New toy
I got a new toy of sorts in the mail yesterday. It's a FingerWorks keyboard. It's very cool, but a little hard to get used to for touch typing. It's basically a big touchpad with a keyboard map on top of it, but it also allows mousing and other "gestures" on the same surface essentially on top of the "keys". It has a lot of potential if I can get used to it because you don't have to move your hand off the keyboard to grab the mouse. But not having the tactile feel of the key shapes as you hit them makes it easy to hit the wrong key. I'm typing this with it now, in fact. The Backspace is in a much nicer place though, which makes it easier to back up and correct the letters you miss. The Backspace key being in the top right always seemed to bother my wrist if I used it too much, which being the poor touch typist that am I used it a lot.
I hope this ends up better than the time I tried to learn a Dvorak keyboard. I loved that layout, it's so much more logical. I bought a cheap keyboard and moved the key
tops around in the Dvorak pattern. Windows has built-in support for software-mapping the keys from a standard qwerty over to Dvorak, so it was a minimal investment. I lasted about a month using it every day at work. My productivity sucked. I finally gave in and went back to the globally accepted inferior standard, the same as with using Microsoft products.
At least this new keyboard is in the familiar layout. It just takes a bit to get used to where the keys are. If I don't think about it and just type I seem to be pretty fast already. This could have the side-effect of firming up my muscle memory of where the keys are. We shall see.
My ProgressQuest character is now a level 27 Crested Dwarf Battle-Felon. This is the greatest RPG ever!
My XM Radio is not working inside today :( Must be the rain restricting the
signal.
I got a full color brochure in the mail for the new Nissan 350Z. They are taking pre-orders for delivery in August. Oh, do want one of these bad. If we weren't expecting our first child in Sept, I would run down there and put down a deposit. Beth tolerates my gadget freakiness and impulse buys to a certain point, but I think that would put me in the doghouse for sure. Maybe I'll be able to get the 2nd year no-bugs 2004 model.
Here's the neat-o secret key config mode message on the new keyboard:
/* Enter a Config Code: 1=Mac 2=Win 3=3rdButton 4=Linux 5=Unix/BeOS ... WINDOWS mode enabled */
Neat, huh?
I hope this ends up better than the time I tried to learn a Dvorak keyboard. I loved that layout, it's so much more logical. I bought a cheap keyboard and moved the key
tops around in the Dvorak pattern. Windows has built-in support for software-mapping the keys from a standard qwerty over to Dvorak, so it was a minimal investment. I lasted about a month using it every day at work. My productivity sucked. I finally gave in and went back to the globally accepted inferior standard, the same as with using Microsoft products.
At least this new keyboard is in the familiar layout. It just takes a bit to get used to where the keys are. If I don't think about it and just type I seem to be pretty fast already. This could have the side-effect of firming up my muscle memory of where the keys are. We shall see.
My ProgressQuest character is now a level 27 Crested Dwarf Battle-Felon. This is the greatest RPG ever!
My XM Radio is not working inside today :( Must be the rain restricting the
signal.
I got a full color brochure in the mail for the new Nissan 350Z. They are taking pre-orders for delivery in August. Oh, do want one of these bad. If we weren't expecting our first child in Sept, I would run down there and put down a deposit. Beth tolerates my gadget freakiness and impulse buys to a certain point, but I think that would put me in the doghouse for sure. Maybe I'll be able to get the 2nd year no-bugs 2004 model.
Here's the neat-o secret key config mode message on the new keyboard:
/* Enter a Config Code: 1=Mac 2=Win 3=3rdButton 4=Linux 5=Unix/BeOS ... WINDOWS mode enabled */
Neat, huh?