Welcome back to “What weirdo technology did Mordechai buy this week?” – the column where we talk about something I bought and ask ourselves why, and in the end, we don’t really come up with an answer. It’s all about the journey.
This particular journey started when my computer keyboard’s Enter button fell off, which was a direct result of me trying to clean under the keys. Cleaning under the keys is very satisfying. You pop off the keys, and they go flying, and then you have to do a puzzle where you put them all back, and it’s basically something to do with your computer that is just plain kosher fun, and then you pop off the Enter key, and there’s this metal hinge thing underneath, and you wonder, “Does the metal go over the plastic tabs, or under the plastic tabs?” So I did… something, and then I had to clean a small plastic shard out of the inside of the keyboard, and now my Enter key doesn’t stay on. And the Enter key is pretty important.
So I needed a new keyboard. I don’t spend a lot of money on myself, but I’m willing to spend if it’s for work, and basically everything I do these days is for work. Even if I do something fun, it’s for work, because I write about it. I’m the only one at the paintball zone taking notes on a voice recorder. That said, once I’m spending the money, I do want some features to make it a little exciting, because really all I do is work.
And there are certain features that I needed. The main feature I needed was that I have to be able to hit a pause button quickly while I’m typing, because I’m always transcribing notes off my voice recorder, and apparently I talk pretty fast when I’m out somewhere and I don’t want to get stared at for talking into a voice recorder. I have to be able to hit pause in one motion. The pause button can’t be something I have to look for, or hit Ctrl+Alt+pause or something.
So I got a keyboard that has like 28 shortcut keys. For example, there’s this one button I can push and Microsoft Word will open, instead of me finding the Word icon on the desktop, or on the Start menu, or on the taskbar at the bottom, or just figuring out the two-button combination to open Word. Instead, I can just push this one button and it will open! It also has an Excel button, and a Calculator button, for when my wife suddenly starts firing numbers at me before I can get to the Calculator program… I can just push the Calculator button! Although about half the time, it doesn’t just pop open the calculator; the calculator program opens, but it gets stuck behind other windows, so I have to go to the taskbar and find the flashing orange tab and click that. You have no idea how much time this saves me.
It also has a button that takes me to my email, and a button that takes me to my browser homepage… Even though years ago, for convenience, I set my homepage to BE my email. So now I have two buttons that do the same thing.
Then there’s a button that just pops out my CD drive. I don’t know why. I still have to reach down to the CD drive to take out whatever’s in there, so what is it saving me? It doesn’t even close the CD drive.
In addition, a lot of the keys are “programmable”, meaning that you open this program, and you can set the keyboard to -- at the touch of a button -- open the functions that seem to come up a lot in your life, such as Settings. I can never remember how to open Settings. I think the way to do it keeps changing. Also, every time I have to open File Explorer, I have no idea how to do so, and when I do open it, it starts me out in some random folder that I’ve never seen in my life, and I have to go all the way back up the tree to “This PC” and then come back around. So now I can program it to open to the same folder every time.
Basically, I can do whatever I want, so long as I keep one programmable button reserved for opening the program that allows me to play with the programmable keyboard settings.
The biggest issue, though, is that it’s a very wide keyboard. And because my keyboard is wider, I have no room on my typing tray to move my mouse around. So now what?
So at first I crammed the keyboard all the way to the left side of the typing tray to give the mouse some space, but that still wasn’t quite enough. This is supposed to be an ergonomic keyboard – the keyboard has a curvature that accommodates for the angle at which your arms are approaching it -- but the curvature works only if you have the keyboard centered on your body, which you cannot if you want there to also be room for your mouse. And there still won’t be. In order to get the cursor all the way across the screen, I had to move my mouse to the left, lift it, put it back down on the right, move it to the left, lift it, put it back down on the right, lift it again…
And my students ask what do I do all day when I’m not teaching.
So then, one at a time, some of the keyboard shortcuts had to go toward functions that I used to easily do with the mouse, such as opening programs and switching languages. Like all of a sudden, I need a shortcut button for opening Word. It saves me way more time than it would have if I hadn’t gotten the keyboard.
So I decided to look for a mouse that didn’t have to be moved around at all. What I found was a trackball mouse with a ball that you move around with your thumb. And by “you”, I mean me, because no one else in my family will take the time to get used to it. So I have to keep the original mouse in circulation as well, on my desk somewhere.
But this new mouse lives on the typing tray, and it doesn’t need room to move around, but the mouse itself is enormous, for ergonomics reasons.
Apparently, the main purpose of this mouse is not for idiots who bought themselves an enormous keyboard. It’s for people whose wrists are getting tired from using their regular mouse, and they would rather use a trackball so they can keep their wrists stationary and their thumbs can get tired.
This is the other reason I need to keep my current mouse in circulation – because sometimes just flicking your wrist is a lot easier than scroll-scroll-scroll-scroll-scrolling with your thumb. In fact, I’m pretty sure I now spend more time manipulating the cursor across the screen and then back and forth by millimeters to get it centered exactly on the thing I want to click than I’m saving by not lifting the mouse up and putting it back down 3 times. On the other hand, this new mouse has settings so you can play with the sensitivity. There’s this button that you can push with your thumb that toggles between high-sensitivity, which rockets you across the screen, and low-sensitivity, in which you have to spin the ball eighteen times to get it to move an inch. Unfortunately, everything you do with a mouse, you actually need both settings – one to get across the screen to the thing you want to click, and the other to actually click it. And no matter what you try to do, you’ll always have it on the wrong setting.
And of course the mouse also has several amazing features to get me excited about buying it. For example, the scroll wheel tilts side to side, so you can side-scroll through an Excel sheet or… Well, that’s pretty much all you need to side-scroll through. That and the occasional email where someone sends you a megillah that has somehow formatted itself to one really long line of text. What is his computer setup?
Another cool thing about this mouse is that it too has programmable buttons. Though they’re on an entirely different program than the keyboard. So one shortcut button has to be dedicated to that. And another to the sensitivity toggle.
But of the buttons that are left, they can actually be programmed to have separate functions based on which app you’re using. It’s like a never-ending way to play with technology. It’s super productive. I’ve spent more time at this point programming the shortcuts than I’m going to save using the shortcuts.
And the truth is there is nothing these buttons can do that is not already a keyboard shortcut that anyone could do on any keyboard by pressing a few buttons at the same time. The thing is that I can’t remember all those keyboard shortcuts. I have room in my head for about 13 shortcuts. The rest I never use. Occasionally, I come across a shortcut and I say, “That’s so cool!” and I immediately forget it.
So basically, now I have a fatter keyboard, two mice, and every once in a while I just push all the different buttons and see what they do. Not to mention that this keyboard and mouse are both a different shape than I’m used to, so I have to get used to using them, all because I didn’t want to get used to hitting the other Enter key on the number pad. Because there is a second Enter key. The manufacturer knows you’re going to break one.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
