I'm surprised nobody mentioned Colemak.  The Colemak keyboard layout is easier to learn and potentially faster than Dvorak (<a href="http://colemak.com/" rel="nofollow">http://colemak.com/</a>).<p>It is easier to learn because it changes many fewer keys, especially the less frequent ones which are harder to learn because you rarely use them.  I found I could never remember where z and v were on Dvorak.  Also, many hotkeys stay in place (ctrl+c, ctrl+v, etc).<p>I learned Colemak (from 0 to 70wpm, now like 90) in 10 days (I had learned and switched back from Dvorak before, though, so I was used to learning new keyboards).<p>It is potentially faster since it was designed after modern computers were invented and depends more on "finger rolls" to type common substrings quickly.  With Dvorak, I often used the same finger to type adjacent letters.  I also used my pinky <i>a lot</i>.  That was painful.  Finally, Colemak keeps punctuation in the same sane place, so it's better for programmers.<p>Colemak is the 3rd most popular layout.  I use it and find it available or trivial to install on all modern OSs.  I can easily use other people's computers by either switching the keyboard layout, or just by glancing down which causes my mind to switch to qwerty mode.