Moving on is easy / Being strong is simple ►

◄ Travelling into the unknown. More-so than usual.

'Cept I'm not a teenager any more. The keyboard on the left is only one thing I've acquired over the last couple of months... the Psion you already know about; the 15" TFT may have been mentioned, and if you weren't aware, I picked up another Logitech QuickCam Traveller because the digital camera I have doesn't handle macro shots well, and I had some stuff to put up on eBay. Still have, actually... I'll mention here when I get anything else sorted out, although the main impetus was to get shot of the first Dreamwave TF mini-series...

Anyway... the keyboard. Mine's a UK OEM version, meaning that it has a full-size inverted "L" return key, no patronising reminder that Ctrl-B, Ctrl-I and Ctrl-U are WP shortcuts, and the finish is dark grey crown and rest with a cream main section and light grey function keys. It's really comfortable, hugs the desk low for a comfortable angle, and... ah, sod it, those are the two main considerations. It also drop-shuffles a few keys around and offers alternate shortcut assignments to the function keys as standard, which fortunately can be turned off (although I haven't yet found a way to make this sticky on boot-up.) Almost all of the 'extra' keys at the top can be assigned other functions, and the media keys work well with Winamp. A good buy if you can find one cheap. (I paid £30 + p&p, and that included an optical scrollmouse which will, of course, be going straight back onto eBay. I like my Logitech wheelmouse; if you're after a reliable pointing device with a comfortable grip, lots of Compaq-badged examples of this type are turning up on eBay at the moment for less than £5 including postage!) eBay is really a rather fabby place to shop for OEM hardware...

Why the peripheral splurge? Well, they're far more important than a base unit so high-flying it could take off if it's fans ever loosed from their moorings. I don't understand people who splash out on systems, but take the bog-standard monitor, mouse and keyboard that a package includes. You spend all of your time looking into the screen, and a fair chunk of it using those two basic input devices. Something comfortable on the eyes and wrists, that's going to save you time (scrollwheels, shortcut keys)... these are priorities. If you don't think they are, now would be a good time to consider your health.

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