I’ve often found myself writing about problems or ideas when I need to make a decision, or think I might be making the wrong decision. I’ve been looking at the Logitech G25 racing wheel for a couple of years now… I distinctly remember when it came out… finally a racing wheel with a 6 speed shifter now THAT is appealing. I know that a lot of people in the racing simulation genre love the sequential shifter because it more closely emulates what is in the cars… That is all fine and dandy, but nothing quite comes close to the feel of a 6 speed H pattern shifter. It makes me feel more like I’m doing something worthwhile as I drive, not just slapping a stick. I’m actually glad I never got the G25 since I’ve heard the shifter is sort of a limp noodle to play with, the G27 is a little firmer which is nice, if nothing else it is a good platform to start from.

Why do I say start from? Well at some point I really want to build a full on racing simulation box/chair I’ve got it planned out pretty well… and when I get bored with the G27 or wear out the shifter I have been considering taking it apart and using the electronics of it and building another shifter box with an actual short throw shifter, pneumatic shifter release (so that it only releases the stick when the clutch pedal is fully depressed), and even a hand brake mounted beside the seat.

My problem with all of this is the question “Do I really want to spend SOOO much money on the G27 just for a six speed shifter especially when I plan on building one myself later on?” So this is where my current conundrum is… I’d like to be able to play some racing simulation games with force feedback… but at what cost? I also definitely want to build my own gaming rig… not just for racing, the seat shakers I plan to mount at the feet and seat would be fun for any game, along with an adjustable bucket seat and roll cage design. I have a trick for how to build it too! Since I don’t know how to weld with metal I was going to build it out of PVC pipe and use a PVC welder to construct most of it.

I don’t want to give up the comfort of my new Logitech Wave Ergonomic Keyboard… but I definitely don’t want to go without macro’s either.В  Like the other night I reconfigured the server and was trying to set up each site with an automatic backup… that didn’t work out so well since I have to go into each site and put in the FTP information and everything… It’s a pain in my rear-end.В  It’s not so bad with macro’s so that I have the FTP server IP, username, and password in a macro… doing it by hand with either copy and paste, or typing it out… yeah, no fun.

I believe it’s a software issue, luckily I was able to use the macro’s on my Logitech G9 mouse to do the work on that, but it’s annoying when I want to record something on the fly, or have something quick to use!В  Or when I need lots of options the mouse macro’s just fail unfortunately.

Wave Keyboard from Logitech

Now that I’ve had my Logitech Wave Keyboard for a few weeks now I can more accurately asses my feelings for it. For those of you who are lazy bums and don’t like reading, be satisfied with the conclusion in the first paragraph and know that: I love it! Seriously never had a keyboard so comfortable in my life. It took me a week or two to get used to the number keys as I believe they have the biggest curvature to them. I would also often hit “caps lock” instead of “shift” while playing CoH for some reason. Just the reach reaction for me naturally went to the caps lock key… I’ve kind of gotten over that and become more adapt to the layout of the keyboard though.

Logitech Wave Keyboard

I honestly didn’t notice much of a comfort difference with the Logitech Wave Keyboard for a while though. It was just an ordinary keyboard. Until one day when I really started using it how it was made to be. I got back into coding for ApplyMyWay.com and blogging for money. I got home from Quintiles Wednesday wrote two entries that night, 14 entries Thursday, and 18 on Friday. All over 200 words, all unique, and no pain in my hands or wrist. You can also read about a little speed increase I’ve noticed in the original review I did of the keyboard when I first got it.

I have yet to test the keyboard out in game still… but will get that back to you soon.В  I’ll be playing at least a couple rounds of CoH here shortly with Credal to test it out with that… even though keyboard use is limited in that game I do use a lot of shortcuts so we’ll see how it is for me getting used to the quick plant finger association of this board.В  That is one thing that I’ve noticed does take me a little while to figure out.В  I love the shape of the keyboard when I’m just typing, but when I have to remove my hands from the board and find the keys blindly it’s a little bit slower than with a usual keyboard, which I’m sure will be faster with time.В  I also very much so dislike the smaller room between the alpha numerical keyset and the number pad.В  It gives less room for the arrow keys, and the delete, home, end, page up, and page down keys… it’ll take some getting used to since I actually used to use the delete, arrow keys, home, and end keys very often.

Wave Keyboard from Logitech

The Wave Keyboard from Logitech promises to fix that.В  The wave is the first ergonomic keyboard to have lowered keys that are struck with the middle and ring fingers.В  This design from the wave ergonomic keyboard helps to relieve stress that is presented with the forced straightening of your fingers.В  Some of Microsofts ergonomic keyboards do this as well, however they tend to do so because of an extreme angle of the keys… I find this angle to be too drastic and puts stress in other areas.В  I like a keyboard with a slight angle and never really thought about it, but there is still stress being put on your fingers when they’re forced to be flat which is why I like the design of the Logitech Wave Keyboard.

Logitech Wave Keyboard

I guess that is why I’ve always liked a little bit of both the extreme angled keyboards from Microsoft that help to relieve the flat finger stress, and the slight angled ergonomic keyboards from Microsoft that help the wrist pain.В  I generally go for the light angle ergonomic keyboards, but now I no longer have to choose between the two I will have the best of both worlds.

This is great news for someone like myself who types about 100,000 keystrokes per day.В  I’ve already killed off my Logitech G15 keyboard and it’s not even that old.В  So it’s about time that it gets replaced, and this time not for gaming, but for comfort.В  I would gladly get a DAS Keyboard, but even if the DAS does last longer I can get three Wave’s for the same price and be back at the same level of longitude as far as keyboard lasting time period.В  I also don’t yet have the keyboard so I will tell you all how it goes… might make First Person Shooter gaming a little awkward, but we’ll see here soon enough.

At this point I’d usually show it off and show you guys how the images look with it and everything… uh… just take my advice that it’s good!В  Really good… Maybe later I’ll post a video from it, and some pictures, but right now I just don’t want to put anything more than my boxers on (Yeah, the problem with working from home is that I get the luxury of sitting around in my boxers all day long and I really like it, hate to get dressed for anything).

After doing a lot of research I decided to finally switch over to the Logitech G9, it’s not the fastest mouse on the market at 3600 DPI but that’s okay as I really don’t even hardly feel the difference between the old 2000 DPI to the new 3600 DPI (which isn’t exactly true either since I do suck at Counter-Strike: Source at the moment).В  I must attribute that to the high resolution of my monitor (1680×1050) I mean the height of my monitor is the pixel width of your average width of a monitor.В  None-the-less I am still very pleased with the purchase.В  I love a lot of the redesign features of the G9.В  The interchangable grips are nice, not only does it allow me to change grips several times per day and get my hand used to different shapes so it doesn’t hurt as much, it’s also lower so I don’t really end up with the problems I used to.В  The scroll wheel is worth mention in itself.В  I love the ungeared option so that web pages can be scrolled up/down instantly, and the geared option is great for in game, it gives a precise, quick click that lets you switch weapons fast, and accurately.В  Stored profiles is a dream!В  I have one for every day use where I can go back and forth on webpages, then I’ve got my Photoshop settings where I’ve got undo and redo programed in for the back and forward web browser buttons, and of course gaming profiles for my favorite games… truly if you’re a gamer the G9 is not one to pass up on!