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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: rickwest on Wed, 16 January 2019, 12:30:29
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Just wondering what most people do regarding keyboards for work. Do you have a different board at work than at home? Do you have the same? Do you take your favorite keyboard into work with you everyday?
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I don't really want to carry mine around, which is the only reason why I own more than one keyboard, honestly.
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I've got a different one at work that's specifically mapped for my day-to-day uses, and uses quieter switches with washers to not annoy everyone around me.
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Yeah, ever since I started using my own keyboard at work I've had a dedicated one for the purpose. Who wants to carry a keyboard with them wherever they go?
When I first started with mechanical keyboards 15 years ago, I first bought a Model M for home, but continued using the work issued rubber dome at work. Then when I upgraded my home keyboard (a black Model M13 Trackpoint II) I brought the old Model M to work.
I had an office at the time, so I didn't have to worry about having a noisy keyboard.
A couple of years later there was a ceiling leak at work, and that Model M never worked right again :(
Since then I have been using work issued rubber dome keyboards at work. I wanted to get another mechanical board, but I was always worried about the noise, until last week.
I ordered a first gen Ducky One with MX Clear (tactile, no click) switches, and a set of o-rings to install and make it as quiet as possible. It won't be silent, but I'm hoping it won't be any louder than the Logitech rubber dome one I have now.
If I am on the fence regarding if it is quiet enough, I'll probably send an email to everyone in my work area with a link to an anonymous SurveyMonkey or something like that, so they can tell me whether or not it bothers them without any worry about being antagonistic.
Tactile Clears with o-rings are likely to not be that thrilling for me, coming from buckling spring, but it should definitely be better than this mushy Logitech junk.
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Worth keeping in mind, the new Macbook Pro keyboard is loud af, you can probably get away with some browns and be at the same volume.
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Worth keeping in mind, the new Macbook Pro keyboard is loud af, you can probably get away with some browns and be at the same volume.
I probably should keep the volume on par with or lower than wireless Logitech rubber domes, which is what everyone seems to have here.
Since graduating college I've worked in 9 different offices, some big, some small, but I have never seen a Mac in a work setting. Not even once.
I tend to think of them as home computers for people who like to spend 3 times more for half the performance :p
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Worth keeping in mind, the new Macbook Pro keyboard is loud af, you can probably get away with some browns and be at the same volume.
I probably should keep the volume on par with or lower than wireless Logitech rubber domes, which is what everyone seems to have here.
Since graduating college I've worked in 9 different offices, some big, some small, but I have never seen a Mac in a work setting. Not even once.
I tend to think of them as home computers for people who like to spend 3 times more for half the performance :p
That's weird! I've worked in like 3 different offices and seen majority macs. As someone who doesn't enjoy Mac's, i'm envious of you :)
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i leave my 2nd favourite in a locker here
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That's weird! I've worked in like 3 different offices and seen majority macs. As someone who doesn't enjoy Mac's, i'm envious of you :)
Interesting.
I'd guess it's probably an industry to industry thing. My career has been in manufacturing and product development / R&D in the medical device field. It tends to be dominated by windows PC's (I wish I could use Linux, but...) In fact, out of those 9 companies, in all but one I had Dell Latitude laptops issued to me. One of them was a HP shop, and i thought that laptop was worse, but I'm not going to draw conclusions based on a sample size of one.
I get the impression Mac's are more common in audio/video/media/advertising type settings due to apples traditional stronghold on the favored software for those industries.
Ever since Apples resurgence in the last 15 years or so, apparently they have also started popping up as status symbols in certain software development environments. I'd argue if these developers want a *nix development environment they'd probably be better off with Linux on PC hardware, but that solution has the drawback that it is not shiny and expensive looking :p
Most engineering (at least everywhere I've worked) seems dominated by the Windows PC though, and especially Dell Latitude laptops for some reason.
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That's weird! I've worked in like 3 different offices and seen majority macs. As someone who doesn't enjoy Mac's, i'm envious of you :)
Interesting.
I'd guess it's probably an industry to industry thing. My career has been in manufacturing and product development / R&D in the medical device field. It tends to be dominated by windows PC's (I wish I could use Linux, but...) In fact, out of those 9 companies, in all but one I had Dell Latitude laptops issued to me. One of them was a HP shop, and i thought that laptop was worse, but I'm not going to draw conclusions based on a sample size of one.
I get the impression Mac's are more common in audio/video/media/advertising type settings due to apples traditional stronghold on the favored software for those industries.
Ever since Apples resurgence in the last 15 years or so, apparently they have also started popping up as status symbols in certain software development environments. I'd argue if these developers want a *nix development environment they'd probably be better off with Linux on PC hardware, but that solution has the drawback that it is not shiny and expensive looking :p
Most engineering (at least everywhere I've worked) seems dominated by the Windows PC though, and especially Dell Latitude laptops for some reason.
Exactly right haha. First job was in app development, second was in digital advertising, third is as a software engineer at a consulting firm (which is dominated by the Dell Latitude for non SWE's).
Personally I think they gave me a Mac because it's what other devs pressured them to do, due to "industry standards" or some **** like that.
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At one point I carried my board with me every day. Then I went to leaving my hhkb at work.
All preference, although, not sure plugging and unplugging your USB multiples times a day is the best.
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Topre seems to make the most sense to me for work. The sound it makes is pleasant, not overly loud and the sound itself doesn't really stand out all too much to draw attention or irritate anyone. 45g Topre is easy to live with day in day out and are exceptionally durable.
Topre keyboards also tend not to draw attention to any would-be thieves if you're worried about leaving it around the office, as they often look pretty normal (or at least, they can) and they don't have the theft-appeal of a mechanical board. It wouldn't be unreasonable to carve your name and number into the back of your work board to make it even less appealing to thieves if you work in an area where that could be an issue.
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Exactly right haha. First job was in app development, second was in digital advertising, third is as a software engineer at a consulting firm (which is dominated by the Dell Latitude for non SWE's).
Personally I think they gave me a Mac because it's what other devs pressured them to do, due to "industry standards" or some **** like that.
Lol. Be a rebel. Install Linux Mint on it :p You should be able to set up the same build environment, right? What are you working in, JVM, Eclipse/IntelliJ or something like that?
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Topre seems to make the most sense to me for work. The sound it makes is pleasant, not overly loud and the sound itself doesn't really stand out all too much to draw attention or irritate anyone. 45g Topre is easy to live with day in day out and are exceptionally durable.
Topre keyboards also tend not to draw attention to any would-be thieves if you're worried about leaving it around the office, as they often look pretty normal (or at least, they can) and they don't have the theft-appeal of a mechanical board. It wouldn't be unreasonable to carve your name and number into the back of your work board to make it even less appealing to thieves if you work in an area where that could be an issue.
I've never typed on a topre switch (to my knowledge)
I'd like to try one at some point.
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Exactly right haha. First job was in app development, second was in digital advertising, third is as a software engineer at a consulting firm (which is dominated by the Dell Latitude for non SWE's).
Personally I think they gave me a Mac because it's what other devs pressured them to do, due to "industry standards" or some **** like that.
Lol. Be a rebel. Install Linux Mint on it :p You should be able to set up the same build environment, right? What are you working in, JVM, Eclipse/IntelliJ or something like that?
Right now mostly Sublime/VSCode since I work in Salesforce. I think most of my programs would be ok in Linux, but i'm a little worried about some of the utilities that connect my IDE to Salesforce since they're hardly supported in Mac and Windows as it is.
Those are the only programs I would be hesitant about switching for, everything else is browser based.
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Topre seems to make the most sense to me for work. The sound it makes is pleasant, not overly loud and the sound itself doesn't really stand out all too much to draw attention or irritate anyone. 45g Topre is easy to live with day in day out and are exceptionally durable.
Topre keyboards also tend not to draw attention to any would-be thieves if you're worried about leaving it around the office, as they often look pretty normal (or at least, they can) and they don't have the theft-appeal of a mechanical board. It wouldn't be unreasonable to carve your name and number into the back of your work board to make it even less appealing to thieves if you work in an area where that could be an issue.
I've never typed on a topre switch (to my knowledge)
I'd like to try one at some point.
I like to describe them as the Lexus of keyboards, in that they aren't the most exciting and don't stand out, but they're very pleasant to use every day.
Unlike most mechanical boards, they don't have such a distinct sound that it's very obvious you aren't using a normal keyboard.
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I like to describe them as the Lexus of keyboards, in that they aren't the most exciting and don't stand out, but they're very pleasant to use every day.
Unlike most mechanical boards, they don't have such a distinct sound that it's very obvious you aren't using a normal keyboard.
Ah, that's what I was going for with my first gen Ducky One with tactile (but not clicky) Cherry MX Clears, and o-rings.
They were backordered, so I haven't received it yet. Not quite sure what to expect. I've always been a buckling spring guy.
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Right now mostly Sublime/VSCode since I work in Salesforce. I think most of my programs would be ok in Linux, but i'm a little worried about some of the utilities that connect my IDE to Salesforce since they're hardly supported in Mac and Windows as it is.
Those are the only programs I would be hesitant about switching for, everything else is browser based.
You could always test it in a VM before committing... :)
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Ah, that's what I was going for with my first gen Ducky One with tactile (but not clicky) Cherry MX Clears, and o-rings.
They were backordered, so I haven't received it yet. Not quite sure what to expect. I've always been a buckling spring guy.
The O-rings will help avoid the downstroke clack, but the upstroke clack and key noise might still be a bit more distinct compared with most keyboards around you.
In any case, it will be quieter than buckling springs!
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i use an ergodox with box royals at work. never had issues but most of our office has mech keyboards with browns or blues so no one really cares lol.
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I'm a programmer and now that I have 2 keyboards (both MX Clears) I just have 1 at work, 1 at home.
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At home I use an ANSI TKL KBD8X
At work I use an ISO Nordic which is attached to my laptop. I don't want to bring in a 2nd keyboard for work because the boss always complains that they make too much noise. :))
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I almost always use small form-factor tactile boards when I'm not at home, ALPS64 With Oranges, FC660C, HHKB, KBD75 With MX Clears, you can begin to imagine the boards I mean.
For some reason people don't like me using my BOX Royals, Navies and other clickies in a near silent room.
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I've usually had different keyboards at work, (when I have had work...). Some of my most silent ones, with O-rings or Topre, yes. I also have a sticker on the bottom with my name on it.
One job was in a secure area, so I would have had to get my keyboard examined by the IT department before being allowed to use it there. Too tedious, and the issued rubber-dome was good enough so I used that instead.
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I use my Nightfox with lubed zealios at work, very quiet and beautiful sound if I may say so myself. Most of my co-workers make more noise than me using their apple keyboards/macbooks so it's no problem at all. I sometimes switch it out with my home driver though, whenever I start missing my Godspeed-build.
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I take my FC660C with me to work. Sometimes on fridays I take it with me home but often I leave it there. Another board I've used at work is full size Realforce. I'm currently thinking of taking my Apple M0118 in there to see if I can get away with the little noise it generates.
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One of the benefits of working from home is you can use whatever tf you want :)
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One of the benefits of working from home is you can use whatever tf you want :)
Man that's the dream for me right there. :D
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idk, i can work from home but i start going stir crazy and get cabin fever. i like my employees so its good to interact with people once in a while lol
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Currently, Filco majestouch with red silent at work since I'm afraid the noise, Whitefox with hako clear at home.
Soon, I'll switch them since I realize my workplace make more noise than my Whitefox anyway. I'd rather keep where my keyboard use than carry around.
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One of the benefits of working from home is you can use whatever tf you want :)
I used to have my own office at work.
That was nice while it lasted. Then we relocated to new buildings and left th eold "designed in the 1940's" buildings behind, and suddenly none of the engineers had their own offices anymore :p
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I have TKL at home.
And a LZ-RV (fullsize but numpad on the left) at work.
I have no use for a numpad at home.
I unplug the keyboard every night and put it in my drawer, I don't want the cleaning lady to put any sort of products on it.
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I have TKL at home.
And a LZ-RV (fullsize but numpad on the left) at work.
I have no use for a numpad at home.
I unplug the keyboard every night and put it in my drawer, I don't want the cleaning lady to put any sort of products on it.
You guys must hvae fancier cleaning staff in France than we do here. We have cleaning staff, but all they do is empty trash and recycling and occasionally vacuum the floor, it seems. I've nver had them touch my desk. (I can tell by the dust :p )
I wipe it myself every few months when it gets bad.
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Regardless I don't want to let the board out.
Even at home my keyboard doesn't sit on the desk, it get put in a case.
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Dedicated TKL at work. No way would I be carrying a keyboard between work and home every day.
Some others have mechanical boards here. Usually run of the mill stuff with stock MX switches. Third party key cap sets are common. There are one or two much fancier/rarer boards.
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I take my FC660C with me to work. Sometimes on fridays I take it with me home but often I leave it there. Another board I've used at work is full size Realforce. I'm currently thinking of taking my Apple M0118 in there to see if I can get away with the little noise it generates.
How happy are you with the FC660C? I was on the verge of getting one last year, but decided to go with the FC750PD instead, due the 660 not being in stock at the time. I really wanna try topre switches, as they sound extremely pleasant. What caps do you use for it?
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Dedicated keyboard at work...
For a bit I was bringing in a HHKB but I didn't want to leave that and taking it back and forth sucked so I ended up just getting a Plum...pretty quiet...and less of a concern if it gets stolen.
Would also consider a Leopold with silent mx..
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I'm amazed at how many of you are concerned with theft at work
I could probably leave cash visible on my desk and leave for a week and come back and it would still all be there.
And I work in a large building with ~2000 employees!
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How happy are you with the FC660C? I was on the verge of getting one last year, but decided to go with the FC750PD instead, due the 660 not being in stock at the time. I really wanna try topre switches, as they sound extremely pleasant. What caps do you use for it?
I'm extremely pleased with it. It's one of my favourite boards and a great Topre experience.
I have the blue-gray color scheme stock caps on it and I don't feel a need to replace them.
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I have one board at home and another at work. I never thought bringing one back and forth would be worthwhile.
On a separate note, I've always wondered: what does everyone do here for a living? I feel like the majority of MK enthusiasts are probably programmers of some sort. Is that true? I'm a chemical engineer and just find them to be super appealing in both feel and aesthetics. I don't code at all, but I think it would be fun to learn for a hobby. I do use my keyboards very often at work and home as it is, though.
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I have one board at home and another at work. I never thought bringing one back and forth would be worthwhile.
On a separate note, I've always wondered: what does everyone do here for a living? I feel like the majority of MK enthusiasts are probably programmers of some sort. Is that true? I'm a chemical engineer and just find them to be super appealing in both feel and aesthetics. I don't code at all, but I think it would be fun to learn for a hobby. I do use my keyboards very often at work and home as it is, though.
Medical Device Development Engineer by day, Enterprise hardware IT geek (hobby) by night.
I think you are probably right. Likely a lot of software developers, followed by other engineering disciplines, and then a small minority of people in non-software or non-engineering fields, would be my guess.
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I have two here - one with MX greens for when I am in the office by myself, and one with MX clears which is backlit for when we work with the lights off.
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Just wondering what most people do regarding keyboards for work. Do you have a different board at work than at home? Do you have the same? Do you take your favorite keyboard into work with you everyday?
Colemak Planck at work because of rsi, but ****ty 5-degree incline Tada68 with mt3 /dev/tty at home because reasons.
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I swap them out regularly, but usually have at least two boards at work at any one time. Just flavor of the month. Rotating them out means I can take them home and clean them, as well as give them all lots of use since I use my keyboards much more at work than at home.
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BTW. Using blank keycaps at work means that they will be touched much less by your co-worker's greasy fingers. ;)
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I use a JD40 at work. I built it for space saving since my workstation was quite cramped. I just moved about 4 ft to the left and have a much bigger table that's also less crowded so I don't really NEED the space saving but I have grown fond of the lil board, even if it's not exactly efficient. Has some MOD L's (those are the linear ones right?) in em and a steel top and bottom plate so it's not too loud but does still lightly ping on bottom out. It was programmed to make using my key presses easily accessible.
That said, since it's made purely for work purposes and my previous environment it never leaves work. Also no one knows the function layers and I replaced the qwerty row with the numbers (so I know the shift characters under the numbers) so no one knows where anything is.
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I switch out either my keyset or my board every six months at work, which is also when I clean them.
Right now I have my Jane v1 with ePBT RU. No one commented on my Realforce keyboard; everyone comments on this current setup, but it's mostly out of curiosity. I love having a rotation as it means all my boards and sets get a good amount of use.
After all, what's the point in having all these keyboards and keysets if they're not being used?
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at home i use 60%, at work i use full size just because the nature of the job. I leave it there because taking it back and forth would be a giant pain in the butt.
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After all, what's the point in having all these keyboards and keysets if they're not being used?
+1
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I have one Canoe at work. Silent switches, no one complains. Comfy and looks nice.
At home I'm mostly gaming or just not messing around with the command line or programming languages, so I use the Alice when I'm home.
Sometimes I'll switch out a WKL or my other Canoe at work just to mix things up.
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Just wondering what most people do regarding keyboards for work. Do you have a different board at work than at home? Do you have the same? Do you take your favorite keyboard into work with you everyday?
Actually when it comes to work, and not games, i used a HP KU 0316 for my exams.Since i am more comfortable with clicky, mechanical switches i find that more high profile keys get me slower. Anything medium to low profile i like especially if it's mechanical.
PS: It wasn't fun typing on that rubber dome at all. In my past posts, you can clearly see why i don't like typing on that piece of dump.
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Worth keeping in mind, the new Macbook Pro keyboard is loud af, you can probably get away with some browns and be at the same volume.
I probably should keep the volume on par with or lower than wireless Logitech rubber domes, which is what everyone seems to have here.
Since graduating college I've worked in 9 different offices, some big, some small, but I have never seen a Mac in a work setting. Not even once.
I tend to think of them as home computers for people who like to spend 3 times more for half the performance :p
You're lucky. In Silicon Valley everyone is on the Apple bandwagon even though they cost more and fail more than enterprise grade Lenovos or Dells.
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I’m a software engineer and currently move a sol with box navies back and forth between work during the week and home on the weekend.
I built the board initially as a gag to be he most irritating possible, but I love it so much that now I just leave the lights off most of the time and just use it for everything.
I keep a coolermaster masterkeys pro m in my desk drawer in case I need another board. (Plus the crappy rubber dome the company gave me).
The split ortho layout means nobody wants to touch my board even with legends.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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I’m a software engineer and currently move a sol with box navies back and forth between work during the week and home on the weekend.
I built the board initially as a gag to be he most irritating possible, but I love it so much that now I just leave the lights off most of the time and just use it for everything.
I keep a coolermaster masterkeys pro m in my desk drawer in case I need another board. (Plus the crappy rubber dome the company gave me).
The split ortho layout means nobody wants to touch my board even with legends.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Since I've started using a Model F on my personal laptop I am curious how you like the Masterkeys Pro M. The layout intrigues me as I do use the crap out of both the numpad and the nav cluster, I've sort of kind of become used to using the nav layer of the numpad but the layout of the Pro M seems better to me. Thinking of getting one to replace my Filco for a little more desk space as a full size board takes up most of the KB tray of the standing desks we got at work earlier this year and it would allow for a little more mousing space. No other board I have would even fit; I was using a SGI Granite before and it's laughable in that space. (I couldn't use the F at work for noise reasons, and also I use the F-keys for AutoCAD and I'm not about to unlearn 30 years of muscle memory.)
So... Do you find the layout functional? Any issues with the board? And my biggest question, how durable are the keycaps? The only ones I've used that seem to hold up long term are PBT; I destroyed a set of Cherry ABS doubleshots in under a year. This is a concern on the Pro M as obviously aftermarket caps won't be printed for that unique (but really appealing) layout.
Thanks for any comments!
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It’s Christmas time, but I’m upgrading my setup
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I rarely use a mech at home, so my primary keyboard sits at my desk at work all the time, and at home I almost always just use my macbook pro as it's too awkward to connect an external board to it given my usage patterns.
Some guys at work transport their boards back and forth every day and I'd never do the same, for one, I'm too clumsy and would damage it in transit.
My wife uses a model F 122 at work and sits a couple of desks over from me, so however loud what I use is, it's very unlikely that I'd get complaints first.
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I love clicky switches, unfortunately. So i can't really bring my vintage mx blue or box white to work, I share my office with 4 others. So using a different keyboard to work is kind of a must. And i have found that using two different kb does not really matter much, at least to me.
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I just a wireless VM01WS with Brown style switches at work, coincidentally I also do not give a **** about my co-workers. :cool:
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I have my own office so I can bring my keyboards to work and they’re safe. I rotate mine every few months. Right now I’m using a Jer Mini with ePBT 9009 and ink switches so it’s relatively quiet and good for an office environment. I’m having a hard time landing on something to rotate in since I love the Jer so much.
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My current job has me in an open semi-cubicle area with others, so when I brought my Unicomp M in, it was a mix of people enjoying it and outright hating it. Eventually I was asked to leave it at home, and switched back to a Rubber Dome.
However I do have the option soon of getting a dedicated Office, so I plan on bringing it back then. Otherwise I may buy a Cherry Silent black or Red to make up for the blah keyfeel on my rubber dome at work.
But if I had all the power, and everyone had to just like groove on my mad typing noises, I'd bring a blue or buckling springs board in and leave it. (I'd rather have happy co-workers though.)