[geeks] Compact keyboards

[Joshua Boyd]

On Tue, May 16, 2006 at 03:41:36PM -0400, William Enestvedt wrote:

>    I think I'm going with a Wacom tablet (the boss's boss's suggestion!)
> and a Happy Hacking Keyboard Lite 2 for now. The fact that they're both
> smallish means I will conserve always-scarce desk space, and I won't
> mind leaving the HHK on my lap for extended periods of work.
> 
>    Thanks for the replies, you two, and anyone who still wants to chime
> in is welcome to do so.

I find the Wacom tablet to be not as helpful as I had hoped.  I have a
bit of a higher end model, Intuos3, 6x8 model with fairly wide borders.
It came with a pen and a mouse.  I will list out my thoughts on it.

First, using it as a mouse isn't helpful much.  The tablet has a fairly
wide border (my older 4x5 ArtPad and PenPartner models didn't), so I
have to move my hand farther from the keyboard to the mouse than I would
with a regular mouse.  Using a USB optical mouse on top of the table
seems to work fine though.  Also with a USB optical mouse, I have the
option of using it on my leg, which can help for long mousing sessions.
That is where I mouse at work is currently sitting.

Second, for reading documentation and web sites, the scroll pads on the
tablet are nice (this is a feature not found on older Intuos models, nor
on the current Graphires).  House, it still isn't quite as comfortable
as a scroll wheeled mouse on my lap, even if the scroll pad is more
ergonomic than the mouse, the tablet just doesn't fit the same.

Third, a larger tablet is great for freehand drawing, but it is also
more work than a smaller tablet.

Also, I have a Logitech trackball, and sometimes I swap it for the mouse
for variety, but for me it seems to be more likely to cause pain. 

The best I've found so far is to try to use the keyboard as much as
possible for massive hacking, and then light mousing is accomplished
with either the touch pad or the stubby thing between the ghb keys.  Web
browsing is done with the optical mouse on my lap.  Drawing type stuff
is done with the tablet.  

I have yet to explore more radical choices like footpads that map to
Ctrl or Meta.

In other directions, I have setup Xwrits and I have it set to enforce a
break every 30 minutes. 

Just for reference, I'm currently dealing with tendonitis on both arms.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd
jdboyd at jdboyd.net
http://www.jdboyd.net/
http://www.joshuaboyd.org/