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Ergonomic mouse and keyboard

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J-Mac:
I bought me an Evoluent Vertical mouse after reading the last thread about ergonomic mice. Never did get used to it; it seemed to be difficult for me to get it to feel good at all. It is sitting in a box in a spare room here with the rest of my unloved equipment.

Jim

mouser:
maybe you should give it away to someone on dc?

daddydave:
Based on the recommendations of this thread, I bought a Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard and I am liking it. Amazing it does fit in my keyboard drawer, but I hate keyboard drawers and am thinking they defeat the purpose of an ergonomic keyboard, so it is on top of my desk.

I kind of wish I had a white keyboard. I have a theory that white keyboards are easier to see than black ones, but since I am putting it on top of the desk, I am having to match it with the decor.  :mad: And I am not supposed to be looking at the keyboard anyway.  :-[

I am having some fun customizing the extra keys like "Home" and "Calculator", so I will start a separate thread asking you all what your favorite keyboard customizations are. I like Intellitype except I found some difficulty in the macro editor within (where you are trying to enter something like Win-Shift-C), although part of that was I have a program that seems to want to hold the Windows key down after the macro runs so I could never get it to work. It works fine with other programs.

The rest of this post consists of 3 minor nitpicks.

1. The extra keys like "Mail" and "Calculator" are labeled with Gray on Silver so hard to see. This is compensated for by clear labels below the keys and key sections, and the spacing which will be memorized soon I am sure.

2. The function keys are labeled with things like "Help", "Undo," "Redo" instead of their normal functions. This is why I had previously passed over this keyboard in the store. In practice the function key labels aren't much of a problem, I just ignore the extra functions and keep it on Function Lock.  The keys also have the F1, F2 labels but they are on the side facing you instead of on top -- perfect for my on-desk arrangement. I'm surprised Help and F1 aren't actually the same function, but apparently Microsoft envisions programs that actually expect you to press the Help key instead of F1.  

3. As noted in user reviews everywhere, the spacebar is keys are loud. The zoom slider can also be loud if you bump it to the edges a lot, but it doesn't get used much, unlike the spacebar.

Overall it is a great keyboard for my purposes. I was looking for ergonomics and some extra keys to customize for the heck of it. :up: :up: for the keyboard and the recommendations here.

J-Mac:
I purchased the Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard and my only real problem is the same one that apparently all users have with it: this doggone Space Bar. It is extremely hard to depress unless you hit it right in the center; I mean, you can certainly press the sides of the bar but as often as not it doesn’t go all the way down because of how stiff it is. And regardless where you press the space bar it is LOUD! The first time I was typing a lot of text and tapping away at the keys fairly fast - well, as fast as I do which isn't really that fast! - my better half stopped in my office to see if I was beating the keyboard to death. I wasn’t hitting any keys harder than normal; it's just that the space bar makes that loud of a click each time you press it - and you press the space bar a lot when typing. I have seen this mentioned in virtually all reviews for this KB, some a number of years old, so Microsoft is surely well aware of the issue. Apparently they haven't seen fit to fix the design.

I have removed the space bar three times now and tried to apply fixes I have seen in various forums to no avail, though admittedly I have not tried any that actually involve cutting or snapping any thing off in there.

I also got myself a Logitech Marble Mouse track ball.  I have used it for a few weeks now and I do like the feel of it. My only problem with it is the lack of any way to scroll pages with it. Of course you can use the scroll bar and hold the left button while you do so but that doesn’t quite make up for a mouse scroll wheel unfortunately. I also installed UberOptions so I could modify the left extra button, just above the regular left mouse button, to make that  act as a "middle mouse button", so I can press that  and scroll like if you press & click on the scroll wheel of a regular mouse. But again that's not quite the same. Also, I have finally given up trying to do any fine, detailed mouse work with the track ball; I was getting to be OK with it but I just cannot use it quite as finely as I can I good quality regular mouse. So I have both types attached and I switch to the regular mouse only when I need finer cursor control than I can get with the trackball.

Thanks!

Jim

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