Logitech Ultraslim Keyboard Dark Pearl (with Soft Touch Technology) Review

Urgh. I wanted to get a new keyboard for myself because I’m using a 17″ LCD monitor to extend my desktop from my Thinkpad notebook, so an external keyboard and mouse makes things easier to use.

I thought keyboards were all the same, and the only difference was the touch or feeling of the keys. Well, I thought wrong.

Logitech has an ultraslim keyboard that has really nice Soft Touch keys — they’re soft of like the keys that notebooks use, so it’s really comfortable and easy to type.

What I didn’t count on what that the key layout was totally different. It’s not like the full 104 key keyboards where the arrow keys live in an isolated area of their own, as with the numpad keys and the group of Page Down, Page Up, Insert, etc keys.

In this logitech keyboard, the keys were all squeezed together. That’s right — there’s no gap at all between any group of keys, arrow keys, numpad, or otherwise. That makes this keyboard really hard to use. It’s fine if you type without mistakes or require very little editing because the main group of keys are FANTASTIC to type on. It’s still by far the most comfortable keyboard I’ve used.

It’s just that the key layout really annoys me. This surfaces when I try to use the keyboard to navigate around (with the arrow keys) or perform editing operations (shift-home, shift-end, delete, backspace, etc). Normally I can do it without even looking at the keyboard, but with this particular Logitech keyboard, I have to actually look down and make sure I’m pressing on the right key. I’ve tried not looking, but I’m always hitting on the wrong key. That makes it really slow and awkward for me.

It got to a point where I couldn’t stand it anymore and pried out the less-important keys so that I could regain some of my productivity back. You can see from the picture above that I took out the Insert key and the Numpad 0 key. Things are slightly better this way, but it’s still a temporary measure.

Verdict? I’m going to sell off this keyboard, and get a better keyboard. One which is full-sized, so all the keys are where they should be, but also with the Soft Touch technology, which makes typing such a joy.

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Recursively Delete Selected Files or Folders In Windows

I was looking around for a way to recursively delete files and folders of a specific name in Windows. For example, imagine having “/folderA/folderB/file1.doc” and “/folderA/folderC/file1.doc”, and I wanted to remove all instances of file1.doc. Now imagine this file1.doc being presented in hundreds of folders. Deleting each file manually would drive anyone crazy.

I know Unix has a more powerful commandline interface, so operations like this should be a snap, but I was certain Windows had a similar functionality too. So I went about searching for a simple solution to do so. I was so intent on finding a simple batch file or DOS command that would do the recursive delete that I didn’t think of anything else until it suddenly slammed into me like a bullet train.

I could just use the search function in Windows! Yes that’s right — the normal Windows search is already a powerful enough function that accepts wildcards and does recursive searching. So I went to Windows search, specified my folder, and put in my filename. Sure enough, all the hundred or more instances of that file popped up almost instantly. From there it was just a matter of selecting all of them and deleting them. Everything took less than 10 seconds!

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Toastmasters Table Topic Ideas for Impromptu Speaking - The Best Job

Write down several professions on pieces of paper, then have your Table Topics speakers come up and explain why the job on the paper in front of them is the best job in the world (or the worst!)

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Does Ireland Have Postal / Zip Codes?

I was packing a parcel to be sent to Ireland when I realised that there was something missing. There wasn’t any postal code! So I thought that I had the address wrong, so I double-checked it again. But the strange thing was that it was correct!

So I went online, and did a bit of research on zip codes in Ireland. Well it turns out that there are no postal codes for most of Ireland! That’s right, Ireland has no postal/zip codes, except in Dublin. The city of Dublin is divided in postal codes 1-24.

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All-Ett vs The Big Skinny Review (Slim Men’s Leather Wallets Review)

Yay! My new wallet from The Big Skinny came in the mail today. I’ve been on the search for a new wallet to replace my old one for a long time because I felt that it was just too thick.

The search was made more difficult because I had a certain set of criteria that I was looking out for. Namely, the new wallet must be:

• Super thin / slim
• Look good and presentable with any kind of attire
• Preferably compartmentalised
• Have a convenient compartment for cash notes

For that reason, I decided that I had to get a leather wallet, and the wallet should have a full-sized compartment for holding cash. None of those money clips because I think a little privacy is good, and none of those half-sized pockets that require you to fold your cash, because I don’t like fumbling with cash while I’m trying to make payment or collect change.

Well, so I shortlisted my choices to finally between either the All-Ett (Check out the choices available here ), or the Big Skinny. I made my ultimate decision the Big Skinny because it released a leather version just as I was about to buy.

This choice of leather turned out to be a bad idea because leather is inherent thicker, which actually goes against my first criteria (that the wallet must be super thin / slim). So the Big Skinny turned out to be just marginally slimmer than my original leather wallet.

Perhaps I should have chosen the All-Ett (Check out the choices available here ) or the original version of the Big Skinny wallet instead.

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