Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard Review

I recently bought the Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard and thought there might be a few points that other reviews left out that I could explain. I spend all day, every day at my day job hammering away on my keyboard, so I thought I’d be in a unique position to provide a review of the Sculpt from an office/heavy user perspective.

I bought this for $65 from an online camera retailer of all places. I went with the “for business” version that doesn’t include the mouse since my office-supplied mouse was working out fine. And also because some online reviews said the mouse really wasn’t worth it for them.

Ergonomics

First off, the Microsoft Sculpt keyboard is a very comfortable keyboard to type on. The whole reason I purchased it was because I was having some mild wrist pain from using my flat aluminum Apple keyboard with my wrists improperly resting on my desk. I tried using a wrist rest but just couldn’t dig how I felt like I had to hover my hands over it.

When you have the included optional (and quite nifty) magnetic “stand” in place under the edge that faces you, the Sculpt has a very gentle negative tilt that keeps wrists higher than fingertips. (Of if you choose not to use the stand it has a nicely positive tilt.) There’s also a slightly tented profile to the keys, so the split center keys (TGB, YHN) are highest, with a slope down to the outside edge keys. This positions the wrists quite well in my case. It’s worth noting I have hands that are well above average size, so this keyboard could be a great fit for someone similar with very large hands.

The oversized wrist rest itself is covered in a matte textured material with just a little bit of padding under it. The texture is kind of non-slip, like a cross between vinyl faux nubuck and a nylon duffel bag, but I’m not sure how well it will wear. Overall, though, the wrist rest does add a nice level of support.

Build Quality Notes

The Microsoft Sculpt keyboard is both strikingly upscale and cheap at the same time. The curvy, swooping, stingray-inspired shape with the center cutout definitely looks cool sitting on my desk, and the glossy matte key trim contrasts nicely with the matte faux nubuck of the wrist rest. Coworkers comment on it all the time.

But looking closer reveals that the glossy surfaces are an absolute fingerprint and dirt magnet. (For me this is a non-issue since the rest of my work area is pretty haphazard and nobody is going to be judging me based on keyboard cleanliness.) The plasticky, rough texture of the back of the keyboard is also a little off-putting. It kind of feels like something you would find in a 1990s-era Toyota. Some online reviews suggested that Microsoft was building the Sculpt on par with Apple hardware – based on the observations above I don’t think I would agree. The Sculpt is functional, just not fabulous in the amazing way that Apple does their hardware (although I’ll admit it’s the comfort that counts here!)

At first, I had really mixed feelings about was the separate number pad. This separate pad means you can position it wherever you like on your desk. Initially I thought this seemed like an afterthought – as if Microsoft simply copied the Apple wireless keyboard and then realized that their users are nerdy, number-crunching types who use Excel and can’t live without their number pad. But the more I’ve used it the more it’s grown on me, I like that I can keep it off to the side when I’m not really using it. This also lets me position my mouse a little closer to the keyboard, which I suppose is more ergonomic. Granted the number pad feels a little cheap, like one step above a pocket calculator, but it does have nice rubber feet that have kept it securely planted on my desk surface (the main keyboard has these rubber feet too). It also has a convenient Calculator button and a backspace button so you can quickly crunch some digits and correct them if you screw it up.

The function keys across the top double as a row of quick access buttons, and you switch between regular function key mode and quick access button mode with a chintzy, wiggly toggle at the far right of the keyboard where you couldn’t possibly reach it from the typing position. That little toggle feels like it will be the first thing to break off. Also note the function keys don’t have the same travel and key feel as the regular keys – they are more like the buttons on the side of your iPhone that control the volume, for example, in that there’s hardly any key travel. This gives them a jarringly cheap feel that I still can’t get over. If you need to use the Esc key a lot for anything, you might even want to skip the Sculpt keyboard for that reason alone – you’ll miss the satisfying clunk of the longer-travel letter switches every time you need to use it.

Luckily the rest of the keys have a reasonably light action with satisfying travel, a nice balance between a chiclet keyboard and those huge old dinosaur keyboards with massive key travel. Although some reviewers said this keyboard was quiet, I do not find it to be that quiet. Each key press does result in a definite click, so in my morgue-quiet office I’m sure my co-workers can hear it across the hall in their offices too. My old aluminum Apple flat keyboard was quieter, but I guess I’m willing to trade that for the improved typing position.

Takeaway

The bottom line is I love the typing position and the at-a-glance style is nice, but I wish some of the small details were nicer. The toggle switch for the Fn keys, the cheapo feel of those same F-keys and the finish of the unit leave a little to be desired.

Update - Saved My USB Dongle That Was Stuck in Port!

The most ridiculous thing occurred today at my office. The little USB dongle for the Sculpt keyboard got jammed into a USB port on my PC and I couldn’t get it to come back out! It seemed like there were little metal tabs inside the port that just clicked in place, and then the nano-dongle was just so small that it felt like it was going to break off if I yanked too hard. Little pieces of the black plastic started flaking off when I tried to grab it with a binder clip that I happened to have handy. Not exactly confidence-inspiring.

After about ten panicked minutes and some frantic and increasingly furious Google searching that revealed that there is absolutely no way to buy the USB dongle separately, I managed to pry the little tabs out of the way with a thin plastic sheet and retrieve the tiny dongle. From now on, I will only be inserting it into the USB ports just far enough to contact the connectors, not so far that those little tabs catch it!

Guide To Buying a Refurbished Mac Computer

Part 1: Decide What To Get
I decided it's finally time to replace my HP Pavillion dv5000 laptop. Since I'm sure nobody has even heard of that model anymore, let's just say it's amazing it still works, struggling to run Windows XP with an AMD single-core processor, an 80GB hard drive and 2GB of RAM. I've had my heart set on a new(er) Mac laptop for some time now, and finally got the go-ahead from my better half to buy one.

After playing around on the models available as of this writing at the local Best Buy store, she wanted to buy the 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display on the spot. Not so fast, I said, and convinced her that we could grab a great deal by buying a refurb. And rather than buying a refurbished Mac to save money, I am buying a refurbished Mac to get more bang for my buck. Instead of getting a new 15" MacBook Pro Retina 2.4GHz core i7 with 8GB RAM and 256GB of flash storage, we could suddenly afford a refurbished MacBook Pro Retina 2.6GHZ core i7 with 16GB RAM and 512GB flash storage for about $150 more. Sweet! (I wanted the extra RAM and SSD space since nothing about the Retina generation of machines is user-serviceable without a lot of hassle.)

(You can also pick up an older generation machine at the refurb store for considerable savings. If I wanted a Mac mini as a home theater PC for example, I probably wouldn't mind settling for one from 2011.)

Part 2: Make Sure Refurb Is Right For You
A little online research yields an impressive amount of positive reviews for Apple's refurbished store. A variety of Mac magazines and forums say that you essentially get a brand new Mac, looked at by a real human, with the same 1-year warranty as the new ones. The only downside is that it ain't 100% brand new: someone else has already smelled that new computer smell and then sent it back for some reason or another. This doesn't bother me one bit: the average savings are around 15% on refurbished Macs, and some models (specifically the higher-spec'd one I was looking for) give deeper discounts of 25%+ off the regular retail price. And Apple guarantees them to be pretty much good as new.

As an aside, I think buying refurbished is a no-brainer for most people. I could have saved a bunch of money back in college if I had just shopped the online refurbished store the summer before I left for school instead of going to the Apple store in person. Luckily the kind salespeople talked me out of the notion that I needed a PowerBook (top of the line at the time) and convinced me the more pedestrian iBook G4 would suffice for my needs. And it did.

But I imagine there could be some situations where refurb isn't what you want. If you're giving a gift, for example, the possibility of having cosmetic defects or having some kind of stigma attached to your gift since it's a refurb would make me think twice. Or if I was getting one for work and someone else was paying the bill, bingo, I'd rather have a brand new one.

Part 3: Watch, Wait and Buy
At this point I knew exactly what I wanted and exactly where to get it. There was only one problem: the specific model I wanted with the extra RAM wasn't available at the Mac refurb store at that time. If you check the refurb store and see what you need, you're in luck. But I had to resort to some other tactics to retain my sanity - rather than check the refurb store every minute, I needed a tool that would check it for me and send me an alert when the product I wanted was available.

To my surprise there is actually a tool that does exactly that. Enter refurb.me (http://www.refurb.me/us/), an online tool (based out of Hong Kong, for what it's worth) that shows which items are in stock at the refurb store and can send users alerts via email or text message when your preferred build is available. Sure, it's a little sketchy since it's from Hong Kong and there doesn't seem to be any ads on the site, which leaves you wondering how they support their site... but whatever, there's definitely no harm in just looking at the refurb.me site, and it's way easier to track down a specific product there than on Apple's own store.

I signed up for a free refurb.me account (with one of my disposable email addresses) and (thought I) configured it to send me a text message when the refurb product I wanted was available. (more on that below.) I slept soundly, thinking I would be among the first to know if my soon-to-be new refurbished Mac was available for sale, day or night.

I also started using refurb tracker (http://refurb-tracker.com/) to create an RSS feed for the product I wanted. This tool lets you create a customized RSS feed for products on the Apple refurb store in specific categories. You can also create an RSS feed by user-enetered text, like "i7" and "16GB", then read them in a browser. Assuming I had everything set up right, if there were no new feeds, it meant that what I wanted wasn't available yet. Way easier than checking anything manually.

In the end though, both of these products didn't help me! One day I went to the refurb.me site and saw my target model was green, meaning in stock, but I hadn't gotten any notification at all! After looking at my refurb.me account, somehow I had created an account but not signed up for any notifications. Maybe I hadn't confirmed something with my account after clicking the email they sent me, maybe I misread something in their instructions (which aren't in the best English). Either way when my computer became available, there was no alert telling me about it.

At the same time, I also must have configured my refurb tracker RSS feed wrong (I had to use an app to read the RSS feed on my iPhone 4) so it didn't show me when a new product was added to the section of the refurbished store I was interested in! Luckily, I was able to get an order in without seeing a single alert.

In the end, compulsively checking the refurb.me website (not their alert service) and the Apple refurbished store is what let me jump on the new batch of products and order a new refurbished computer. I would say if you are using refurb.me or refurb tracker for something critical that you simply cannot afford to miss, you need to be extra careful about setting them up properly. There really isn't a way to test that they work, and in my case had I not manually checked the refurb.me website I would never have been able to get the deal I wanted. Lesson learned.

These two tools do have a few other perks though. The refurb.me site tells you when specific products were last seen and gives you a little graph of their price history, which can potentially help you anticipate when the next batch is going to be available. Of course, I also noticed (from the RSS history) that new groups of products hit the Apple store at seemingly random dates and times, and there was no obvious schedule for checking back to nab that elusive product.

One final caveat to the Apple refurb store: some of the products say "Available to ship in 24 hours" and some say "Ships in 1-5 business days". Not sure why that might be, but telling someone that's waiting that they'll send it in 1-5 business days is like telling a kid that Christmas could be coming any time between December 25 and December 30 this year. Still, I guess it's worth the wait since you can save a few dollars. Happy shopping!

How to open a .webarchive file type

After 15 minutes of trying to figure out how to open a .webarchive file type on my Windows computer I realized that the internet could use a simple, step by step description of what to do to view this file. I will deal specifically with opening a .webarchive file on Windows 7, but the process is pretty close on Windows XP too.

Steps to open a .webarchive file on Windows 7:

1. If you do not already have Apple's Safari browser, you will need to download and install it. This is because .webarchive files are a type of file saved by the Safari application, and to my knowledge only the Safari application is able to open them again. Head to Apple's website, find the option to download Safari, download it, and then install it.
2. You will need to save the file to your computer. This gets tricky because if you're downloading the file from the internet (say as an email attachment) Internet Explorer will try to open the file itself, but it just pops a blank tab after it realizes it doesn't know what to do. On my Windows 7 machine, it pops a dialog at the bottom of the browser window, asking if I want to open or save the file. You need to save it somewhere on you computer.
3. Open the locally saved .webarchive file with Safari. Find your .webarchive file, right click on it and choose "open with." Then you'll have to browse through your machine's programs and choose Safari as the application you want to open it with. Once you have it open, you should see a saved image of whatever the file contained.

That's it! It took me a good 15 minutes to figure this out, and I imagine there are some folks out there who could use some directions on this. If you find that this method does not work for you or you would like to add any additional information in the comments please do so.