CBS has a piece where they argue that hand writing is dead, but some disagree. I personally still have a paper notebook where I jot down ideas and perform creative drawings of user interfaces or sketches of product ideas but obviously when ideas are clear, the work is then performed on the keyboard. How about you? Do you still use a pen? What for?

Also check the video at 6’11 where the Das Keyboard Ultimate is presented with a hero perspective. Pretty cool.

Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development is now available on Amazon

One year and a half ago, I was looking for looking for a typing application we could use for our typing championship. There were few that I like and I approached their authors to try to buy them. Unfortunately their asking price was too high and we could not afford any. So I decided to develop my own: Typrx – Typing Races. I had to choose a highly scalable platform that minise - Google App Engine – which is the only platform that scales automatically in real time based on user load. Furthermore, I wanted to have a non-flash UI, so I selected Google Web Toolkit (GWT) which generates smooth Ajax UI based on Java code (crooked I know but so awesome: you work in Eclipse with all the Java debuging tools).

Making a real-time online multi-player typing game is not trivial to say the least. I was able to fight network and App Engine latency with some tricky time synchronizations. Other challenges were undertaken: datastore concurrent updates, large scale schema changes, overall UI responsiveness and so on and so on.

The result was awesome. Multi-player typing races are smooth. The typing championship when well and Sean Wrona won the crown. Little known fact: Sean did an unrecorded practice race topping 213 wpm with 100% accuracy. This is unreal.

Using GWT with App Engine has a steep learning curve even for experienced programmers. At that time, I wish there had been a book that would have explained how to build scalable apps like this. There was none. I had to discover all best practices by Googling, asking forums, and creating some myself after bumping into problems. I acquired valuable experience. I thought I could write that missing book. I contacted Amy, a friend and software wizard (after all she is a Stanford Computer Science Ph.D) and she came on board as a co-author. Packt publishing trusted us as first time writers and sent us a contract. And voila – we were on our way to spend depressing nights and weekends over the blank pages of a book that was not going to write itself alone…
After a year of hard labor it finally came out (post). Today, our book Google App Engine Java and GWT Application Development is now available on Amazon.

(Cross-posted article from Daniel Guermeur’s blog)

The Das Keyboard team wishes all of our customers peace, prosperity and happy typing in 2011. We are grateful to have such a vibrant community.

And remember to add typing practices to your resolution list..

Buy for 2 (or more) Das Keyboard Professional Clicky or Silent and get 20% off with this coupon: DKBF2010.

Promotion ends on 11/29/10 11:00 AM.

Orders placed after 3pm (CST) from November 24 – November 28 will ship on Monday, November 29. Thank you for your interest in Das Keyboard, and we hope you have a happy and safe Thanksgiving!

When looking at old typewriters, you’ll notice the key for number one is missing.

It’s not because someone took it out or because it broke. Here is another one:

So did you find out why the one key is missing?

Here is the answer: the number one key was not implemented by design. Instead, the L key – l – in lowercase, was used in its lowercase form as a letter or a number, because a  lowercase l looks like a one. That allowed manufacturers to save some space in the overcrowded area where hammers were located.