In an attempt to make typing less painful, I now have a new keyboard, the Kinesis Advantage. Most of the keys sit in two large indentations, with the keys angled for easy pressing. The keyboard is designed to minimize movements, and many common keys are positioned to take advantage of the thumb (its big and strong). The keyboard is just different enough to require some re-mapping of my mind. As a touch typist, typing is was pretty much an unconscious act for me. Relearning typing is a pretty odd process: I have to stop and think about where to type. It also slows me down, which is actually a good thing, as far as my hands are concerned.
So, some initial notes about the keyboard (note: its only been a few hours into my retraining):
Most of the keys feel very natural. The keys are positioned in the indentations to be at the natural height for the fingers that are meant to type them. For example, the middle finger keys ("d" and "k") are set deep in the indentation, as the middle finger is the longest.
This keyboard fits in very well with the keyboard trays I have at home and at work. The MS Natural Keyboard, with its curvy shape, didn't do a good job fitting onto the tray.
It has a two-port USB hub in it, making it easy for me to plug in my Griffin Powermate. The Powermate, a machined aluminum knob that glows, has to be the coolest computer input device ever.
The space bar is positioned as to be pressed with the right thumb. Unlike my previous keyboard (a Microsoft Natural keyboard), there is only the single space bar (I'm used to being able to press it with either hand). The backspace is located under the other thumb.
The shift keys are a tad on the small side. Hasn't been a huge problem, but I am used to a larger target. Overall, this keyboard demands a certain amount of precision when typing. You can't just jab in the general direction of the keys. This is also playing out on the left hand, where I frequently go to hit a "c" or a "v" and get the other one (or one of the side arrow keys, which are right under the c and v).
I also wouldn't have minded a bit larger target for the oft-used command key.
There are also a few keys that have radically changed locations for me. Most notably, the "=" key. As a developer, I spend a lot of time hitting the "=." I had a little moment of panic this morning when I went to hit "=" and it wasn't there. By "there," I mean in the upper right hand corner. It is in the imbedded numeric keypad, but you have to hit a function key to activate that. This simply wouldn't work for such an important key. So I went about trying to figure out how to remap keys, moving the "=" to another, lesser-used key (like "\"). Fortunately, I noticed that the "=" (and its shift key, "+") had migrated to the upper left hand side of the keyboard. Problem solved, except for the fact that I'll now have to get used to using my left hand for that.
Lest you think I'm whining, I'm not. So far its been a good experience. I haven't used it enough to see any reduction in my hand fatigue. But I'm already making significantly less mistakes (compared to when I first started out), so the re-training process won't take that long. And typing out this little mini-review was good practice. Now I can get back to coding.
Posted by Karl
May 22, 2003 08:34 AM