I’ve heard studies claiming vastly increased productivity from dual-monitor setups and arguing that companies are being penny wise and pound foolish by refusing to buy extra monitors for their programmers. That may well be true, though I mostly work with one large monitor myself. However in my experience many companies and individuals are being even more foolish by limping along with old, grody keyboards and mice.
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Possibly this has a lot to do with the slow deterioration of most of these components. Keyboards and mice rarely suddenly fail. Mostly they just get a little gunkier, a little slower, and a little stickier from day to day. It’s such a gradual process you don’t even realize it’s happening; but it is, and it can have very real, physically painful effects over the long term. <\/p>\n
This morning I dripped a little too much grapefruit juice on my mouse, and the left button finally started sticking enough that I couldn’t put up with it any longer. Thus off I trundled to my local OfficeMax to buy a new mouse. This time I grabbed a Microosft Wireless Optical Mouse 5000<\/a>. I may not be fond of Microsoft’s software or business practices, but I’ll give them this: they make a hell of a mouse. Over the years I’ve used mice from Apple, Kensington, Logitech, Dell, Gyration, and a host of brand X manufacturers; but Microsoft mice always feel demonstrably more comfortable. <\/p>\n