Got a new toy without even trying. Tom bought himself a Microsoft Laser 6000 wireless keyboard a couple of weeks ago. He liked the feel of it but decided it was “too wide,” and thus made him move his trackball too far to the right. So he went back to his old one, and the new one was just sitting on a table by his desk, abandoned.
I figured I’d give it a try. I immediately liked the fact that it’s lower and more compact than the one that I was using (the Natural Ergonomic model). This one has the curved key layout but it’s less pronounced. It also has about half a billion buttons. Once I installed the software so they all functioned, I was impressed. There are dedicated buttons to start the IE, Outlook and Messenger, to open and close the file or program you’re in, to open Pictures and Documents folders, to reply, forward and send email messages, to save, print and invoke spell check, to mute, increase or decrease the volume, to fast forward and go back in Media Center and Media Player, to invoke Flip 3D and to right click. Wow.
All those little buttons at the top proved to be incredibly functional
Then there are five programmable buttons, which I set to open Word, PowerPoint, Opera, the snipping tool and Live Writer (programs I use most often that didn’t already have dedicated buttons). I’m finding that with this setup, I have drastically reduced the number of times I have to take my hands off the keyboard. That not only speeds up my typing but also makes it less likely that I’ll have the wrist pains that sometimes come from using the trackball too much.
Here you can see the low profile footprint it makes on my desk (leaving plenty of room for the cat)
I had never particularly wanted a wireless keyboard before (except of course for the main Media Center PC, with its 10 foot experience) but I was surprise to find that not being tethered by a USB cable, even on my workstation, is rather nice. I can pick it up and put it in my lap if I want.
And the wireless connectivity hasn’t been flakey at all, as I feared. All the features work great in Windows 7, which I’m using full time now (except when I need to go back to XP or Vista to write about them). It’s a real nice little upgrade that I didn’t even know I needed or wanted.
