Unicomp Customizer 101

Edit: If you're a Mac user, I recommend the 104 key. I'm being a little annoyed at trying to use a 101 with my mac.

So here's my followup to my previous Das keyboard initial review. My Unicomp 101-key keyboard finally came (Yes, I didn't want those extra windows keys. I wanted more of a "pure" experience) and pretty much from the first keystroke it's been a huge blast from the past. We had an IBM keyboard maybe 10-15 years back or so, and it was just awesome. I don't think I realized at that point just how much I liked it. I think cheap keyboards have gotten even cheaper in the meantime.

Starting in the 80s IBM made awesome, expensive keyboards to go with their expensiver computers. The most-used keyboard layout originated with IBM and the model M keyboard. In 1990 or so IBM sold their keyboard department out to Lexmark to build keyboards for them, and then in 1995 or so Lexmark sold the rights and all the molds for making these keyboards to Unicomp, who has been making them ever since.

Unicomp still uses IBM's buckling-spring technology, which makes a nice sound when you depress the key enough for the keystroke to register, and also (perhaps a little more forcefully than the Das keyboard) these springs bounce the keys back up when they are done being pressed down. Unfortunately, the 11 pound-ish versions of these keyboards that included metal slabs on the back were only built in-house by IBM, but the 6-7 pound plastic versions are still better than the flimsy garbage you can find in the bargain bin. At $80 a pop these things aren't cheap, but they're cheaper than Das keyboards at $130, and seriously $80 isn't that much considering that this thing is built like a tank and will outlive your next 3-7 computers. Unicomp updated these to have a USB version along with the (superior) PS2 format, too. Laptop users rejoice!

Without further ado, I'll proceed with the low-quality images taken by my ipod touch.

Standard key layout. Included are key bumps on the F and J key, which is major points (or at least, no negative points). In my mind, no windows key is a huge plus. I hate accidentally hitting that stupid thing. Unicomp does have a TON of layouts available, one of which is a standard 104 key keyboard with windows keys. I think Mac fans like the 104 version since they can remap the windows key to the mac key.



If you're familiar with old-school keyboards, you'll remember the beveled sides here. Probably the favorite feature of this keyboard is there are non of those useless and stupid "multimedia" keys that just get in the way. They usually just duplicate other key combinations anyway.



This has the backloaded look similar to the Das, but in a somewhat superficial way. If you notice, the keys actually sink deeper into the keyboard (minus the F-key row) giving a flatter experience. Don't you love the nostalgic color scheme? Unicomp offers a nasty off-black + dirty grey color scheme that just looks kind of silly, imo they should go for an all-white, clean look. 80s dusty grey brings back memories though.


Oh, I forgot to mention. This thing makes the Das feel like a toy. Seriously, go buy one. I heard the economy is affecting Unicomp too, and I don't want to ever suffer through keyboard mush again. If I had more money I'd buy like five of these just to make sure I have a steady supply.

And seriously, if you use a computer for more than like 30 minutes a day, just buy one. Why would you spend $100 on a speaker system and not on a keyboard? Do what you need to do to get one. Or ten. And tell your friends!


http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/

Das keyboard - initial thoughts

I finally got my hands on a Das Keyboard today! When I initially heard about these, I thought they were purely a gimmick, but I've since learned that they use some pretty cool technology called Cherry Switches (I think some have cherry, some have blue, there are a few varieties) which helps make the keypresses more obvious as to what point the keyboard registers that you have successfully pushed down on it.

If we go back in time to the 80s when IBM was the big dog, we had the really loud keyboards that had metal springs under each key called buckling springs to help make the computer keyboard experience more like the typewriters. There are a few side effects to these springs:

1. Pushing keys on the keyboard makes a loud noise.
2. Other people will probably get annoyed
3. You have an audible cue as to the (almost?) exact time the keypress "registered" and your computer was told that you hit the key.
4. The key physically "pops" into place at the moment the signal is sent to the computer that you pressed the key.

Let's think about the modern "quiet" keyboards, and the features they have:
1. Quiet keys (won't bother anyone)
2. The keys are quiet. So good luck knowing exactly when you pressed it down.
3. No physical "pop" that helps you recognize at what point the keypress should have been sent to the computer.

Most keyboards these days use what is called rubber domes. Basically, a little dome of rubber sits underneath all of your keys (unless you have a laptop, which uses scissor-like things, which are also not super precise) that if compressed enough, it touches something down at the bottom of your keyboard and sends a signal to your computer that you typed a key....

Does anyone else get on a roll typing something up really fast, only to look back at your previous sentence and find that you out-typed your keyboard, and 3-5 words (depending on sentence length) have a couple of letters out of order? In fact, I think most people end up overpressing the keys in order to make sure you actually pressed them (since modern keyboards are mushy), which causes extra strain.

This happens to me. Quite often, actually. Maybe I just type too fast, since at one time maybe 8-10 years ago I was tested at 90 wpm (on a rubber done keyboard, of course).

But anyway. This doesn't happen to me on the Das keyboard. I find my accuracy very much higher and I don't out-type the keyboard. It kind of reminds me of typing on my dad's old IBM model M keyboard that we had in the 90s for a while.

Time for some cons.

Ergonomically, I'm a bit stumped. It seems like Das has gone the exact opposite way they should have with this thing. The keyboard is totally backloaded. Just look at the size if that thing on the back. I got really used to my Microsoft Natural 4000's frontloaded kit that came with it, which helps provide a more neutral typing position (I have another rant for another day about ergonomic keyboards, btw).



The backloadedness of this keyboard annoyed me so much that I felt the urge to prop the front up with some little gameboy cartridge holders:



This gave me a bit more "neutral" typing position. However, these aren't superbly stable and if I were to try typing with this keyboard for a lengthy amount of time I would have to find a more permanent solution.

F and J finger buds, or whatever the little bumps on F and J are. I just have to say that I love these little bumps, and they are integral to my computing ability. I was shocked to find that instead of actual bumps on the keyboard, the Das simply has F and Js that are a little narrower than the rest of the keys on the keyboard. I've been trying and trying to get used to these, but I just find my right hand floating over the keyboard as if I'm lost every time I have to move between the mouse and the keyboard. I've run into a couple $5 keyboards that have missing finger bumps that (if they had been mine) I would throw away in a heartbeat as unusable. If this were my keyboard I'd have to come up with some way to add bumps the the keys, or something. Maybe there is a newer version with real bumps now. Thankfully, the caps-lock has an indentation on the right side of the key which is more helpful than the F and J divets. I look down at this keyboard more than my keyboard with letters written on it because I have to make sure I have two empty keys in-between my fingers. The missing key bumps also come in to play when it comes to ctrl/alt/shift key combinations that shift my hand around a bit, potentially coming off the home row enough to wonder if I have my hands back in the proper position afterward.

This is seriously a huge deal to me. I really like this keyboard a lot minus that (and of course, the back is too fat).

I ordered the successor to the IBM model M and it gets here Tuesday. I'm really excited. I think it will have bumps on F and J. It's from Unicomp, and I'll write something up then.

Oh, if you are a person who types a lot (probably anyone reading my blog, plus most computer users in the world) you should really do yourself a favor and buy a good mechanical keyboard. I mean seriously, you will spend $80+ on speakers, but not on a keyboard? Thinking quality of life here, how much do you use a keyboard? Just in writing this post I've probably saved about 300 backspaces. Oh, Das makes a new model that comes with keys printed on it. I don't know if it has the little bumps or not.

Update: I confirmed that the new versions of Das keyboard DO come with F and J nubs, making this an awesome keyboard whether you want the version with or without letters printed on the keys.

Dear Microsoft: About that extra space.

Every time I try to block a word or paragraph to copy and paste it, why do you also auto-select an extra space for me? You make me shift+backarrow or be super precise with my mouse and it really bugs me.

I mean, if your extra space were consistent it wouldn't bother me so much. Let me clarify. Often, the extra space isn't even copied. It's just kind of a "ghost" space. If I only had to deal with a ghost space 100% of the time, I'd still be annoyed but could probably make myself not really care.

But sometimes it's an ACTUAL space, which is annoyingly annoying. Consistency, please. This must makes your products feel mushy. Oh wait, your products ARE mushy. I forgotted . Aren 't extra spaces annoying ?

My old AMD

So my old AMD has some fun history. I think I got it back in early '04 back when I used to prefer AMD over Intel (the AMD I got after that converted me to Intel, but that's a different story).

I had my computer in a wireless network situation, and found out that WEP (the old wireless security) takes like 4 seconds to crack, and wanted to upgrade to WAP, which is better but probably still takes less than 20 minutes. But I digress.

I had an old-technology WEP card that worked with it, but I wanted to upgrade my security. The rest of my wireless network was running on WAP so I popped in the other card I had. It made my computer freeze. I tried and took back at least 5 different WAP-capable network cards, none of which worked. I came to find out that my particular motherboard's PCI bus had a weird timing issue with the Atheros-based network interface cards, which is pretty much all of the network cards out there. I tried a few odd brands hoping they weren't atheros based, and I may have found one but it didn't work either.

I ended up running a wire.

Today I was given the options of letting my son play kid games on my own computer (which would consist of a. me not using the computer and b. the keyboard and mouse getting sticky. And I hate that.) or getting the old AMD to work.

Somehow I came up with the idea of trying a USB-based wireless adapter.

I bought the WUSB100 from Linksys for $40 and plugged it in. I burned the latest Ubuntu client (3 times- the first was a flat data CD with a .iso file on it, the 2nd tried to write too quickly and was corrupted, third times the charm at reliable 4x speed.) and installed it up. It's a really slick installer, by the way. I probably like it better than the old XP installer. I can't tell you how I like the vista/win7 installer because so far I've managed to avoid that train wreck.

Anyway, it all worked flawlessly minus the wireless turning off about 15 seconds after bringing up the google page and repeatedly asking me for my password. I found this fix (not really sure why it worked but it did) and then had to mess around with flash and quicktime plugins (oh, not to mention a pretty painless Nvidia driver install) and the machine is good to go in all its 2004 glory.

Of course, by WAP I mean WPA.

The way of Kings: Brandon Sanderson

This book is good. Unlike most epic-fantasy writers, Sanderson usually picks 1-3 people to be the "main" characters. He's good at letting you really know who the main characters are, what they think, and what their motivations probably are. A lot of epic fantasy just focuses on the what. Which is interesting, but missing a lot of the puzzle.

The first three pages of the intro describe some warriors who come back to fight evil every few thousand years, and then go into some sort of hibernation mode where they are mentally attacked by evil until the next round. If they die, they automatically go into slumber and come back for the next fight. If they live, they have to choose. This time, 9 of 10 of them live, and none are willing to go back to the torment.

Then we get started with the main story, which follows a few cool people (there are probably two main characters, one of which I liked better than the other, and he's probably more "main" than the other.) through their struggles. They have a really interesting caste system based on eye color, which Sanderson does effectively. He has a bunch of other interesting stuff that is interesting but doesn't get in the way of the storytelling.

It's cool, and it's 1,000 pages long. So basically, you get to pay the price of one book and get enough pages for three, which it essentially is. The only real drawback is that he does a bit of rewinding to fill us in on the timeline, while I found myself just wanting to know what happens NOW. But I suppose that was the point, and the back info was pretty interesting, too. I recommend this book!

There's a bit of combat, obviously, and people die but it's not terribly graphic. Brandon does a good job of making you kind of care about even the minor characters before he kills them off.

Nerds vs Dorks

I'm sure most nerds have had mini-crises wondering if they are actually nerds. In playing some online games I have come to question the definition of nerd, and if I should be associating with the "lower tiered" nerds who obviously are complete and utter morons, but seem to picture themselves as top tier nerds. After getting frustrated over the years and being able to find very little to satisfy my frustration, I finally found this Venn-Diagram.



Let me just explain a little. The three attributes, Intelligence, Obsession, and Social Ineptitude which we could see as the triumvirate of nerd-dom, are each required. I'm not totally sure I agree with the word choices for Geek and Dweeb, but since we need to label Obsession + Intelligence and Intelligence + Social Ineptitude as something, they work for now.

As previously stated, there is a lot of room when playing online games, or really doing anything, to run into morons. On the Venn diagram, they probably have Obsession and Social Ineptitude, but lacking intelligence. These Dorks are out there making true nerds look bad!

Geeks (Int + Obs) can readily observe that they aren't socially inept, and may actually be more comfortable as a Geek, or consider themselves "cool" nerds or closet nerds.

Dweebs (Int + S.I.) at least are OK with not being obsessed, because they can just see themselves as "casual" nerds. Maybe Jack of all trades nerds.

Dorks (Obs + S.I.) are where the problems start. Lacking intelligence and being unable to comprehend it, they automatically assume that Obsession is the definition of a nerd. They wear being socially inept as a badge of honor. Dorks are the people ruining the reputations of the true nerds everywhere. Worse yet, Dorks think that they have attained nerd-dom and make all other categories of nerd question themselves. Do we really want to be lumped with socially inept morons? No. The true nerds then have to find a new way to keep their identity.

I think the days of nerd-gamers are over. In the past, it took some amount of skill to get a computer to work, and to get it to play games. This entry pass in itself usually marked one as at least having intelligence. But with computers getting so much easier to use and the internet much easier to use, the flood-gates have opened and the unwashed masses of Obsessed, Socially inept have diluted the previously clean environment.

From a gaming perspective, the unwashed masses, unable to handle the level of difficulty that the real nerds are capable of, have no option but to whine and moan about it so the games are "fair". They are obsessed and socially inept, but not intelligent enough to play the game "for reals". Because the dorks have superior numbers and due to the lure of the mighty dollar, they eventually get their way.

Don't get me wrong. There are plenty of nerds who get pushed out of nerd-dom not due to lack of intelligence. Time constraints could limit obsession, and push Nerds to Dweeb status. A nerd may learn to cope with his social awkwardness and become a Geek. You can't take their Intelligence away, unless they do drugs or something stupid to lower their thinking abilities.

One commenter tried to say, "Hey, I see myself as pure intelligence. I don't even need obsession or Social Ineptitude." Well buddy, my real fear is that you're probably just a confused dork, but let me try to explain this better. The Venn diagram may work better of we think of the three traits as Intelligence, Social Ability, and um... Moderation? In this way, a true nerd has Intelligence and lacks social ability and moderation. I think these three values may all be able to be seen as "positives".

Anyway Dorks, don't get too down on yourself. It's always possible to bump up your intelligence factor. Plus, we really shouldn't see "Nerd" as the goal. We probably want Intelligence, Moderation, and Social skills to be the goal. Maybe someone can come up with a name for that. Maybe then all of us confused nerds/dweebs/geeks/dorks can figure out what to do with our lives.

I like this song. It's fun.

I think Baker man is funny and his song is catchy, so I'm linking it. Plus it's a way to say thanks to my follower!