New Keyboard - Day Two

The toughest part of any new keyboard – particularly if it’s an ergonomic one – is getting used to the slightly different layout of the keys. Which is what I’m currently going through with the new MS Natural Keyboard 4000 (or whatever it’s called).

Not to say that it’s not comfortable, it is. The space bar still seems to be giving a bit more resistance than I’d like, but I imagine my thumb will get used to it fairly quickly. But over and above little issues like that, the design of this keyboard feels like a very substantial change of previous natural keyboards – of which I’ve used three different generations. And it’s not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination. It’s actually quite comfortable, quite…well, natural, actually, in a lot of ways.

But it still feels kind of weird.

I’m disappointed that one of the primary reasons for my purchase is actually not going to pan out. Like I said in the last entry, one of the deciding factors for purchasing this new keyboard was that it was black, and would therefore better match my system. But that wasn’t the only reason. I was also looking forward to taking my previous keyboard, which was only a year old, and using it replace the keyboard on my work computer, which is four years old, and actually quite a grimy mess.

Unfortunately, my work PC – a very, very, very compact Dell computer – has no bloody PS2 port. And, of course, the keyboard I bought last year is a PS2 keboard.

So now I have a quite lovely, if one year old, Microsoft ergonomic keyboard and no home for it. Which is quite a disappointment.

And, gosh darn it, these quiet and slightly squishy keys are still kind of annoying. Why do they have to be so quiet and squishy? This keyboard would be almost perfect if it was just a little bit louder. Why is quieter always better? It’s not! It’s not, I tell you! Just look how hard it is to buy speakers without a subwoofer! Loud is good!

Stupid quiet keyboards.