My new keyboard arrived!

Posted by on Jul 26, 2006 in Electronics, Rants | 0 comments

Hurray! A new keyboard! And I almost entirely like it! It has a few quirks that I don’t entirely enjoy, but overall it is pretty good. Again, this is the Microsoft Ergonomic Keyboard 4000.

Things I like:

  • The black and silver and very sharp looking. Even the “Do Not Remove – Safety Information” tag is designed to blend in.
  • Lots of customizable buttons with generic labels.
  • No special “Help” button! I’m so glad a keyboard manufacturer has finally realized that a help button isn’t needed.
  • There are 4 extra keys above the keypad: “=”, “(“, “)”, and “Backspace”.
  • Keyboard remembers that I want F Lock turned on! I HATE how keyboard manufacturers have decided that the function keys should be replaced with stuff like “Undo” and “Close”.
  • The hand rest is VERY comfortable. It’s made of some kind of foam material, and the reviews say it is very durable.
  • Had the traditional 6-key.. umm.. thing above the arrow keys. None of this weird vertical crap.

Things I don’t like:

  • The Zoom button is virtually worthless and not programmable. I’d rather have it set as a, well, pretty much anything else would be nice.
  • Space bar is difficult to press in upper corners. Can be very annoying depending on your typing style.
  • Programmable buttons are not lit, and the writing on them is to mellow to be easily read in low-light conditions.

In sadder news, my families router died today. Luckily we had a spare.

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Verizon XV6700

Posted by on Mar 24, 2006 in Electronics | 0 comments

Verizon XV6700

Last week I got a brand spanking new Verizon XV6700 cell phone.

Yes, it is expensive. I ended up paying something like $300 ($100 IR) for the phone, and it comes out to like $96 a month for service (that includes unlimited EVDO broadband internet, and also slow internet for those in non-EVDO areas…). I opted for no SMS plan because I can just go online and get my email whenever I want.

This article outlines the basic features of the phone, the things I hate about the phone, and the things I love about the phone. To save you time I’ll let you know right now that my overall opinion is that this phone is awesome! I love it! (I’m telling you this now because I hate reading a long review only to find out that the final rating is that the product sucks. People need to be more upfront about this kind of thing.)

This phone can be found at Verizon’s website.

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