Razer BlackWidow Ultimate

Everyday I pound and pound on plastic keys to draft emails, create slides and, on occassion, write code.  Given the amount of time my poor little fingers need to be on the keyboard, I’ve decided to treat myself to a new set of keys.  The local Best Buy came through for me with the latest gaming keyboard by Razer – the BlackWidow Ultimate.

So far so good.  Although the keyboard is intended for gaming, it has almost all the features I wanted.  The main selling point for me is that the keys are mechanical, making a fantastic click-clack noise as I type.  Each key is also backlit in blue led, which is adjustable to 4 levels of brightness.  There are several extra keys on here for gamers that want to save off macros or program custom keys.  I might have a use for those keys/macros in Vim and Visual Studio, but at the moment they are not doing anything for me.  I’ve also noticed that the keys activate just beyond half of the suppression, which has sped up my typing speed a little.

The last thing that I want to mention is that the new keyboard is not ergonomic.  I’m only planning to use this at home late at night, but an ergo version would put this keyboard over the top.

Many thanks to all the folks at Razer for putting together the best keyboard I’ve ever used.  If you have an ergo mechanical keyboard or know of a version from the Razer company, then please don’t hesitate to drop me a link!

I have a new bag!  My old bag was a cool and sexy Timbuk2 messenger, but also an ergonomic nightmare that wreaks havoc on my spine.  The new bag is a North Face Surge backpack!   As soon as I moved all of my stuff into the new backpack and slung it on my back I started feeling better – instant satisfaction. 

This post is not about my new bag, though.  What I really want to discuss is the new technology I’m going to stuff in it.  I’ve started several cool projects in the past and typically abandon them before they complete.  Tonight is the start of a new method.  I’m not going to scale back my ambition, but I need to get better at dedicating time to each little adventure/project.

Here is a list of my most recently abandoned projects:

1. Munny toy robot – intended to look like a product mascot from work and display product health indicators on a uOLED screen in it’s stomach.
2. StudStats – records statistics about your coding habits in Visual Studio 2010
3. Sudoku Game – simple Sudoku game written as a toolbar extension in Visual Studio 2010, which allows you to play while you code.
4. Workbench – stained wood workbench for building/tinkering on small electronics and mechanical ideas

These are all great ideas and I still want to complete a couple of them; however, I’m going to add one more to the list – “learn F#”.  It’s been a long time since I’ve learned a new programming language, and even longer since I’ve taken on a functional language.  I watched An Introduction to Microsoft F# last night and it re-energized my old desire to code.  Tonight I’m going to just poke around and try out a few things with F#.  This Sunday there will be a study group downtown for functional programmer enthusiasts too.  Time to stop writing and start coding!