Google's new Cr-48 netbook won't come with a "caps lock" key. The company said, by removing it, Talkbackers and bloggers will be less likely to POST THOSE SHOUTING, FLAMING COMMENTS all us publishers know but certainly do not love.
I think it's a clever idea, actually.
But the ever-shrinking keyboard is starting to drive me crazy. My iMac's wireless keyboard, which seems to devour batteries, doesn't have a keypad. I miss that feature. I used it a lot. It's also just a bit smaller than the keyboards I've used in the past. I've adapted to a certain extent, but my speed and accuracy have taken a hit.
My iPad keyboard is smaller than industry standard (heck, it doesn't even have keys). And, though I'm a speedy touch typer on a normal keyboard, on the iPad, I'm reduced to two slow and clumsy fingers. It's almost worthless to me, in fact.
Don't even get me started on the "keyboard" on my tiny iPhone. Three years after buying my first one, I still suck at it. The autocorrect only helps so much.
I'm so bad at typing on that tiny keyboard, in fact, that I'm testing out a slider keyboard for my iPhone that was sent over as a demo. A full review is coming soon, but sadly, it's not the answer to all my prayers.
This author has fat fingers. And it's getting harder and harder to type with them.
It's funny: as devices shrink and attempt to make our methods of communications easier, the one input mechanism that I thought was all but perfected is being made clunkier and and less precise.
Note to hardware manufactures: I'd gladly sacrifice a few millimeters in bulk for a normal-sized keyboard. One in which keys are where they are supposed to be, and they click and clack when you press them down.
Is this too much to ask?
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
