Sunday Evening Miscellany

[ewx]

I have a strange new keyboard, having got tea in the last one. It's easy to type on, as long as I don't look at it, at which point the odd angles throw me off; and the finger guides on F and J (which you can't really make out in the picture) keep making me think there's a hair on the keyboard. (Must buy another spare keyboard for next time I spill something into one.)

I'm currently half way through assembling our new kitchen table, a present from LNR's parents. I'd have been finished long since but the screws don't seem to be up to the job so I've introduced some wood glue and it's currently waiting for it to dry enough to continue.

Cleaning the house after the party went pretty quickly thanks to the assistance of some of the guests still to be found on the floor in the morning. Thanks again to all of you. Only hoovering remains, deferred until I complete the table.

I am still enjoying my iBook - I have a separate keyboard and mouse now, which makes it suitable for video games as well as for geeking around the house. Being able to take it with me when we stayed at Relativity last weekend was great.

LNR is still out at the pub playing card games, I walked Steph and Dave back and saw them off and decided I was much too dopey to go back out (so instead I'll ramble at you lot).

What to say of last night? I'm still smiling inside.

Comments

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I used a keyboard (almost exactly?) the same as that at an EasyInternetCafe once. Really don't see how it could be any better than the standard one with regular-shaped keys, but I'm keen to be educated.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

What the manufacturer has to say (http://www.a4tech.com/en/product2.asp?CID=2&SCID=12&MNO=KBS-720). The theory seems to be that since your fingers aren't exactly parallel with the line from your nose to the monitor, it makes sense to change the angle of the keytops to be closer to that of your fingers.

[karen2205]

Grr - it'd have been nice to come and meet you and the others, but I had LPC revision to do (which I've still not done!) and couldn't face the London-Cambridge-London thing:-(

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I'm sure there'll be another time...

[gerald_duck]

Um… yes. But you can type with your hands angled inwards like that on any keyboard you like — indeed, I do!

[imc.livejournal.com]

The picture of the keyboard doesn't really give me any impression of why this layout would make any difference to that: they don't seem to have changed the positions of the keys, only their shapes.

What I find odd about the standard design of the keyboard is that the offsets between the rows seem to be about right for the right hand (for one finger to move between U, J and M, for instance) but entirely unnatural for the left. Which is where split keyboards come in, of course.

[kjaneway.livejournal.com]

Damn, I left my one of those at the job I quit last month.

I found it to be a really comfortable keyboard. Much more so than the vile Cherry ones that were given out as standard and a tenth or less of the cost.

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Yes, indeed, it's the shapes not the locations that are unusual. (There are one or two keys in unusual locations but that's not the point.)

The keyboard I have at work has more conventional shapes. I think the gaps between the tops of the keys are probably larger, and I do find I'm hitting the edges of the keys rather than the centres some of the time. Perhaps these are the differences they're aiming for?