Bye Apache, Hello Nginx

I’d had it with RAM-hogging Apache. I can’t afford even a decent-sized VPS, so 256MB of mem­ory has to go a long way. I read some arti­cles about how to set up the Nginx web server + Word­Press on Ubuntu Hardy LTS, and this one was by far the most help­ful to me.

The end result of this is that all my sites are now run­ning Nginx. It just feels faster, even though it prob­a­bly isn’t really. The big dif­fer­ence is the lower RAM con­sump­tion, which means more reli­able server per­for­mance. This is on Slice­host, BTW.

My Game Writing Has Moved

In the inter­est of grow­ing my read­er­ship, I’ve decided to fork my writ­ing about games into a sep­a­rate blog, CUBE PUSHER. This should also open the door to con­tribut­ing writ­ers, which will make a world of dif­fer­ence when it’s some­one post­ing other than bor­ing old me.

TypeMatrix

I’m typ­ing on a new key­board. Ever since I switched to Dvo­rak in 2007, I haven’t been ter­ri­bly thrilled with any com­puter key­board. The best one I’d used up until today was the thin alu­minum Apple key­board with the slim, MacBook-style keys.

Today, I received the Type­Ma­trix 2030. This key­board offers a num­ber of enhance­ments over your typ­i­cal key­board, par­tic­u­larly if you are inter­ested in ergonom­ics and flexibility.

The Goods

1. The keys are arranged in a grid pat­tern, aban­don­ing the stag­gered arrange­ment that has plagued typ­ists since the advent of the type­writer in the 1800s.
2. The Enter, Back­space, and Delete keys are now in the mid­dle of the lay­out (acces­si­ble with the index fin­ger of either hand, instead of just the right pinky).
3. There is a hard­wired Qwerty-Dvorak tog­gle switch.
4. Very com­pact form fac­tor for a USB key­board. The Type­Ma­trix is basi­cally the size of the eco­nom­i­cal key­board built into a lap­top, leav­ing plenty of extra space for a mouse.
5. Cus­tomiz­able key labels at order time. In my case, I ordered a key­board with blank keys, but I could have ordered one with Qwerty, Dvo­rak, Azerty, or a num­ber of other inter­na­tional key lay­outs. I appre­ci­ate the atten­tion paid to non-English-speaking users and internationalization.

I am quite enjoy­ing my new typ­ing expe­ri­ence thus far, and I have a few ini­tial obser­va­tions about using the TypeMatrix.

Learn­ing Curve

It will take a few hours of typ­ing on this key­board to adjust to both the sub­tle and dras­tic dif­fer­ences from a nor­mal key­board. For exam­ple, I have the bad habit of hit­ting the X key (B for you Qwerty users) with my right index fin­ger. How­ever, on this key­board, the Enter key is now where the X would have been. Ulti­mately, although it’s a bit of a pain right now, this should force me to type cor­rectly, and use my left index fin­ger to hit X.

I’ll be hon­est, hav­ing the Enter and Back­space keys smack dab in the mid­dle of the key­board is just plain weird at first, but I’m already start­ing to get used to that. Like­wise, the grid lay­out intro­duces sub­tle changes to where keys sit rel­a­tive to one another, but it’s not as jar­ring as you’d think. It actu­ally feels nice.

Fit and Finish

I’m pretty impressed with the build qual­ity of the 2030. The keys are respon­sive, not too hard to depress, but sturdy. There is no inher­ent tilt to the Type­Ma­trix; it sits per­fectly flat.

I did order a sil­i­cone Dvo­rak skin to cover my blank keys, but I def­i­nitely pre­fer typ­ing with­out the skin. The main rea­son for this is that the skin does not sit exactly right over the keys, and as a result, key­strokes feel very loose and impre­cise with the skin on. I expect I’ll prob­a­bly kick it to the curb.

Geek Appeal

After see­ing the infa­mous Happy Hack­ing key­board and its blank keys, I knew that I had to some­day get a key­board with this “fea­ture.” Since I have been touch-typing in Dvo­rak on a Qwerty key­board for years, it shouldn’t come as much of a sur­prise that I don’t need to have labels on my keys.

On a purely super­fi­cial and self­ish level, I kind of love the thought of nobody know­ing how to use my key­board except for me!

A Word on Macs

This key­board is clearly made for a Windows-centric world, and it includes a fair num­ber of keys that are absolutely use­less on a Mac. This is really of lit­tle con­se­quence to me, since I have never been one to use pro­pri­etary key­board but­tons, but it might be a con­cern to oth­ers, and is worth point­ing out.

The Com­mand key on a Mac (mapped to Home on the 2030) is used much more often than Ctrl or Alt. How­ever, on the Type­Ma­trix key­board, there is only one Home key, and two each of the oth­ers. Fur­ther­more, on a Mac, the Com­mand keys are where the Alt keys are on the Type­Ma­trix. This was eas­ily reme­died in my MacBook’s sys­tem pref­er­ences, where I switched the map­ping of the Com­mand and Alt keys for USB keyboards.

Over­all Thoughts

Although it’s clearly still the hon­ey­moon phase, I’m ter­ri­bly impressed with the Type­Ma­trix 2030. Despite its quirks, I am a big fan of the design of this key­board, and I can’t wait to use it more.

If you do a lot of typ­ing and are inter­ested in key­board ergonom­ics, and/or alter­na­tive key­board lay­outs such as Dvo­rak, I’d read­ily rec­om­mend this piece of gear to you.