Kinesis keyboard

So now I've used the kinesis advantage keyboard fro the last couple months. Overall, I'm rather pleased with it.

Original layout

My adaptations:

I swapped the caps-lock and the left ctrl key. I'm an emacs user, and the position of the left and right ctrl keys are really difficult to reach. This is something I do anyway on all my keyboards, so no real difference there.

I made the backspace key (under the left thumb into an alt key, since I do meta commands all the time.

I made the delete key into a backspace key.

The arrow keys are re-mapped, so that they are arranged as in vi- that is, left, down, up, and right.

Here are some of my thoughts on the keyboard:

• PRO: A week or two after starting to use this keyboard, my pains in my left thumb disappeared.
• PRO: After three weeks, my typing speed was almost as quick as it was before. That being said, I still (after three months) do not type quite as quickly as I do on a regular non-ergonomic keyboard.
• CON: The position of the enter and space keys on the right makes it difficult to reach using the left hand. This isn't usually a problem, but when I use the mouse with the right hand and I want to hit a space (or enter) at a position, its annoying.
• CON: The function keys are smaller than the normal ones. This forces me to look and search for the key when I want to use them. Annoying.

Overall, I really like the keyboard. Besides the fact that my nascent RSI has disappeared, it's actually a pleasure to write- it just feels.. good.