I just fired up this new office (spending 8-10 hours in it at a time) and had to get my ergo issues hashed out quickly and on the cheap.
I dismantled an old oak desk that O'Reilly gave away and just used the wood. The keyboard slider was about $170 from my father-in-law who sells ergo stuff (steve@ergoguy.com).
The keyboard is great. I've always though that Microsoft should throw in the towel on operating systems and focus on what they do well.
The trackball is just good enough. I especially like the hand position. I really do like the track ball, but it needs to be optical instead of based on 10 year old roller tech that breaks often. Unfortunately, there aren't many good mouse options for left handed people. I also like this one because I switch mouse hands every couple of years.
I also have that keyboard at my office (it’s a Microsoft Natural 4000, right?). I like it. Previously, I had the old beige Microsoft Natural. I’m not sure if the 4000 is better but it’s at least equal. I wish I could figure out how to use the zoom slider to work as a scroller under Mac OS X, though.
I’ve always wanted to try a few of the fancy ergo keyboards, but I’m not sure if I’d like it and I don’t want to pay the hefty pricetags just to try them out.
@Luke Francl:
Yeah, it’s the 4000. Like you, I had the Natural before this one. My biggest problem with the Natural was how they goofed up the arrow and insert/home/pageup/pagedown keys. On the 4000 they seem to have gotten the memo that they shouldn’t have rearranged the keys as they did on the previous model.
My criteria for all this stuff is simple. Test it for a couple days, and if it doesn’t hurt, use it. When my ship comes in, and I’m a programming Rock Star, I’ll be sponsored by keyboard and trackball companies. At that point I’ll design the “Orsini” series of input devices. When that happens, Luke, those will be what you should buy! :)
By the way, the Orsini Keyboard™ will NOT have a Caps Lock key!
I also rock the 4000. Natural opinion depends on if you used the more recent, rejiggered key one (Elite?), or the old-skool board.
Right now my wrists and shoulder are at issue. My wrists feel pretty nice with the 4000, but man is the board wide. I use a Logitech trackball (thumb-based) on the right side of the board and that’s quite a distance to travel. One solution would be to go to the finger-based trackball and mouse left-handed, but I really don’t find those comfortable at all. There are no left-handed thumb-based trackballs that I know off, which would greatly reduce the travel distance since I wouldn’t have to cover the ground taken up by the number pad.
Which leads me to the crazy idea that I might have to try the new Apple wireless board. Apple’s never even been in the ergonomic middle ground in terms of input devices, but perhaps that wireless board would do the trick. Of course, my wrists probably differ on that opinion…
@Barry Hess:
Yeah, at one point I had a collection of Microsoft Naturals that I was stock piling because I didn’t know where the future of keyboard layouts was heading. I especially liked the USB ports on that model. In fact, that’s what the 4000 needs, USB ports!
Board width is an interesting point you bring up. I guess when I am being “left-handed” it’s not much of an issue. But you’re right, if I had the mouse on the other side, it would require a far reach. I suppose that’s why the Elite went for the squashed arrow keys.
Hey, in case anyone at the Microsoft keyboard department is listening, how about we make this “zoom” thingy configurable. I actually half-expected the ability to make it do scrolling instead of just zooming. Looks like I can’t. (There must be a way to reconfigure it.)
Rob,
I look forward to the Orsini brand ergo keyboard. :)
The Natural 4000 can be hacked to make the zoom dealie work as a scroll bar, but only on Windows: http://paininthetech.com/2006/04/29/hack-the-microsoft-natural-4000-keyboard/
As a rightie, I can say that the 4000 is pretty wide. I bump my mouse into it frequently. Maybe I should go in for an optical track ball…?
@Rob:
Thanks for your opinion. Please consider my needs when you build your line of ergo products! :)
@Luke:
I use an optical track ball. While that’s definitely an improvement over a mouse, there’s always room for further improvement, right? In any case, I do suggest the trackball. I happen to use, and like, the TrackMan Wheel.
@All:
These type of issues are what led me to leave my corporate gig when I did. The company I worked for would not allow me to buy the classic, PS/2 M$ Natural and bring it in to the office because they did not “support” the product. They also wouldn’t let me bring in a Logitech thumb-based trackball (they offered the finger-based one) even though it used the identical drivers. See, they did not “support” this.
I would have left at some point anyway, but after accelerating this to HR and nearly having a shouting match with them, I knew it was time to move on. (No, this wasn’t the major reason why needed to leave.)
So I’m naturally a little bit obsessed with perfecting my ergonomic environment.