"OCD" Tendencies and Control

I know; this thing starts off sounding like some kind of Sophomore Psychology paper, but I promise, it's not! OK, I do have a little bit of "a thing" related to keyboards and mice. I seem to have been on a never ending quest for th ultimate in the keyboard/mice combination for years now. However, in the last few years, I seem to have settled on pretty much one or two brands and styles of input devices. This Sunday morning blog will be devoted to what I use to control my various media consumption devices in our system. In fact, as I sit here typing this, I've got the living room HTPC working playing music streamed from the file server in the office.

On the notebook side of things, it's been pretty easy: there's simply nothing better than the traditional ThinkPad keyboard. So much so, that I even use one on my secondary XP OS desktop computer in the UltraNav form, which is really a ThinkPad keyboard married to a conventional PC connection.

Actually, if I had a magic wand, I'd create a wireless version of this for HTPC functions and be done with it, but unfortunately we don't have that yet, soooooo........ 

  

So, my alternative is the Logitech DiNovo series of input devices. Over the last few years, I've had a lot of experience with this (and other) series from Logitech. This all started when I realized that I typed faster and more accurately on laptop style keyboard vs. the regular kind. However, back in those days, keyboards with that style of keys few and far between. Eventually, I found the first of DiNovo series and got one. I hated the lag in the Bluetooth receivers of that day, but loved the feel of the devices. Eventually I found the wired "Illuminated" KB, in combination with the "Revolution" mouse was perfect for my desktop needs, but the HTPC was a different animal all together. What was needed was a compact unit with some level of mouse function built-in, as well as wireless interface better than RF. Enter the DiNovo Edge. This elegant package was pretty much everything I needed all-in-one device.

There was a couple of downsides though. Even though it was compact compared to a regular keyboard, and included pointing functions, it was still a little large AND oddly enough, it doesn't include multi-media control functions such as "play/pause", "skip", "Stop", etc.! 

Enter the Logitech DiNovo Mini. This little device is a full-functioning keyboard (thumb style) with pointing function almost identical to the Edge. Actually I came across it trying to find something to use in my classroom that would do more than advance PowerPoint slides and be small enough to hold in one hand and/or slip in my pants pocket. 

As you can see, it has a pretty normal keyboard layout and is in fact, extremely compact. 

Another plus is that it uses the exact same Bluetooth 2.0 EDR receiver that the Edge does, so I can actually have both devices connected and in use at the same time! Actually, I have one receiver attached to either HTPC and just move the devices around as necessary. It may seem odd, but I usually have the Edge with fullsized keyboard in the bedroom and the Mini in the living room mostly as I've found that I rarely if ever type anything in the livng room machine, but quite often will do some web-surfing in the bedroom. 

Now of course, with us moving to day-to-day use of the ThinkPad tablets running Android, I'll be looking at Android control solutions like GMote.

This is of course the "next level" and will take some work to get comfortable with, but that's part of the fun isn't it?!?