Maybe the end of email overload: Gmail Priority Inbox

Google is about to release a feature that I am looking forward to: Gmail Priority Inbox. It is supposed to make important emails more visible in our overloaded inbox.

A few years ago we had lots of spam: the spam filter was born and saved us from insanity. Nowadays, email overload is the problem and hopefully Gmail Priority Inbox will help.

How does it work? It compares incoming emails to similar older ones and increases an ”interest” value based on the number of reads and replies. The highest ranking emails will wear a visual cue to make them stand out. There is probably a lot of Bayesian statistical computation going on as there is in spam filters, but I am just guessing here.

Back to School Promotion

You can feel a renewed energy in the air with school just getting started, and we thought that it would be fun to get in the swing of things with a promotion; hence, Das Keyboard’s “Back to School Promotion.”

Receive a 24% discount plus free shipping on all models (ground only – US residents only).

Please note that the Model S Professional keyboard can now be ordered and will be shipped on September 20th. All other keyboard models are available to ship immediately.

Hurry the promotion ends on August 31 2010!

Click here to take advantage of the sale.

CNET to the Rescue: podcast reviews the daskeyboard

In the last blog post I mentioned that the weekly “CNET to the Rescue” podcast was going to review the daskeyboard.

Without further ado – you can now view Rafe and Josh talk keyboards.

Also, you won’t have to wait long to hear what they have to say regarding the daskeyboard – the daskeyboard discussion begins at about the 2 minute and 45 second point.

Enjoy……

CNET reviews the daskeyboard

I want to share a few excellent articles recently written by CNET regarding the daskeyboard. The following is one of my favorite quotes from the editor when describing the “Ultimate”…

“….the Model S Ultimate is a truly satisfying experience for the typing connoisseur. Each key cap is perfectly concave to fit a variety of fingers, and just resting your hands on the keys feels like the cozy embrace of a plush La-Z-Boy.”

Here are the links to read the CNET Model S reviews:

Model S keyboards will drive your neighbors click, clack crazy

Das Keyboard Model S Professional

Das Keyboard Model S Ultimate

Stay tuned for the “CNET to the Rescue” podcast focused on keyboards. I hear that the daskeyboard will be mentioned.

Blazing a trail with the “Ultimate” daskeyboard

Well, I Just started with Metadot (daskeyboard) and wanted to share my continuing saga using the Das Keyboard.  To be blunt, my typing skills are dismal – I thought that I could type with a little speed, but in reality the mistakes that I make slow me down considerably. Interestingly, I always thought that I should be a good typist, having played classical piano for many years.

My Quest?

To learn to type the right way and achieve 60 words per minute. Actually, the bigger goal is to beat Daniel in a race – http://app.typrx.com/#. This won’t be easy to achieve before the end of August but it should be fun to try.

The Tools:

To achieve these lofty goals, I will be using the Ultimate daskeyboard (self described as “Bad ass”) and a Mavis Beacon typing DVD.

The Baseline:

Since I never learned to type, I am starting at the bottom – reflected in my first score on the typing race. I completed the race with my fingers in the proper typing position.I also used the daskeyboard (blank keys).

I did score 23 wpm with my laptop banging away without proper finger positions.

My odyssey is just beginning and I look forward to sharing my lows as well as my triumphs for your reading pleasure.

See you soon

Dre

iPad Contest Winner Named

Thanks to everyone who entered our contest to win an iPad. We enjoyed reading about your experience using Das Keyboard, how it has improved your typing and speed, and how many of you simply enjoy typing on it for the tactile feedback and “click.”

Our very scientific approach to selecting a winner was to drop everyone’s name in a trash can (unused!) and blindly select a name with an impartial witness to make sure the process was legit. (The use of a trash can is simply because no one in the office had a hat. It does not reflect our opinion of the contestants, because we love our fans!)

And now for the big reveal. The winner is…Bob Tregilus!

Here is what he said (among other things) about Das Keyboard:

“Hi Das Keyboard -

I love the positive feedback from each keystroke on my Das Keyboard -
it’s tactile typing on my Linux box at it’s best! Just like shutting the door of a Rolls Royce, that solid and firm response cuts down on this old mechanic’s flat-fingered typing mistakes.

Thanks for a top-of-line and easy to clean product!”

Congratulations to Bob, and thanks again to everyone who entered. Many t-shirts are underway. We hope you continue to enjoy your Das Keyboard experience. Happy typing!

Website and Store: New & Improved

We are happy to launch our revamped website for Das Keyboard along with its new store. The
look and feel is refreshed, more engaging and the site overall is more informative. Access to tech support is easier due to a seamless integration with our helpdesk service. The store is based on the Amazon Seller Central service for a safe, secure and reliable buying experience while Montastic monitors our website and emails us in case its down.

It took us longer than expected to nail the technical details but, thanks to the Amazon Seller Central team for they help, we are now ready.

The iPad contest – for our customers only – was supposed to start with the launch of our new website and store. So here we are. We pushed its end to May 31.

We’ll hope you’ll enjoy our new web experience.

Mod: Change your Fn key to a Win key

The General posted an article on geekhack on how to mod Das Keyboard with one Fn key and one Win key to become a 2-win key, getting rid of the Fn key altogether. It is pretty straight forward. Thanks to Colin  R. for sending us the pointer.

Das Keyboard Customer Only: Enter A Contest to Win an iPad

UPDATE: You now have till May 31 to send us your story (*). Our new store is not ready so you’ve got more time!

As we are preparing to launch our revamped website, we are looking for customer testimonials that will make an impact on our site visitors. If you blog or Facebook about your Das Keyboard experience, send us a link to iwantgoodies@daskeyboard.com along with a picture of you (just your pretty face is enough).

Choose a topic of your choice, productivity, speed improvement, comfort, typing enjoyment, mojo increase or anything you noticed changing while using Das Keyboard. If your testimonial is great we’ll post it on our website or blog. If it gets posted, you get a t-shirt.

How to get an iPad?

There will be a draw for all t-shirt winners on May 10th 23rd 26th(*). All t-shirt winners will automatically enter the iPad draw.

Results and updates will be announced on this blog.

Good luck.

(*) We postponed the end of the contest due to technical issue that delayed the launch of our new site and store.

Lance Desktop Picture

From time to time we get pictures from Das Keyboard users showing their desktop setup. Here is one we really like from Lance Hassan. Checkout the recursive background picture.

Also notable: the keyboard is the venerable first generation Das Keyboard that sports weighted keys we launched 5 years ago.