Happy-K Keyboards Inc.
What with sitting at my desk for most of the day, I am constantly trying to come up with new ways to make myself more comfortable. These long American work days are pretty tough on the posture, after all.
Somewhere out there there is an ergonomic stetup so good I could press buttons all day and not fidget around all the time. The trouble is, I haven't found it yet.
Getting this right is a crucial part of making my time at work a pleasant one, and made even more important by a few appointments with a physical therapist who didn't seem at all pleased by the state of my geek-twenty-something back.
Our software requires lots of numeric input and the use of modifier keys. A standard keyboard is OK for all of this, but the problem is that all of them are so long, meaning that my shoulders slump as my weedy little arms struggle to use both the Ctrl key and the mouse. I hate all of the hand mileage that I'm clocking up! What I would ideally like is a keyboard that is deep rather than wide, eschewing all of those nonsense extra hotkeys. The Insert, Home, Page Up key cluster would be moved horizontally above the Function keys, whilst the numeric pad would be skootched towards the main keys, but so that Num Lock would be by F12, then the cursor keys could sit under that. I reckon that would shave off 2 inches from the length of the keyboard. It doesn't sound much, but it would help me.
in addition to my custom designed keyboard, I would also like a shaped mouse mat that fits around my keyboard so that the beastly thing doesn't sit on the pad like it does now. gar!
So, if you happen to see Father Christmas as you go about your daily life. Please could you pass on this information?
Thanks!
posted by Kevan at
8/03/2005 04:23:00 PM
4 Comments:
Hey Kevan,
You could get one of those small numeric keypads and put it beside your keyboard, they shouldn't be too expensive, check the links below:
http://www.docustom.com/kb-catalog/keypads/keypad-630.htm
http://www.docustom.com/kb-catalog/numeric-keypads.htm
That might help :)
-Kaveh
By
kr, at 9:25 AM
Thanks very much! The only problem is that we can only use PS/2 devices at work, and I only have one port on the back, which is needed for the main keyboard. Grrr.
K
By
Kevan, at 10:10 AM
I know you've seen these, because I've got one:
http://x-keys.com/xkeys/xkpro.php
With one of these, you can put 58 of your favorite keys exactly where you want them! And if you change your mind later, you can just switch'em around according to your whim. It also does macros like "CTRL-C" or "+.001 ENTER". It daisychains with a regular keyboard, so you can use them both at once if you like.
I love this because it takes up a lot less space on my desk, which leaves plenty of room for my Wacom tablet.
There's also this other device, if you want to really customize your setup:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/input/77ba/
By
Cassidy, at 6:18 PM
That would certainly come in handy, methinks, and is the logical step-up from the separate numeric pad I currently have...
Hmmm...
By
Kevan, at 7:00 PM
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