Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

When you play the keyboard like a pro pianist, i.e. each finger is restricted to a few keys, then shouldn't you already know what's best for you? Where's the need for experimentation?

And really, I prefer ink, pen, and paper over any keyboard, but life has taken another turn.

If you mean, for instance, why I'd consider to "experimenting" with assigning something else to F1 than "help" the simple answer is that I find that a waste of a perfectly good function key. In Opera I've already had it defined as something else for years.

However, I disagree with the author of the page I linked that Ctrl + Z/C/V is particularly problematic, and if modifier keys like Shift and Ctrl aren't pressed automatically without noticing it, you can't properly touch type (my apologies to people with disabilities; that statement may not apply to them).

In my opinion, the only way to get "hand stress" there is if you incorrectly use only one hand.

My customisations of keyboard behaviour involve only setting NumLk on or off at login on different machines, redefining Caps Lock, and making a few charsets available (Estonian, Swedish, Greek, and Russian; I never use US). This is already quite many elements of confusion, isn't it?

There are some customisations that are best avoided. For example some people set rm as alias for rm -i and when they are on someone else's machine, the command they are used to won't work as expected. I have set del as that alias.

What finger would be on Ctrl? Pinkie? I usually press Ctrl with the thumb. I really need to make myself extra alert like "Hey, this is not normal typing. It's a keyboard shortcut!" to get it right.

Anyone else here so ancient that you can remember when a keyboard was worth repairing?

What finger would be on Ctrl? Pinkie?

Hand stress is gradually becoming a real issue for me, but because of mouse rather than faulty typing. My mouse hand wrist needs serious vacation.

Really depends on the keyboard though. Nobody's going to bother fixing some cheap piece of junk. Different story if the part in question isn't as easy or cheap to replace.

Been there, done that, got a trackball instead ( the kind you use with your thumb. Too bad they're all right-handed though ). Then I got used to it and Logitech promptly discontinued them ( except the expensive wireless variant )

Quote from: Macallan on 2014-09-06, 12:47:04

Really depends on the keyboard though. Nobody's going to bother fixing some cheap piece of junk. Different story if the part in question isn't as easy or cheap to replace.

As far as I'm concerned most people seem to either severely underspend or severely overspend on mouse and keyboard. There are some real pearls in the <€20 range for what they are, with many more expensive models only adding on useless extra buttons to the exact same base keyboard. As such, any extra money spent is a total waste. At the same time, however, the cheapest nicer keyboard you can find is probably the Cherry G84-4100 for €60-70ish. Keep in mind that the latter might last for decades (although maybe you'd better buy some spare switches in advance if you want to be sure?) while the former will no doubt be begging for replacement by the time you need a new computer.

With mice things are a bit harder, but I can tell you cheaper trackballs aren't really worth it (except perhaps on the go).

Quote from: Macallan on 2014-09-06, 12:53:19

Been there, done that, got a trackball instead ( the kind you use with your thumb. Too bad they're all right-handed though ). Then I got used to it and Logitech promptly discontinued them ( except the expensive wireless variant )

I use a Kensington Expert Mouse Pro* but right now the Kensington SlimBlade is probably a better buy. (NB I don't own it so I can't compare.) I don't use it because of mouse issues, but simply because I fell in love with it when I tried it.

* Don't be confused by the name: it's a trackball.

For some reason 'Kensington trackball' makes me think of the old ADB ones they used to make ( as in, square base, big ball in the center, buttons around it )

ya its not the best. first reason is because its a finger ball. who the hell wants to use there [sic] finger. thumb trackballs are the best. that being said the Microsoft optic trackball is the best ever made to this day

Section "InputClass"
        Identifier      "Kensington Trackball"
        MatchProduct    "Kensington Expert Mouse"
        Option          "SendCoreEvents" "True"
        Option          "ButtonMapping" "0 1 2 4 5 6 7 3"
        Option          "EmulateWheel" "True"
        Option          "EmulateWheelButton" "1"
EndSection

Just last week I fixed a Logitech trackball ( you know, the old, beige, discontinued Trackman variant ) - it had lost one of the tiny steel balls that the big red ball sits on. Found a replacement, now it's back in service.

Quote from: Macallan on 2014-09-07, 00:43:41

For some reason 'Kensington trackball' makes me think of the old ADB ones they used to make ( as in, square base, big ball in the center, buttons around it )

That's exactly what it is. Just with (in my case) an additional defective scrollring. You can see some older versions here. This video shows what at least on the outside looks exactly the same as the one I've got:

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzsmtKxxjog[/video]

The first comment to that video says:

Quote from: YouTube comment

ya its not the best. first reason is because its a finger ball. who the hell wants to use there [sic] finger. thumb trackballs are the best. that being said the Microsoft optic trackball is the best ever made to this day

That's incorrect. Primarily of course because finger or thumb is a matter of preference rather than objective fact, but what I'm actually referring to is that I use it as a bi-handed thumb-controlled trackball. It's just a finger-controlled ball by default. The clue is whether you use the top or bottom buttons for left & right click.

The actual biggest problem is that the sensor is at the bottom, so any junk can fall right in. This results in something more like a ye olde mouse biweekly cleaning ritual than the months on end you might expect with an optical sensor. The Kensington Kingblade supposedly has the sensor on the side and an exit hole at the bottom to alleviate this issue.

Quote

Just last week I fixed a Logitech trackball ( you know, the old, beige, discontinued Trackman variant ) - it had lost one of the tiny steel balls that the big red ball sits on. Found a replacement, now it's back in service.

My wife's Logitech Wireless Trackball M570 is not a slouchy replacement. She had an old beige one (probably called Trackman) which started malfunctioning.

Some of the Logitech ones have the hole, some don't. The sensor always seems to be off to the side though. Still needs occasional cleaning since dirt accumulates around the three steel balls that the main ball sits on.

(Although the relevance of the last sentence to the rest of the article evades me.)

I knew what the last sentence was going to be already when I was at the intro.