By Merle Nicholson, Tampa PC Users Group
merle@merlenicholson.com

This should be a short article on two keyboards I’ve purchased, both fairly different from the normal, and also some advice on the use of notebooks as a primary PC and the hazards.

This is a fairly new keyboard, and somewhat hard to find in a retail store. It follows the most recent pattern of layout as Microsoft’s other “Elite” keyboards. It’s wireless and uses Bluetooth for communicating to the PC. It comes with a Bluetooth USB plug-in, which is about 1-1/2 inches in length.

The USB device can plug into the back of your PC and still communicate just fine with the keyboard and mouse in the front. There is a very small instruction sheet that comes with it that works perfectly if you follow it exactly.

The key layout differs quite a lot from normal. For instance the “Home, End, Page Up, Page Down” cluster of keys is entirely different. It has buttons for multimedia devices, sound - mute and volume, buttons to launch My Documents, My Pictures, your Mail Client, the Internet Browser, Calculator, Sleep, My Favorites, and more. The row of keys that is normally F1 - F12 is also a variety of functions within Windows programs, such as Reply, Forward, Send, New, Open and Close. There is an “F Lock” button to make those keys F1 - F12 when you need that. Notice on the left is a wheel that duplicates the mouse wheel. Both this wheel and the mouse wheel do horizontal scrolling by moving it side-to-side.

All this is surprisingly easy to get used to. I thought that the “home-end, PageUp, PageDown” cluster would throw me for sure, but it really did not. I like this keyboard so much I bought a second one. The large palm rest is a thin rubber. It’s comfortable and not removable. I especially like the freedom that wireless gives me, and removing some of the wire clutter from the PC is a bonus, too. It would make a perfect keyboard and mouse for a Notebook Desktop replacement. Never mind that it’s larger than a notebook.

Now the downside. First, it’s big – really big. It measures 19-3/4 x 10-1/2 x 2-1/2 inches thick. It really needs some desk space. The other disadvantage is that it works in Windows, Period. If you have a more recent motherboard that gives you “Legacy USB Keyboard Support,” that’s fine, just don’t expect this keyboard to work until Windows is active. So it’s useless for the F8 menu to get Safe mode, and you have no keyboard to change the BIOS. Just don’t throw your old PS/2 keyboard away, because you’ll eventually need it.

Microsoft Keyboard Elite for Bluetooth and Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer for Bluetooth. $150 retail, $130 mail order (Try http://www.NewEgg.com)

This is another wireless keyboard, and it’s tiny. It’s just 8 1/2” x 12”, and 3/4” thick. It has a touchpad instead of a mouse. My wife uses it for her desk. The desk is in the living room, and she doesn’t want a keyboard sitting out, so she puts this in the desk drawer to hide it. We had a nice – but very old – similar infra-red keyboard that was going flaky on us, so this was a perfect replacement.

This is a really beautifully made, unusual looking keyboard.

It is wireless, runs at 2.4GHz and communicates with its own proprietary USB transmitter. There is a vertical area on the right side of the touchpad that functions the same as a scroll mouse. It really works great. The layout is about the same as a notebook keyboard. If you need a keypad, and lots of keys, don’t look here. It does have Windows keys and a Function key, similar to notebooks.

If you search for Adesso products, you’ll find various Adesso computer peripheral devices for sale on the internet (for instance CompUSA and Amazon), but not this keyboard. I ordered it directly from them at http://www.adesso.com. And if you’re used to the fine Internet shopping, feedback, tracking and emails that, say, Buy.com, Amazon.com and NewEgg.com all give you, you’ll be disappointed with Adesso. After I ordered, I wanted the tracking number so we’d be home to receive it, and they wouldn’t answer my email. The website has a place for it when you look up your account, but it wasn’t there. My wife called them; they didn’t have it and said they’d get it and call back. They didn’t call back, and it was delivered the next day via FedEx. Actually it was shipped and delivered pretty fast, but you’re in the dark all the way.

And then we had trouble with it. It has a sleep mode where it goes to battery savings mode after 10 minutes. And it would rarely wake up. Usually I had to pop a battery out of it to reset it, and it’d be fine until it went into sleep mode again. So I sent an email to Adesso’s support the same day we received it, and I sent another two days later; no reply; ever.

I did phone them just before their closing at 5PM PST, and got through to them fairly quickly. The support person said they have gotten several reports of the problem and if I’d look at their online FAQ, there’s a solution. I said I didn’t see any, but he explained he had just posted it 45 minutes earlier. OK. What it needs is NiMH batteries – four AAA nickel-metal hydride rechargeable batteries of at least 750MAH capacity. And he said he’d send me some when they get some in, maybe two weeks. Give him my address, because he couldn’t look up my account, even though I had the Adesso customer number.

We didn’t want to wait two weeks, so we went to Radio Shack, which I knew handled them, and bought four and a charger. Hold onto your hats here - $20 for four batteries and $13 for a charger.

But it works just fine. We’re absolutely delighted with it, in spite of the problems.

Adesso Wireless SlimTouch Keyboard Wireless WKB-4000

$129.99 – keyboard
$12.32 – S&H
$33 + tax – Batteries and chargers

You add it up, I don’t want to.

You may be aware that notebook sales in the US have exceeded sales for desktops. Notebooks are increasingly replacing desktop PC’s as a person’s primary computer. It’s partly a result of the changing business climate where people are spending more of their personal time working at home. A notebook makes some sense; it can travel back and forth to work, and it can also float around the house wirelessly connected so you don’t have to be isolated from other family members.

But the notebook is not designed to be a desktop replacement. The physical layout is really unsuitable for extended periods of time. Think about it. The keyboard and screen are attached. Something has to give. Either the screen is in a really bad place or the keyboard is or both are, and it’s causing repetitive stress injuries to the hands and wrists, and neck, back

and spinal injuries due to improper posture. It can’t be helped; the design is fixed, at least until the system unit can communicate with a detachable screen. That’s coming, but that’s years away.

There are a couple of ways to improve the situation if you must use a notebook for extended periods. First, get a couple of sets of keyboards and mice for all the locations you may land; home and work. Then get a stand for the notebook that gets the screen higher up so the top of the screen is just below eye level. A very good alternative is to buy LCD monitors, and just pretend it’s not a notebook at all. It’s an expense, that’s for sure, but you really don’t want an operation on hands and wrists for carpal tunnel, either!

HP has a couple of interesting solutions, one shown here. It’s a stand, and wireless keyboard and mouse.

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