I’m happy that you’re happy with your new keyboard, Amber. I never touched the IceKey nor the Celesta, so I can’t judge their functionality. But as far as looks are concerned, for me there’s absolutely no comparison between the two: while the Celesta is simply beautiful, period, the IceKey looks … well, let’s say very ‘average’.
Amber:
Maybe you have the Optimizer key I never got on my Tactile Pro 2.
That is certainly true, but despite being an owner of an Apple computer, I am not entirely wrapped up in appearances!
Sean, I’d send you my Optimizer key, but like I said, I cannot get it to work at all. So I doubt it will do you any good. I think I am going to pretend it is a Reboot button. Or maybe a Reinstall Windows button. That would be appropriate.
Appropriate, maybe, but not much fun. 
Paint it [color=red]red. Label it [color=red]PANIC.
Was reading through screenwriter John August’ssite when I came across a reference to this keyboard. In. Freaking. Sane.
I can’t begin to imagine using one, but I’m sure some of you sore-wristed* kids out there in Scrivenerland might like something like this.
*sounds comically dirty
Urgs! One thing crazier than the next one.
The best keyboards I ever had:
- The Alphasmart.
- The good old heavy clicking IBM-PC-keyboard.
- The keyboard of my iMac. It took some time for me to get used to it, but meanwhile I appreciate it’s quality.
The rest of what is sold in the stores: Forget it. I very often went there, willing to spend a lot of money on a good keyboard, but there wasn’t one. You can spend your money on keyboards with gimmicks of all kind (a shining example is the expensive “Harry Potter”-keyboards that has a F-9 3/4 key instead the usual F-10 function key… ), but beyond that… it’s as if there were only Ladas available in a lot of varieties, but no Mercedes.
Weird: On the heels of discovering the keyboard I mentioned above, I read an article on 10 Screenwriters To Watch in Variety. Check out the section on Dana Fox, who – in addition to being surprisingly hot – types like a freak on this keyboard. =-)
Looking at that picture actually gives me a little anxiety. Like, seriously, that works?
In '96 or so, a guy designed one of the first folding keyboards like this, had a few dozen samples made, and tried to get Apple to adopt the design. I typed on one of those in Apple’s SF office one afternoon for an hour or so.
The particular design allowed one to fold the keyboard in about six steps, from a slight rise in the center to full vertical. The full vertical position was by far the most fun, stable, and fast. I clocked in a good 135 wpm.
You did have to adjust some wrist and hand pads which were sort of cobbled together at that stage, and the bare ribbon cables joining the halves were odd, but it could have been a great keyboard.
I think on the same afternoon we also played with a version of the head mouse, a little sensor you could wear like a small headphone set, and click the button with a foot pad.
Instead, Apple opted to address the RSI bits with the Adjustable Keyboard, which just rotated about a central axis to a middling degree.
Dang! The Microsoft natural mouse is very nice, but it doesn’t work on the glass surface I bought for my desk! Sob. And the Gateway monitor is MASSIVE. The IceKey keyboard feels great and I can type very fast on it - fantastic. Very satisfying. Annoying about the mouse though. I like it a lot, but it would be a lot of hassle to get rid of the glass desk top…
I’d not seen the Microsoft natural mouse before, but it looks a lot like my Logitech MX laser mouse. There are reviews that say the MX will work on glass. I haven’t tried that - my desk is wooden - but I like the MX.
Edit: Don’t bother. I brought in a clear glass top from a sidetable and tried the MX on it. Didn’t work. Perhaps the glass has to be opaque.
Nope. 
First thing I did was try the laser on an opaque glass Ikea desk at the office–doesn’t work. Maybe… textured glass. Stained glass?
Hmm. Welcome to our new segment… Mousebusters!
I had also read in a review that putting a picture under glass will work. Just tried it. No dice. Not even fuzzy ones.
Is it just me, or do others here, discussing the finer points of various mice, keyboards, monitors, etc. sometimes picture Sam Clemens, sitting in his little gazebo at Quarry Farm, a stack of manuscript paper, a dip pen with a bottle of ink, and a hundred or so pages of Huck Finn or Tom Sawyer on the table?
Are you feeling nostalgic, lenf?
Except that Sam Clemens was one of the early adopters of the typewriter. Imo, he’d be checking out the new Santa Rosa MBPs.
Clemens did “check out” almost every alternate way to write, going through a stream of fountain pens, the typewriter, even his very own company to produce the Paige typesetter - - a mechanical version of LaTex… 
It seems that after a few days with each, he would pass the latest experiment on to his friend W. D. Howells, who oddly enough, chose to remain his friend. They would usually plot a bit to determine who to curse next with the device at hand. Then he’d pull out his old dip pen, a bottle of ink in some unusual shade, and go back to actually writing.
Nostalgic? Nah. I do agree that if Twain were about today, he’d likely be using a Mac.
I do, though, wonder if we’d ever get Huck or Tom that way.
I guess that’d be up to you.
Well, your description of Twain’s experiments with writing-encouragement-implements does have some contemporary echoes.
If you want to experiment with the fountain pen method à la Twain, here you go:
http://www.conklinpen.com/product/twain2.html
Dave
You know, you can still use mousepads with optical mice… 