{"id":8517,"date":"2016-08-25T00:01:48","date_gmt":"2016-08-25T07:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=8517"},"modified":"2016-08-20T11:20:56","modified_gmt":"2016-08-20T18:20:56","slug":"keyboard-snobbery-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/?p=8517","title":{"rendered":"Keyboard Snobbery Explained"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The typical computer user looks at a keyboard and thinks, &#8220;Well, I suppose it has all the proper keys in the right place. Yep! I&#8217;ll take it.&#8221; But when you&#8217;re a keyboard snob, as I confess to be, other factors play into how you select a keyboard.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nSeriously, I&#8217;m surprised at how little people care about computer keyboards. I once used a keyboard that caused my hands to cramp. It was cool-looking, but undersized and some of the key combinations were odd. Yet, other people think it&#8217;s the best keyboard ever.<\/p>\n<p>When it comes to judging a keyboard, I don&#8217;t care about how things look. I don&#8217;t need extra keys. Fancy lights are cool, but that&#8217;s not a deal-breaker for me. No, to judge a computer keyboard, I examine three factors:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Spacing<\/li>\n<li>Travel<\/li>\n<li>Switch type<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Spacing<\/strong> determines how far apart keys are from one another. The distance varies! For me, typing is like playing the piano; I use muscle memory to play or type. A good computer keyboard uses the same spacing as the old IBM Selectric typewriter. In fact, I&#8217;m such a picky typist that I can immediately tell when the spacing is off. Yes, I&#8217;m that much of a pain in the ass.<\/p>\n<p>As an example of a keyboard with different key-spacing, consider a laptop keyboard. To get the all necessary keys in a laptop format, they must be squished closer together. And those ultralights and tablets with Bluetooth keyboards are just hideously difficult to use.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Travel<\/strong> describes how far the key moves when you press it. And, by the way, you <em>press<\/em> a key on the keyboard. You do not &#8220;depress&#8221; it. I had to correct editors and keep them from modifying my text to read &#8220;depress the Enter key.&#8221; That&#8217;s just so sad.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, a fine keyboard has a good travel distance. It&#8217;s not great, perhaps 0.375 inches, but when you&#8217;re a high-speed touch-typist, that distance is marvelous to feel. Low-quality and laptop keyboards have a limited travel. in fact, that horrid keyboard I wrote about earlier had hardly any travel.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Switch type<\/strong> refers to the mechanics of how the keyboard determines which key you press. The two types are magnetic\/membrane and mechanical.<\/p>\n<p>The magnetic\/membrane keyboard is the most common &mdash; because it&#8217;s cheap! Even a keyboard with nice spacing and full travel is most likely this type of keyboard. When you press the key, a tiny magnet gets close to a sensor and closes the circuit.<\/p>\n<p>On a mechanical keyboard, a physical switch is present beneath each key cap. You can actually feel the switch <em>click<\/em> as you press the key, which is wonderful for a touch-typist. The problem is that the mechanical switches cost more. Yet, when you get a mechanical keyboard, you also get good travel and perfect spacing. For a touch-typist, such features are more than worth the extra cost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How to properly judge a keyboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[15],"class_list":["post-8517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main","tag-pc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8517"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8528,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517\/revisions\/8528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wambooli.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}