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I walked to the CVS Pharmacy and noticed some product placement in with the baby supplies. At the end of the aisle, after you pass diapers, wipes, ointments, bottles, teethers and pacifiers, is a six foot tall rack of Red Bull energy drink. I don’t think this is a coincidence. I’m amused at the thought of the marketers sitting around saying, “We’ve done formula one and nascar and we’ve got the whole extreme sport thing covered, who else will buy this?”

I spend a lot of time at the keyboard, often upwards of eight hours a day. A couple of years ago I blogged about keyboards and how I love the rugged Type-M buckling spring design. I keep a few around with PS2 and USB adapters for home and work but for the Mac, I was using a vintage 1990 Apple Extended Keboard II. This keyboard is often referred to as the “Nimitz”, supposedly after its codename during development, and the name is apt- it is huge and overbuilt. I’ve been using it with an iMate adb-usb adapter for years and while the setup was sometimes dodgy, it usually worked. The keyboard is not as industrial as IBM’s best and after sixteen years of intermittant use the spacebar is showing signs of wear and the keyboard is suffering key bounce and missing key presses. So it was time to replace it.

But replace it with what? I got my hands on a new, sans box EnduraPro/104 a few years ago and it was a good keyboard. I used it until the rubber nub on the pointing stick wore out but it wasn’t the Type-M. I’ve seen one and think the Avant is overpriced, even for a niche product. So I gambled that the reviews and comments on the Matias Tactile Pro were accurate and bought one from Small Dog, my favorite vendor for things Mac-related. It’s not cheap, but I hoped that the price was an indication of quality.

I’ve been using it for a couple of days and, yes, it is a quality keyboard. The first thing that struck me when I took it out of the box was that it was relatively light. The second was that the little feet to change the angle have two positions- up and down- and they are slightly springy. It’s different from my old Nimitz, a little firmer, the keys slightly smaller and the travel is maybe a little shorter but it’s as good and maybe better. It’s firm and loud and within a few minutes I didn’t notice the differences. I’m not making any more typos than I do normally and I appreciate the two integrated USB ports. Back to back, I prefer the old Type-M but I prefer the Tactile Pro to the Nimitz.

Well done, Matias.

I’ve been busy with everything else in my life, so I haven’t done much reading. Things have quieted down enough and I’ve picked up:

• Perl Hacks. Cool little book, full of ideas and tricks you might have known and many more you didn’t. Reminded me of looking over the shoulder of a clever programmer and going, “Aha.” I owe dha a couple of good beers to make up for the review blurb I promised to write but didn’t when I was caught up in closing on a house and moving.
• Extending and Embedding Perl. I’m working through it now and so far I can say: a) this book was necessary, b) thank you Tim and Simon, and c) XS is never going to be easy but at least it needn’t be a mystery.

Mildly nasty little enterovirus. Toddlers drool, drop food and toys on the ground and pick them up, put any odd thing in their mouths and generally have no idea of hygiene. Perfect vector, these kiddies. Poor kid had textbook symptoms: fever, irritability, malaise, loss of appetite, red sore patches in the mouth, a day of diarrhea and when the fever broke he developed red spots on his arms and legs. He bounced back today and the spots should disappear in a few days.

You may recall that the last time Nathan was sick he passed it on to me. I must be lucky, he got me again. I understand why he was cranky, it’s pretty miserable, like having a mild flu but with a sore throat. Maria, fortunately, has not come down with it.