Apple

0

Clacky Types Again!

When I made the switch to the Mac back in 2006, one of the hardest things to give up was “Clacky”, my much beloved IBM Model M keyboard. Not having the Command Key, or a Windows key for that matter, was an unfortunate deal killer for me. Granted the keyboard was made in 1990, so neither of those keys existed at that time, but alas I opted to bid a fond farewell.

Since then I’ve used a Kensington SlimType and then eventually the Apple Bluetooth keyboard. In addition to my affection for typing on my desktop keyboard, I had also become quite accustomed to typing on a laptop. Both of the keyboards that I migrated to were of the laptop style, so it wasn’t something that was hard to adjust to, but I have frequently thought back fondly to my days of banging away on old “Clacky”.

A Friend Rekindles An Old Flame

A few weeks ago my good friend, Mike Rohde, tweeted that he had just purchased the Das Keyboard and I was curious as to why. His reply?

Twitter rohdesign mashby Flashbacks to ambe

He recently landed a book deal with PeachPit Press and with the long hours of typing ahead, he felt he needed a new tool to help ease all the hours of typing that he’s expecting, or so I would assume.

The Das Keyboard is a modern keyboard and uses a similar buckling spring that the old IBM Model M keyboards used. They’ve recently announced a Mac version and after seeing what Mike opted to purchase a thought occurred… “Could I still use Clacky if I wanted to?”

Testing On The iMac & The iPad

My first test was to simply attach the PS/2 to USB adapter to the end of the extremely long cable and plug it into my 27″ iMac to see if my desktop would even recognize the keyboard, much less, let me type. Standing behind my computer, I plugged her in and then walked around to sit down. My screensaver was up, so I had to enter a password to get to the desktop and was able to enter the password on Clacky! Test 1 complete.

The next test was to see if I could use Clacky on my 1st generation iPad. Adding the USB adapter from the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit, I fired up the iPad and waited. There was an error message stating that my device wasn’t compatible, but I launched the Notes app and typed a few strokes and was surprised to see that it worked!

Of the two writing environments that I would find myself in, I could easily use my IBM Model M. Amazing.

iPad and Clacky

Why Did We Break Up? Oh Yeah…

The instant I started typing, it felt like home. The feel. The sound. All of it came rushing back and I felt guilty for leaving Clacky in storage for so long. It was akin to remembering an old flame and wondering why it is that you guys broke up in the first place. And then you remember why.

1. She’s Loud
I’m on the phone a good bit for work and I often type notes while I’m talking. There’s no way that I could do that discretely with Model M. It’s not that I’m trying to type in secret, it’s just that it’s distracting to the other person on the phone.

Granted, I could always keep my Apple Bluetooth keyboard on the side, for when I’m on the phone, but I don’t know that I would want the additional clutter of a second keyboard.

2. She’s Missing That Special Something
I use the Command Key all the time on the Mac and not having it makes it near impossible to use my desktop. I also use function keys quite a bit and need the “fn” key to access some of the speciality keys.

There are options to remap another key to take the place of the Command Key, or the “fn” key, but it’s just too big of a stretch — literally. Since I use the “Ctrl” and the “Alt/Option” key as well, I would have to use a key that’s in a completely different location from where I naturally look for it with my fingers.

3. She’s Fat
The Apple Bluetooth keyboard and the Apple Magic Pad both fit inside the footprint of the IBM Model M with room to spare. Now, I’m not so much of a minimalist that the footprint is a deal killer. It’s the fact that it changes my orientation beyond just using the keyboard.

I’ve become quite accustomed to not having the numeric keypad on my keyboard. The track pad fits nicely in the space typically reserved for the keypad and I like how my hands fall when I’m working. Having the keypad back means that I have to reach out for a mouse, or trackpad and it just feels awkward to me now.

Since switching to the smaller keyboard, I’ve had fewer back issues and I think it’s due in large part to the change in my setup. It’s been years since I’ve been to the chiropractor and I used to go about every 6 months for a tune up.

So Is Clacky Going Back To Storage?

NO. Sure there are a lot of negatives and for day-to-day typing, I just can’t see using Clacky. However, there is a scenario that I can see all those negatives falling away — extended typing.

I have a new user manual project that is coming up soon and I can definitely see using Clacky to make quick work of that project. Also, I can see wanting to break her out when I’m writing blog posts, such as this one. Often times I think they’re going to be short and sweet, but inevitably they turn into much longer entries and having such a beautiful typing experience is a real bonus.

In both of those examples, I’m doing extended typing where I’m not shifting focus (cmd + tab) into other applications and I’m limiting my distractions (phone calls) so that my sole focus is on typing. In these scenarios, Clacky is the perfect companion.

Case in point, I’ve typed this entire blog article on the iPad using WriteRoom. There’s no Command key on the iPad, so it’s not missed, and I’ve been able to simply focus on typing. Thanks to the built-in support for DropBox, the article was continually synched to my desktop and I was able easily bring it into MarsEdit and add the images and the few remaining links. Overall, it was a very seamless experience.

My Dream Keyboard

The Apple Bluetooth keyboard will be my main keyboard for the foreseeable future if for no other reason than the fact that it’s quiet. However, I can imagine having a secondary keyboard that is stowed away and brought out when longer typing sessions are required. Here’s what that dream keyboard would look like…

1. Buckling Springs
Spending this afternoon typing on Clacky has been _so_ much fun, so my dream keyboard would have to have these keys.

2. Small Footprint
I like the abbreviated style of the Apple BT keyboard and don’t need the keypad, so I would want the same format

3. Mac and Special Keys
Having the Command and Option keys, as well as the audio and brightness keys are a must.

4. Wireless
I’ve become spoiled by Bluetooth. All of my import devices are wireless: keyboard, track pad and mouse. Not having a tangled mess of cables is really, really nice.

Now that I’m thinking about it, if you took the Apple BT keyboard and put buckling keys on it, I’d be in heaven! :-P

Additional Photos & A Video

If you’d like to see the rest of the photos I shot, as well as a video of what the keyboard sounds like when typing, you can view them on my Flickr page at this link.

57 days ago • technology • Tags: , , , , , , ,

0

Go Read This

A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs.

204 days ago • random bits • Tags: ,

0

Any Buyer’s Remorse Yet?

Today Apple unveiled new iMacs, which marks the second refresh to the line since I purchased my 27″ i7 back in January 2010. I dug through the specs, like I’ve done before, to see if there was anything compelling enough to consider upgrading.

The differences between what I have now and the new 27″ i7 are:

  • A processor that is .6 GHz faster
  • 2MB less L3 Cache
  • Upgraded video card with quadruple the RAM (2GB vs. 512MB)
  • HD FaceTime camera
  • (2) Thunderbolt connections

Last time it was easy scoff at, but I have to admit that this time has me scratching my head a bit. I even went so far as to price the value of my current machine on Gazelle (screenshot) to see how much I’d have to come up with.

$2,730.16 – New 27″ iMac w/ Tax
$1,132.00 – Current 27″ iMac
————————-
$1,598.16 – Difference

With that much of a gap, it just doesn’t seem worth it for the upgrade. The difference alone is enough for a MacBook Pro.

So do I have any buyer’s remorse? Absolutely not. I’ve had this machine for almost a year and a half and if my 2007 MacBook is any indication, I’ll be using this bad boy for many years to come.

385 days ago • technology • Tags: ,

1

No Buyer’s Remorse Here

Apple just came out with their latest iMacs yesterday, so I took a look at their specs to see how much has changed in the last six months. I’m happy to say very little!

An iMac displaying iPhoto

If I were to replace my 27″ i7 iMac today, I would get the following:

  • A processor that is .13GHz faster.
  • Memory that is 266MHz faster.
  • An upgraded video card (ATI Radeon HD 5750) with twice as much RAM (1GB).

All-in-all, that’s not a huge bump and certainly one I can live with. This iMac is still the most insanely powerful, gorgeous computer that I’ve ever owned. I often feel unworthy to own such a pristine piece of technology, but there’s no way I’d ever think of giving it up either.

665 days ago • technology • Tags: ,

0

Things That Caught My Eye Today

There are many distractions that entertain me throughout the day. Some from Twitter, others from RSS feeds. The following are the best of the best for a Friday:

I guess I could have called this entry, “Today’s Distractions”. :-)

725 days ago • random bits • Tags: , , , , , ,

0

The Road Less Traveled — E-mail Archives

I recently upgraded from version 1.0 of the iPhone to the iPhone 3Gs and did so using the “Restore from backup” feature. For the most part everything went fine, but for a couple of security apps that I use, the transition was all but smooth. Without getting too technical, what I learned was that these apps rely on a serial number and when you do a restore, the app generates a new serial number and thus the application no longer works with your account.

After calling tech support, I found that the fastest way to resolve the issue was to locate an e-mail the company had sent me back in 2006 with specific information that would allow them to verify that I was indeed the owner of the account.

That’s when a larger problem reared it’s ugly, ugly head — e-mail archives.

I tend to hang onto things, especially when they are digital because they take no physical space. This is especially true of e-mail. I save every e-mail sent to me and I’ve been doing that from day one. As simple as that may sound, it’s been a long and winding road through a variety of e-mail clients I’ve used over the past 15 years.

As you might imagine, over the past decade and a half and I’ve not always been successful in brining my e-mail archives along with me. I have several “islands” of digital data stored in one program’s format or another. These drives have been pulled from old computers and are sitting in desk drawers, or on shelves somewhere. I could resurface Route 66 with my good intentions of going back to import my e-mail from the old program I was using into the new shiny program that I just had to try.

Right now I’m migrating back to Apple Mail from Postbox and this time I’ve vowed to do things right. I’m taking the extra time to bring my archives with me and it’s a tedious process.

How I Import My Thunderbird (Mac) E-mail Into Apple Mail (mail.app)

  1. Run the Remove Duplicate Messages Thunderbird Add-on to shrink down the archive and remove duplicate messages, if any.
  2. Break up my yearly archives into quarterly archives so that the file sizes aren’t so huge by moving all e-mails within a specified date range (Jan 1 – Mar 31 for example) into their quarterly folder
  3. Right-click each folder I’ve touched and choose “Compact”
  4. Find the location of my profile (~/Library/Thunderbird/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/Mail/Local Folders/) and drag the archive I’m importing to the Eudora Mailbox Cleaner icon on the dock, which imports the archive into mail.app. I do this one archive at a time.
  5. Launch Apple Mail, find the imported folder and choose “Mailbox \ Rebuild” from the top menu
  6. Move the imported e-mail to the proper archive folder “On My Mac”.
  7. Rinse and repeat as needed

Bear in mind, this process is something that has evolved over time. My first several efforts yielded very poor results, but as I tried one method after another, I whittled away at the issues plaguing me until I arrived at a proper solution that works well for me. As I write this, I’m currently working through my 2007 archives, with 2006 being my last archive.

The real question is how I’ll bridge to my other digital islands and import old e-mails from The Bat! and Eudora. Those are of course in Windows and I’m sure will each yield their own special kind of hell as I tear up the road that led me back to these near-forgotten artifacts.

So What Do You Do?

As the last of my 2007 archive is being rebuilt in Apple Mail, I can’t help but wonder what other people do. Am I alone in not wanting to discard past conversations and hang on to these little tidbits? Assuming I’m not alone, how do you handle your archives? Do you use MailSteward, or similar tools?

957 days ago • internet • Tags: , , , ,

1 2