Female: Technology enables us to accomplish more and work harder and faster, but most of us find ourselves in front of the computer far longer than our body seemed to be able to handle. If you find your self at your desk hour after hour and your arms are properly aligned, fatigue can quickly set in. Today, we’re going to look at the Microsoft ergonomic natural desktop 7000 which is a wireless keyboard and mouse which might make those days a little bit more manageable. Let us look at some of the features of the wireless keyboard first.
Male: Well, one of the things that Microsoft has done here is they try to encourage an ergonomic situation so both with the mouse and keyboard. They’re trying to get you in front of your computer and make it more natural to use. You can see they’ve done that. First of all, the keyboard completely looks like it’s been sitting out in the sun too long and we’ve looked at this before.
Female: It’s almost, it is melted.
Male: Right, but it’s got these natural curves in it here and it’s got these curves on it on the side as well. You can see that we’ve got it elevated so we’ve got the bottom extender and front legs up just to kind of show you the full effect here, but when it’s done, if I can just turn it side ways, the camera here is it when you are sitting naturally in front of the computer, you rest your hands.
This is the position that you want to be and you don’t want to be like this for eight to 10 hours a day. You want to be like this. You want to have a bend and a curve in your arm. You can also see the number of buttons that they put on the keyboard makes some things a lot easier. They’ve got your favorite buttons easily accessible. There is a number of programable keys but even notice how the keys actually change in size as they move around the keyboard and that’s just because again naturally if you are going to be using a different keystrokes then you have to make sure that for the different types of hands, the whole thing works.
Female: It also has one of the things that I find quite a bit with mouse when using them is the scroll wheel is up and down, and the back button, forward. This actually has a back and forward button right heres which is better and more natural. Same with the zoom button up and down, you kind of got like it is a little scroll bar here and there so you can quickly zoom in and zoom out of your screen as you go along which is a great feature.
Male: The mouse is designed in such a way so that you can take if you’re to shake somebody’s hand, you have a natural curve to your arm here if you put that right down, that’s the idea. You’re using the mouse all day long that you are in this position, of course on top of it again twisting your arm here.
Female: I just want to see you do that.
Male: So, in general what they’ve done is they, you know, they’ve controlled things, they move things around a little bit. This isn’t necessarily new but again it just encourages that natural position. The keyboard is soft and the mouse actually works on 2.4 gigahertz technology so you can get up to 30 feet away. And what I am planning with that is a lot of folks especially because as we’re talking about wireless here is that you can use these things. You are not going sit 30 feet away from your monitor but if you take this into a presentation or even into a room where you are using a larger monitor, you can be further away. One thing I would want to get is 2.4 gigahertz technology. If you’re using that in office place, we got things like cordless phones or wireless networks, you could get some interference there but overall having that 30 feet away from the computer can actually be pretty nice as well.
Female: Yeah, and another thing to notice what is kind of newer about this is they use to come with the big kind of hub that with USB plug in to your computer or laptop where this one just a small USB plugs. You’re not having the cord come off a bit and then another unit like this which sits on your desk which I actually have in my office. So, as the technology progresses, it gets a little bit easier to use and takes out less disc space.
Male: And keep in mind that results from this hand position is going to take a long time to actually see the benefits from it. When I’d go to use this keyboard, I don’t like it. It just not natural for me I’ve never really taken to these things, but if I where six years from now, when I’ve got damage on my hands, I probably going to wish that I’ve gone out this road.
Female: It only takes two days I use that.
Male: If you are interested in Ergonomics, here is a couple of other natural keyboards that you can check out.
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