It all started at work with The Optical Desktop Elite for Bluetooth. I saw the mouse sitting unloved in the Business Administrator (think secretary, but with an amazing amount of independence and authority) office. No one knew where the Bluetooth fob for it went, and no one realized that Bluetooth fobs are interchangable. I asked if she minded that I take it, she didn't, and I went out and purchased a fob for myself.

A few days later, I saw the keyboard sitting unloved in the server room. (See a trend here? We have lots of hardware sitting unloved in offices, and often they make it into hallways, at which point, they're fair game.) I laughed about it and the lab manager said I could use it.

They took some getting used to. The mouse goes into a power-save mode and turns off the LED, so jiggling it after it goes to sleep won't wake it. I have to touch a button, but that registers on the application, so I could submit something, or save something, or close something. After a bit, I found a 'forward' button (thing has five buttons) which does nothing. Now, when I reach for it, first thing I do is click the forward button to wake it up.

Keyboard also has a few idiosyncracies. To start with, to save power (see another trend here?) it doesn't have lights for CapsLock, ScrollLock and NumLock. (Or Function Lock. That's a key that shows some user interface tester was asleep on the job - the function keys are also labelled 'help,' 'copy' et. al. And when you first power on the keyboard, those are the keysyms it sends, NOT F1, F2, etc. That means that Alt-F4 won't close your window. Fortunately, it won't do anything else, such as bring up an animated paper clip, but it's rather frustrating nonetheless.)

One of our benefits is that we get to buy (for personal use) the hardware our company makes at a discount. A few days ago, there was a one-day sale to celebrate our 25 years making computer peripherals, so we had a discount on top of our discount. I picked up The Wireless Entertainment Desktop 7000 for a song.

I'm using it now. The thing is beautiful. It's so thin it doesn't come with a wrist-rest. It's not a 'business' keyboard in that it doesn't have a 10-key pad, but I've not had to use one of those since I stopped playing Robotron.

It comes with a mouse, and a bluetooth fob. That's fine, I now have two fobs, one for each computer. The mouse is very comfortable and is symmetrical, unlike the Elite Desktop one. It's light sensor isn't visible to the eye. UV or IR, I don't knwo, but it no longer has that reddish glow that is either annoying or distracting that most mice have.

The mouse comes with a rechargable battery, an ordinary AA cell. Great design -- if I'm on the road and didn't bring the charging platform, then I can just use an ordinary AA cell for it. If the rechargable battery starts to flake out, I can replace it with another one (within specifications.) The recharging platform doesn't require I plug the mouse in, either. I just rest it on the platform and a few nubs align the rodent so the charging contacts on the pad touch their counterparts on the peripheral.

(Side note: if they called it a 'mouse' because of the 'tail,' why call wireless mice the same?)

The keyboard has an insane feature as well: the rightmost side of the frame has a 4-way D-pad, much like that on home video game systems from the Nintendo on forward. It's in the shape of a square, and it has a button in the middle, but it's a D-pad still.

Until you flip the switch above it, and the touch-capacitance coating on it is used. Then the whole square becomes a mini touch-pad, like that of a laptop.

This is great design. It really is. The keyboard is designed to be held with hands at either end, like a tray. That means, holding it in that position, your thumb can work the cursor with far more granularity than simply up-up-down-down (left-right-left-right *wink*.) And the left side of the keyboard has the two mouse buttons. Great design.

Oh, and for more eye-candy, here's the upcoming model: The Wireless Entertainment Desktop 8000. I don't know what it has to justify that crazy price tag, but I'm looking forward to reading the reviews.

I almost certainly won't get it, but I love seeing the hardware group putting out gear that makes me utterly excited. There is a sense of admiration I have to use something and find what I want immediately at hand, naturally.

It doesn't come about by accident. It's not a result of "it's good enough." Someone put it there, built it and designed it. Someone studied how people not just use existing instances, but also how people would use it, wanted to use it, if only it was designed differently, designed better.

It's a good feeling!