hot!

Cheat at TypeRacer

Executive Summary: This is a simple little program that lets you cheat at typeracer.

Will this program work for other typing test websites?
Well, the actual program itself should work for nearly everything because it simply types the characters one-by-one, just like a human would do it. However, the part where you copy the text using Firebug will likely not work for other typing test websites.

Instructions

1. Run this program.
2. Install the excellent “Firebug” extension on your Firefox.
3. Enter a race on typeracer.com.
4. Hit F12 to open up the Firebug window.
5. Make sure the Firebug window is open to the “HTML” tab.
6. Hit Ctrl+Shift+K to type in the search box.
7. Search for a phrase in the text like “farcical aquatic ceremony.” Hit Enter.
8. Click on the highlighted phrase that Firebug found.
9. Hit Ctrl+C to copy the text to your clipboard.
10. Click in the input box on typeracer.
11. Hit Ctrl+Shift+U.
12. Type the first word in the text (in green and underlined).
13. Hit Ctrl+V to paste the rest of the text.
14. Hit Enter.
15. Either get disqualified outright or asked to take a special typing test with a CAPTCHA to verify that you didn’t cheat.

Background: I created this in about five minutes (it’s four lines of code) after I was defeated by a friend. I could have created a much more elaborate program, one that does even more of the work for you, and to try to get around the CAPTCHA test with OCR, but I didn’t really see the point; I’m not so vain as to want to get my name in the list of high scores, and I wasn’t even sure if the CAPTCHA could be beaten anyway. If you want to do this, create your own damn program. This was only for a one-time prank to blow away my friend with a blistering 270 WPM score with 100% accuracy.

Screenshots

Proof that I was able to cheat:

Future Development

As with all my programs, please contact me to report a bug or suggest a new feature. This is especially important for this program because I consider this program to be “feature-complete” and probably won’t be working on it anymore unless someone emails me with a interesting suggestion.

Download

TypeRacer Trickster.exe

New UK versions of Spanish and German Accent Programs

For the latest version, please click here.

Update 1/3/11: There is now no separate UK version since I figured out how to workaround the problem. Click here to learn more and to download the programs.

Update 10/24/10: Found that for certain applications, like Microsoft Office, you need to run my program in administrative mode. This only affects the UK versions because I had to use a different method of intercepting keystrokes for the UK keyboard layout. Unfortunately, there isn’t much I can do on my end to fix this problem; blame Microsoft for heavy-handed security “features.”

After several reports of users having some trouble using Spanish_Accents_CapsLock with UK keyboard layouts, I finally figured out the problem. The solution isn’t perfect though, as it requires disabling the normal CapsLock functionality (not a big deal), and also uses a “keyboard hook”, which may be falsely detected as a virus because many keyloggers use them. Hence, I will be publishing two versions, a normal one and a UK one, of all subsequent updates to this program and the German version.

Update to German Accents Program

To download the latest version, please click here.

Note: If you have a UK-layout keyboard, please use this UK version.

After updating the Spanish accents version, I figured I’d do the same for the German version. Basically, this increases compatibility for people with keyboard layouts otehr than the standard US QWERTY keyboard. For example, if you have a French AZERTY keyboard, you may have had trouble using the old version.

What you need to know is that instead of using the ` key to type capital accents like Ä or Ü, you now hold down the Tabs key instead. Also, if you ever forget the key combos, you can press Shift+Tab to see a quick refrence guide.

Update to Spanish Accents Program

To download the latest version, please click here.

I’d originally wrote Spanish_Accents_CapsLock for people with standard, US, QWERTY keyboard layouts, but people with alternative keyboard layouts like the French AZERTY keyboard have been having problems because for them, the ` key is actually quite important to type in French.

Therefore, I rewrote the half of the program that dealt with typing capital accented letters like Á or É. It now uses “Tab” instead of the ` key so it should be universally compatible with all keyboard layouts (what keyboard doesn’t have “tab”?). I’ve also added an internal help file that you can access by pressing Shift+Tab. It will popup a quick reference guide of all the various key combinations.