For those of you who have been living with Graffiti, virtual keyboards or other pen-based word entry techniques, you’d know the pain and suffering that’s involved just getting your thoughts into your PDAs.

Well, IBM claims to have found a better way.

The SHARK (Shorthand-Aided Rapid Keyboarding) is a pen-based shorthand system that uses an onscreen keyboard. What makes it different, however, is that instead of tapping on it letter by letter, you slide your pen from one character to the next.

Is there a difference? Well, in theory, yes. Tracing from letter to letter makes it easier for you to remember how to “slide out” common words, as opposed to simply tapping (which requires an extensive visual search for every character). The transient digital ink also serves as a helpful visual cue to help you remember the patterns.

Does it work? You be the judge. You can download IBM’s alpha demo (for XP) here (requires registration). The virtual keyboard is available in regular QWERTY and in ATOMIK formats. The latter is supposed to be better for power sliding, but the new layout was simply way too much for my brain to handle right now.

I can’t give a verdict just yet, as using SHARK with a mouse was just… way too off-putting for me. I’ll wait ’til I get hold of an alpha for PDAs. I have a hunch that it will indeed be much better than just tapping away.