That Which We Touch: Keyboards & Mice

I commonly find myself encouraging people that I consult for to buy a nice keyboard and mouse. And although they are out of production, the iconic IBM Model "M" mechanical keyboard is an abiding symbol in our modern world for a reason. They are so rugged and for the longest time, considered "industry standard" that Hollywood foley (sound effects) operators generally use the sound of them to represent people typing, although most modern keyboards are now silent. They are long out of production, but still sought after to this day, especially by "hacker" types who tend to pound so hard on the keys that they wear out the typical "rubber domed" type in short order.

I have a long running fascination with input peripherals; that's mice and keyboards to most people. I love them, and am willing to try all manner of them to find the perfect combination. My current combo are the Logitech Illuminated Keyboard, because I hate lag and find that I rarely move the keyboard around, plus I quite often do computing at night with the lights darkened; paired with a Logitech Revolution MX wireless mouse. This is because I absolutely hate the cord, and find that I do in fact use the various other buttons, especially the forward and back. The free-spinning wheel is a bonus when I'm searching on a looong webpage.

....And as a nod to my quirkiness, on occasion, I also use a year 2000 relic; the Microsoft Sidewinder Strategic Commander. Yes, I know it was designed for role-playing games, but I like the idea of extra programmable buttons so I use it for stuff like the Aero-Flip key combination..... and because it's weird!

Speaking of "weirdness"; I've been into that for a while now (in relation to mice and keyboard at least), going back to the Logitech Cyberman 3D controller. Back in those days, I had imagined that I would like gaming and the concept of a device that allowed for the normal mouse functions as well as jumping and ducking would be great! Turns out that I never did get into gaming and the Cyberman was a little limiting. However my fascination didn't begin or end there.

In the late '90s while living in Chicago, I walked into a Relax Your Back Store in Lincoln Park. There in the middle of all of these really cool and comfortable seating was an especially interesting office chair. Around that time, there was a lot being written about carpel-tunnel syndrome and various other ailments associated with long hours of working in front of a computer monitor. Here was a solution! An office chair where the keyboard was split in two, one half on the respective sides along with touchpads, therefore allowing the user to keep both arms supported and in optimal positions. The price tag of course kept it from becoming a mainstream item, but the idea was really interesting and was partially responsible for kick-starting my slight obsession with ergonomics. Of course, when you combine this will a long established obsession with design, then this becomes a fertile area for come craziness. 

For some years, the computer industry's mainstream product that represented ergonomics pretty much was represented by Apple's split keyboard and Microsoft's more easily handled, but enormous concept and it's clones. The M$ style was pretty popular and could be found most anywhere, while Apple's offering was a little more of a "niche" product and rarely seen outside of the "big-screen", like in the movie "Hackers" where the mousey villain used it.

There were a few "mavericks" among the crowd though, like the really radical Kinesis and the Safetype "grip" style keyboard, but they pretty much were commercial failures.

In the meantime, the industry's ever moving pendulum headed the other way to more of a design orientation. So of course, Apple (and it's contractor Frog Design) is going to lead that pack! In today's world, there's not a product that represents cool, than the Apple Bluetooth keyboard. That's especially true of the short version without the number pad. It's small, simple, works and just looks great anywhere in the house. If it had a built in pointing device, it would definitely be my keyboard of choice for our home theater PCs. 

If a wireless version of this existed, I'd definitely use it, but IBM and now Lenovo steadfastly refuses to cut the cord, so I'm still using the Logitech DiNovo Edge in the living room and the Mini in the bedroom.

They are pretty good devices, but of course, I'm still saddled with the devil's invention....., the touchpad on both! 

Design keeps pushing the envelop, especially in the gaming area where some of the mice are beginning to resemble science fiction. One device (though not ready for prime time), that it really cool in concept is the infra-red keyboard! Although the reviews have universally panned it, we seem to be one step closer to the really cool input devices of Hollywood.

Who can forget the oh-so-futuristic keyboards of Star Trek. Here is an overlay that anyone can run out and buy, but you know if you have a tablet, that pop-up onscreen keyboard that you peck on already has you there!

Of course, the 3-D virtual reality interfaces of the films "Johnny Mnemonic" and "Minority Report" were both ultra-impressive to geeks like me, but really: who wants to wave their arms around and do so much work to surf the web?

Now, this is more like it! The Gravitonus, Ergonomic Workstation and iCubby! But barring spending many tens of thousands of dollars, I'll stick with what I have for now. What's my current target?

It's an NMB Concert Master keyboard of course! 

....And this is an Altec Maxisound. These obviously 90's masterpieces of computer hardware will help me when I'm working on somebodies machine. On occasion, I find that I've forgotten to set up sound on a computer after a reload since my testing area doesn't have room for speakers. Then embarrassingly, I'll have to go back and get the drivers sorted out for them later. A few days ago, I was watching a "fix-it" video on YouTube, when I saw one of the Concert Masters on it. I was hooked! This will go along very well on the Tech Station that I'm planning to build.... but of course, that's another post.

The iPods In Our Lives

On November 10th of 2001, Apple introduce the 1st generation iPod, commonly called the "scroll wheel" model. It was $399 for the 5Gb model, and $499 for the 10Gb version! Even at that, it was pretty obvious that this device was going to be a world beater. If you didn't covet one, you're probably either delusional or simply lying! Everyone wanted one, despite the ridiculous price...... However, by 2004, with the arrival of the 4th generation model price at $299 for a 20Gb, and $399 for the 40Gb model, the word "competition" in the marketplace was almost a joke. In those sizes, these devices put the concept of putting an entire collection of CDs onto one device was within reach. This became the killer concept for me, and I began to truly contemplate acquiring one of these. A year later, when the smaller (30Gb) of the 5th generation iPods were out at $299, I pulled the trigger and a nice black one became my wife's Christmas present. 

Is that it!?! How you came to acquire an iPod? No, that's just the beginning, so bear with me. At the time of the arrival of that one lone bastion of Apple-ness at our house, I was not only happily entrenched with Minidiscs, but had and had gone through any number of personal listening devices, many of which sounded better than that iPod......any iPod! Then why are we even discussing this device? Well....at the risk of sounding all philosophical about this; it isn't all about the absolute sound quality. What is this coming from a vinyl record listener!?! First of all, I'm a big believer in using the right tool for the job, meaning that when on the go, I LOVE being able to tote my entire collection of music. And don't let anyone fool you; a car is no place to judge absolution reproduction capabilities. Secondly; I love devices that can do more than one thing! In this case, the capacious storage of 30, 40 and especially 80Gb leaves plenty for random storage such as dumping digital photos while away from home on a trip. The was verified in spades when we took our Alaska cruise and Taiwan/Hong Kong trip where I used my music player (80Gb iPod) as the backup photo file storage. It's been so useful I now have 2 portable external hard drives that sit in a drawer, unused.

....But that's still NOT what this post is about. It's really about how pervasive these things have become in our life! Let me start by going ahead and admitting that we now have 7 of these things!!! Ok, 2 are ones that I've picked up for basically nothing in attempts to repair a broken 3rd inherited from a family member, but still: 7! And that's not the half of it. Most of you are aware that there is a huge industry devoted to making all manner of accessories for these things, right? 

Let me start by saying that; NO, we do not own the more ludicrous of them such as the above, which by the way is listed in an article of the 10 most useless iPod accessories.

But we do own both the Logitech MM32 and the very highly rated MM50 speaker docks above. Actually we have 2 of the MM50s. There's a black one in our office and a white one in my classroom. I bought the first one for just under $50 refurbished off of eBay and my father-in-law liked it so much, he got one too. Two months ago I picked the white one off of eBay for $15 and it matches our second 5th generation iPod perfectly that was found on Craigs List for about $80 years ago. It lives at school. The MM32 was an after Christmas Walmart clearance that I got for $12 which I use as computer speakers at school. I can't even tell you how many times it has save mine and other teacher's bacon over the years!

One of my favorites though is the Griffin TuneDock. About a year or so ago, these begin to appear on eBay as "new/unopened" stock at anywhere between $10 and $20 in bunches. So I bought two (one is still in the closet). One is connected to my main A/V system and essentially allows me to use the iPods as giant jukeboxes. They even output a GUI for navigating the menu system. I'm eventually going to attach the other one to the secondary system that powers the outside speakers, which will give me separate sound capabilities. 

Then there's this.....the iCruze by Monster. A couple of months ago, I was in California, for my Mom's 90th birthday. In all my brother's cars, were these things. So I asked what it was: the answer was the iCruze that allows an iPod to integrate with the factory radio. It makes the audio system think that there's a CD Changer connected and allows for the onboard controls to access it. Pretty slick! My brother said he thought he had another one stashed somewhere (of course) and he'd send it to me if he could find it. A few weeks later, a box showed up..... So before we go on our long car oriented vacation this summer, guess what's going to get installed in the Honda!

Last year a pink 5th generation 16Gb Nano came to live with us. My daughter was most pleased to have it and has an iHome alarm clock/dock speaker that it live on which functions as her computer speakers as well. 

Is there more? You bet! I've got those broken iPods that I'd like to fix up, a 3rd generation and a 4G. No so I can have more of them, but just so they work. Is there room for even more? Well.....maybe, if one of those interesting U2 versions happens to fall into my lap; I don't think I'd throw it out!!!

 

Master and Commander

No, I'm not anything like the famously difficult to work with actor. I'm just referring to my basically finished "workstation" setup. I know there are people out there with way more elaborate rigs than the one I have (particularly high level gamers and professional bloggers), but I think mine does a pretty good job for me and since it's unlikely to go through a major change anytime soon; this would be a good time to describe it to my readers....all three of you....that haven't see it in person.

To many who come to visit and experience it for the first time, their comments are usually along the line of; "what do you do, fire missiles from here"? No, I need way more screen real estate and approval from a higher level authority (Madame President Mrs. Propellerhead) to install several TV-sized LCD/Plasma panels on the wall behind my desk for that to happen!

 

However, I can probably say that there's more computing power here than was in the Houston control room that served as guidance for the Apollo moon flights though. 

So, lets start with this, my basic workstation. What you see here is the display and control area. It generally is the interface for 3 computers, sometimes more depending on how many laptops, tablets, etc. that I'm working on at the moment. The center monitor is a Lenovo 22" ThinkVision L220p, an S-PVA panel which has a resolution of 1920 x 1200. To the right of that is an IBM ThinkVision L200p an IPS panel which has a resolution of 1600 x 1200. They are my main displays and work very well as a normal pairing running off of two AMD Radeon graphics cards in the "Blackbird" workstation. The matching vertical resolution of 1200 makes it especially nice. 

On the upper left (at a weird angle because it's on a swing arm) is a Westinghouse SK19H210S which is actually a television and has a 1440 x 900 resolution. I had a little 13" tube TV here in the office for a number of years that I kept on whenever I need to do work and there was a baseball game I wanted to keep an eye on. When the office was reconfigured two years ago and I built what you see, I decided to go with a better solution. Most people "know" it, but fail to use the information: the fact that LCD TVs are really computer monitors with a tuner and more inputs. In this case, I went with the Westinghouse because it was cheap (at that time) and had a higher resolution than most which was a perfect match for the panel of my X300. It's connected through an Inline 3562R High Resolution VGA Switcher. Currently, input 1 is connected to the workstation and input 2 is connected to the server. Although it doesn't strictly need a monitor since it's designed to work headless, I'm a little OCD about control. Of course, it's also connected to the cable (TV), and A/V stack as a video monitor for the DVD/VCR. But when the new server is built and has a HDMI output, I'll use that and give the input 2 on the switcher back to it's original purpose of being a test monitor for client machines to work on. Mostly, it's folded away unless I have a ton of windows open doing a lot of file transfers or something like that. 

Just below it, you see my latest concept; the use of my ThinkPad Tablet as an extension monitor. For those of you keeping count, I'm now up to 4 monitors. It's an IPS panel with a 1280 x 800 resolution. What do I use it for? I found that it's almost perfect for a music player, since it has touch capability, so I just throw that over there when I've got tons of stuff open and I can control the player right from the screen! Plus the stand holds it perfectly while charging the tablet. Also in the picture is my trusty ThinkPad X300 just to give everything some scale. The other miscellaneous stuff in the picture are the three keyboards, one for each computer. Two of them are IBM/Lenovo "TrackPoint" style with the famous eraser nub so they don't need mice. Those two are mostly stowed out of the way under the monitor stand (that I built for exactly this purpose) unless they are needed. The main "Blackbird" workstation is controlled by the Logitech "Illuminated" keyboard and a Logitech Revolution MX mouse. I have other controller as well such as the Microsoft Sidewinder Strategic Commander gaming controller given to me by my friend Pat who only games on console now since he's all Mac these days. 

To the right and below are my two workstations. The taller one built in a Cooler Master Centurion 590 case, is the "Blackbird" main workstation that I've written a lot about, so I won't repeat it here. The other one built in a Cooler Master Elite 341 is the "Nighthawk" Windows XP workstation. It was kind of a thrown together project from old left-over parts when I realized that I had several (one very important) clients who are still exclusively working on Windows XP (and sometimes Office 2003). You might be asking yourself, why I didn't do VM on my regular workstation? I don't like to be switching back and forth on the same machine when I'm doing something. I actually like to keep things separate, AND I pretty much had the parts handy. I had just bought and switched my server to the Cooler Master Elite 343 case (more drive bays), so the 341 was available, I had a Gigabyte GA-G41 motherboard/CPU combo laying around since it was one of three cast-offs that my brother sent me, so it went together. Not one thing was bought for this build. When "Nighthawk" is up and running, it uses the right "UltraNav" keyboard and the analog inputs of the L200p. I've already found a great use for it recently. A few months ago, my wife bought a Husqvarna/Viking sewing machine with programmable embroidery capabilities. In order to use it, you have to run the XP only software and transfer the information to a special memory card which is uses a special card reader/writer (the white thing on the shorter computer case). 

  

My preferred desk arrangement is an "L" Shape. I'd do a "U" if I had plenty of room, but until then (if ever), I'll do the "L", which is called a "return" (who knows why) in the furniture industry. Mine is an old "credenza" that I picked up from the surplus warehouse at Texas Tech University when I worked there. It was old, all scratched up and $10. Where are you going to get 60" of solid wood furniture for $10!?! I used it in it's original (read ugly) state for some years, until we reconfigured the office and it not only got refinished (in satin black), but the a custom designed and built hutch to house a lot of my equipment. There's a space for the TV/monitor on it's folding arm as well a a shelf to hold a variety of media and manuals that I regularly use as well. The one (right) side of the credenza that you can't see since it butts up against the desk is where the file server and UPS lives. Since neither requires me to interact with it physically, that's a good place for them. I just had to cut some holes in the back to allow ventilation and wires. The left side though is a different story! That is the home of the A/V stack. It's a complete system of audio AND video equipment in and of itself, but it's also connected to the "Blackbird" workstation to fulfill it's main purpose; digital archiving of obsolete media. From top to bottom, this is what's there: Dual 1219 3-speed turntable, Yamaha RX-V870 A/V Receiver, Sony SLV-D360p DVD/VCR Deck, Sony MXD-D40 CD/Minidisc Deck, Yamaha KX-200U Cassette Desk, and last, but not least (OK, maybe it is least) is the Panasonic RS-803US 8-Track Deck. The system is hooked up to a pair of a/d/s/ L300 2-way speakers for direct monitoring. This pretty much gives me the capability to play back AND archive any widely distributed media (with the exception of Reel to Reel) from the last 50 years. The "knee-hole" houses one of those plastic drawer sets that you can buy at any Walmart (or Target) for about $15. It houses the variety of cables, adapters, batteries, drives and power supplies that comes with my hobbies. There's enough room left next to it for about 5 laptops (in various states of disrepair) awaiting my attention. On top is about 3 feet of space where projects get done. 

There are a few things that I didn't picture. So I'll go over them now. To the right of the glass and metal desk where the monitors reside is a rolling cabinet that should actually fit under the desk where the computers sit. It's more storage for tools, batteries and parts and the stand for an Epson Perfection V300 scanner. Farther to the right of that is our office file cabinet (horizontal type) that serves as a stand for our networked printers: an HP LaserJet 4100TN B&W laser, and Samsung CLX-3175FN Color laser All-In-One printer/copier/scanner. There's also a Kodak G610 photo printer as well as a Brother PT-1950 label printer.

Oh, I almost forgot the variety of ancillaries that silently work in the background making things go. There are 3 networking devices in this office space. The main one being the D-Link DGS-2208 8-Port Gigabit switch that's part of my Gigabit Ethernet backbone. Attached to it is a D-Link DI-624 B/G WiFi access point that services the back part of the house, but predominately the children's devices and 4-Port switch to computer I'm working on back here. This allows me to not only cover the house better, but to shut off their internet any time without effecting other areas. Also attached is a D-Link DSS-5+ switch that serves the printers. Although both of these devices are 10/100 instead of Gigabit, the speed of the what they serve makes it irrelevant. One of the "little guys" that I really enjoy using is the Logitech Z340 computer speakers. They are small and sound good. If I could figure out a way to use the Z640 5-speaker surround version instead without running wires all over the office, I would!

So, this is it. When I'm sitting in the now functioning Aeron chair, king of all that I survey.....and this is what I survey. It's my version of "NASA Mission Control", "NORAD Command Center" and the bridge of the "Starship Enterprise" all rolled into one. I'm sure I'll realize something important that was left out, but that's all for now.

"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?!?