keyboard – Observations from Uppsala

That’s Odd: How iCue and Windows 11 Ruin Simics Performance

While working on some screenshots for an upcoming blog, I noticed something that something was off with the performance of Simics on my Windows 11 laptop. The CPU load did not quite go as high as I am used to – typically, compute-intense run should get close to 100% processor load using a single host thread to execute the simulation. Instead, I got to no more than about 50%, which was decidedly odd. I also had a screenshot from a few days earlier that showed some 90% CPU load. Turns out the culprit was a combination of factors, including the Windows 11 scheduler and the Corsair iCUE software pack.

Corsair K83 – Living-Room Keyboard

I have had a PC in the living room connected to the family TV for a few years now, and in the past we used a wired Corsair K65 keyboard with it. The point of the machine was at least in part to play games, and for that a mechanical wired keyboard is de-rigeur (and I do love RGB backlighting). However, some recent changes to the computer fleet made the living-room PC into more of a media machine, and it was time to move to a wireless keyboard. Preferably one that also made the mouse superfluous. After some research, I ended up with the Corsair K83. I am rather happy with the keyboard overall, even though it is rather small and lacks RGB.

The Corsair K83 on a holiday-themed tablecloth

Off-Topic: The Corsair K55 Rather Silent Keyboard

I have tried yet another keyboard at home in my quest to find one that the rest of the family finds sufficiently silent – while still being nice to type on. While my fingers love the feeling of the super-clicky MX Blues in my K70 at work, it is not the best choice with other people in the same room, especially at home. Thus, my long-running quest for a keyboard with a nice feel but less noise. I started with a Matias Quiet, and when that broke I tried a Corsair RGB Silent Strafe with the rather expensive MX Silent switches. The “silent” was not sufficiently silent, though, bringing me to the latest keyboard I am trying: the Corsair K55 RGB.

Keyboard Miscoloring – Just how does this Bug Happen?

I have a documented love for keyboards with RGB lighting. So I was rather annoyed when one of my Corsair K65 keyboards suddenly seemed to lose its entire red color component. The keyboard is supposed to default to all-red color scheme with the WASD and arrow keys highlighted in white when no user is logged in to the machine it is connected to – but all of a sudden, it went all dark except a light-blue color on the “white” keys. I guessed it was just a random misconfiguration, but it turned out to be worse than that.

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Corsair RGB Strafe Silent – Another not-so-noisy Keyboard

The Matias Quiet keyboard that I have been using for a couple of years recently gave up the ghost. The Enter key broke off and it seemed kind of unreliable in the USB department too – sometimes not activating when attached to a laptop, and sometimes just disappearing. I had got complaints about it being a little noisy still, despite being a lot quieter than a standard ALPS-style Matias keyboard. The replacement I got was a Corsair Strafe RGB Silent. I am rather fond of Corsair keyboards and mice, and this variant sounded promising.

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Corsair K65 and K70 Keyboards

When my old CM Storm mechanical gaming keyboard stopped working a while ago, I looked around for replacement alternatives. I ended up getting the new Corsair K65 RGB LUX narrow keyboard. A while earlier this year, I got a Corsair K70 at work. Thus, I can do a double review on a pair of closely related keyboards, but with different key switches, sizes, and backlighting systems.

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The Matias Less Noisy Keyboard (Matias Quiet Pro)

I am a big fan of proper real decent mechanical tactile clickety-clack keyboards. Writing is my means of communication, creation, and commercial contribution to the world. I write a lot of text – both code and normal language, and I feel that I type faster, more accurately, and produce better text when using a tactile keyboard. I cannot understand how anyone cannot love them once they have their fingers on them. However, mechanical keyboards have a bad reputation for being NOISY. The rest of my family thinks my CoolerMaster Trigger Cherry MX Brown is a bit too noisy when I use it at home. Thus, when I read about the Matias Quiet Pro keyboard, I spent the money and gave it a try. If I could have the feeling of a tactile keyboard without the noise, it would be a wonderful compromise!

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Touch the Screen vs Press a Button

Is the touchscreen the end-all of user interfaces for mobile devices? There were rumors in early 2011 that the iPad2 would lose all physical buttons (which did not come true, obviously). To me, that sounds like a really good and bad idea. Good, in the sense that a device that is all a big screen certainly looks nice. Bad, since it would be much less user-friendly than a device with some real physical buttons to press.

I have been thinking about this subject lately, after using a BlackBerry Torch 9800 as my work phone for a few months. I like the device a lot, but there are certainly some rough edges and some places where there is a UI conflict between touching the screen and pressing the buttons. At the same time, I am using both an iPod Nano 3G, and a couple of iPod Touches. I used to have SonyEricsson Symbian-based P900, P990i, and G900 smart phones which also were combined touch/press devices with a stylus.

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