Scott Hanselman

I feel like a ninja. A really loud, clicky ninja. This is a loud-ass keyboard. In the best way. I reviewed the original DasKeyboard two years ago, the one with totally blank keys, and let me tell you - if you want to learn how to touch type, type on blank keys. Plus, you can switch to Dvorak like some freaky people without missing a beat!

I'm a bit of a keyboard nut. I literally have nearly every Microsoft keyboard and mouse set ever made, and at least a dozen other brands. I'm always looking for THE keyboard, or at least THE keyboard du jour.

The new DasKeyboard is even clickier than the last one. It's a totally different redesigned keyboard and it's exquisitely and comfortably clicky. No way you'd be able sneak an instant message while on a conference call with this keyboard. If you like a quiet keyboard, just stop reading now. This is the Gregory Hines and Savion Glover of keyboards. This is STOMP: The Keyboard. (Ok, last one) This is "Bring in the Noise, Bring in the Keyboard."

It's kind hard to talk about this keyboard without possibly sexually harassing the keyboard itself. It's solid, smooth and glossy and feels good to the touch. The keys are very well balanced and require less effort to press than the last DasKeyboard. There's something I can't quantify about this keyboard, though - Somehow I'm able to type about 10% faster on it. Sounds weird, I know, but it's true. I don't know if it's the "throw" of the keys (the distance they travel) or the smoothness, but my fingers get less tangled with it. Your mileage may vary, but typing on a DasKeyboard is like running downhill as a child. You have to just stop thinking about your feet (fingers) and just keep slapping away. However, as with running downhill, there's that moment when you think "how am I going this fast?" and then you trip over your feet (fingers.)

I prefer the blank version or "Ultimate" but there are two, the "Professional" has normal keys. Both have a USB2 hub on the side with two ports, which finally gives me Mac Keyboard parity, somewhere to plug in my mouse and a memory stick. It's got a SIX FOOT USB cable, so holding it in my lap while leaning back wasn't a problem.

The DasKeyboard is loud and wonderful and I recommend it. It's got a 30-day guarantee if you can't hear yourself think over the clicking. If you want to hear it, check out Frank Caron's review and the associated MP3 file.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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I'm still using the Kindle every day for casual reading, but just now I noticed that my pile of technical books on my desk is taller than my son.

Actually, a few of these I've already read in manuscript form and I wrote either a foreword or a quote for good ones. The vast majority of the pile are books I'm currently wading through (slowly).

Here's the books I'm currently trying to read, as told by the Delicious Library application.

I've previously read Code Leader and Head First Software Development and provided quotes extolling the virtues of both, but they are such good books that I end up referring to them often enough that I haven't moved tem over to the shelf.

BTW: The Ian Griffiths/Chris Sells WPF book is in my bag. ;)

Related Links

• Coding4Fun Hardware Boneyard - Using the CueCat with .NET
• October 2005 - My Reading List - Home
• October 2006 - My Reading List - Home
• March 2007 My Reading List - Home

What are you currently reading (technical books...we'll do fiction later)?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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If you're noticing when looking at your blog traffic logs that more and more people are visiting your site from a mobile device, you likely want to be accommodating.

I have noticed recently that mobile devices like the iPhone, iPod Touch and Danger Hiptop (well, that's probably just one guy) have been creeping up my list of Browsers+OSs that visit this blog.

How can I make their experience suck less? Just because the iPhone has Safari and can handle most full-size doesn't mean I should go bonkers with the HTML. There's a few simple things that can be done to make the experience more seamless.

Add Home Screen iPhone Icons for your Website

If you visit a website on an iPhone and hit the plus button and click Add to Home Screen...

NOTE: Hold down HOME and the LOCK button to take iPhone screenshots.

You'll get this screen with a generated thumbnail icon of the current browser's screen. In this case, it's way too tiny and doesn't really well represent my site. It's certainly not an icon that I'd want on an iPhone's Home Screen.

However, if you make a 60x60 PNG image file and name it "apple-touch-icon.png" and put it in the root of your website, you'll get control over that icon.

If you don't have control over the root of your domain you can add a <link> to your pages and point it to whatever PNG you like wherever you like:

<link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/customIcon.png"/>

Now, if you hit Add to Home Screen, you'll get a nice image with automatically rounded corners and a shiny bevel (the phone does that), your icon like this, will show up like this:

Very little effort for a considerable amount of polish.

Adjust the ViewPort for a "Pre-Zoomed" iPhone Experience

Next, if you visit a web page with Mobile Safari and you always double tap to select the content and zoom to the width of it, why not just set that as an initial default? Just add a <meta> tag like this:

<meta name="viewport" content="width=670, initial-scale=0.45, minimum-scale=0.45"/>

That will set the width of the "viewport" - the part of the page that is visible in the zoomed-in view - as well as the the initial zoom scale and minimum scale. This makes for a pre-zoomed and easily scrolled experience that doesn't change the way the page is laid out.

It's still the full content, just pre-zoomed for the iPhone.

Enabling All Mobile Devices

Next, to the mobile users who are not using an iPhone, about two years ago I added support to DasBlog for a custom Mobile Theme that would enable Windows Mobile and Blackberry Mobile Browser users to browse DasBlogs more comfortably. In the DasBlog web.config there is a huge section at the end that was populated from this CodeProject article on BrowserCaps. It uses the older ASP.NET 1.1 style of browser detection.

For example, if I wanted to serve a Mobile Theme to iPhone users that visit my blog, I could add these lines to the filter areas for platforms and OS's:

<case match="iPhone">
  platform="iPhone"
</case>
...snip...
<case match="iPhone">
  os="iPhone"
</case>
...snip...
<case match="iPhone" with="%{os}">
  isMobileDevice="true"
</case>

DasBlog then just checks like this and does the right thing. DasBlog uses its own theming engine, but you can use this kind of detection and "downgrade" your site for any device you like.

//Are we on a Mobile Device? See if we have a mobile theme and use it instead.
System.Web.Mobile.MobileCapabilities mobile = (System.Web.Mobile.MobileCapabilities)Request.Browser;
if(mobile.IsMobileDevice == true)
{
    theme = themes["mobile"];
    if(theme == null)
    {
        loggingService.AddEvent(new EventDataItem(EventCodes.Error,
            String.Format("If you have a theme called 'mobile' in your themes folder, 
                readers who visit your site via a Mobile Device will automatically 
                get that theme. User-Agent: {0}",Request.UserAgent),
            String.Empty));
    }
    else
    {
        return theme;
    }
}

Either way, if you choose to setup a custom Mobile theme for a visitor, or you just add a few bits of "chrome" like friendly icons and some browser specific metadata, it's important to at least be conscious of who is visiting your site in which devices and feel empowered to make good experiences for them.

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

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My one-hundred-and-twenty-third podcast is up.  I sat down with Dare Obasanjo this week and we chatted about the interesting problems that Social Networking sites face. Dare blogs about social networking, amongst other things, at http://www.25hoursaday.com/weblog/

Subscribe:

• Download: MP3 Full Show
• Torrent: Download via µtorrent
• ACTION: Please vote for us on Podcast Alley! Digg us at Digg Podcasts!

If you have trouble downloading, or your download is slow, do try the torrent with µtorrent or another BitTorrent Downloader.

Do also remember the complete archives are always up and they have PDF Transcripts, a little known feature that show up a few weeks after each show.

Telerik is our sponsor for this show.

Telerik's new stuff is pretty sweet, check out the ONLINE DEMO of their new ASP.NET AJAX suite. RadGrid handles sorting, filtering, and paging of hundreds of thousands of records in milliseconds, and the RadEditor loads up to 4 times faster and the navigation controls now support binding to web services on the client.

As I've said before this show comes to you with the audio expertise and stewardship of Carl Franklin. The name comes from Travis Illig, but the goal of the show is simple. Avoid wasting the listener's time. (and make the commute less boring)

Enjoy. Who knows what'll happen in the next show?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

About   Newsletter

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My one-hundred-and-twenty-second podcast is up.  In this episode I share BabySmash! with Carl Franklin and we chat about WPF, its strengths and weaknesses, and my trials in launching my tiny (free) Micro-ISV.

Subscribe:

• Download: MP3 Full Show
• Torrent: Download via µtorrent
• ACTION: Please vote for us on Podcast Alley! Digg us at Digg Podcasts!

If you have trouble downloading, or your download is slow, do try the torrent with µtorrent or another BitTorrent Downloader.

Do also remember the complete archives are always up and they have PDF Transcripts, a little known feature that show up a few weeks after each show.

Telerik is our sponsor for this show.

Telerik's new stuff is pretty sweet, check out the ONLINE DEMO of their new ASP.NET AJAX suite. RadGrid handles sorting, filtering, and paging of hundreds of thousands of records in milliseconds, and the RadEditor loads up to 4 times faster and the navigation controls now support binding to web services on the client.

As I've said before this show comes to you with the audio expertise and stewardship of Carl Franklin. The name comes from Travis Illig, but the goal of the show is simple. Avoid wasting the listener's time. (and make the commute less boring)

Enjoy. Who knows what'll happen in the next show?

About Scott

Scott Hanselman is a former professor, former Chief Architect in finance, now speaker, consultant, father, diabetic, and Microsoft employee. He is a failed stand-up comic, a cornrower, and a book author.

About   Newsletter

Hosting By