Larry,
I absolutely concur with you! I do not have a keyboard attached to my
dock though I do have a mouse that is used rarely when extreme accuracy is
required. I use the 'eraser' 99% of the time and the laptop keyboard 100%.
Get used to it and keep your hands where they belong!
I use an external wireless keyboard instead of the laptop keyboard because I
like:
- the position / placement of the cursor, home/end, page, etc keys better
- about a dozen user configurable buttons for launching / switching tasks
(these let me switch focus immediately to specific things with little
hand movement
and without the need to use Alt+Tab or click in some window or taskbar
icon)
- the numeric keypad
- media control keys (volume, mute, yada, yada)
- wireless keyboard is easier to move around the desk, etc
- keyboard has a titling scroll wheel with back /fwd buttons which
partially
make up for the loss of the trackpoint
It also lets me position the docking station out of the way, with the lid
closed. I do agree about the trackpoint though. When using the laptop
keyboard, I typically disable my thinkpad's touch pad and just use the
trackpoint.
I too am amazed that people don't use both the desktop and laptop
screens as nearly every laptop will do so these days.
I don't, but that's because I let the docking station drive two monitors,
both bigger than the laptop screen. Next to those two monitors are dual
flat panels from my tower, which acts as a server, one of my backup
locations, and as a host for maxivista. I devote one of the monitors to a
third 20" monitor for my laptop (thanks to maxivista), and the other
typically just has a bunch of status windows, sidebar and gadgets, etc. All
four of the LCDs use VESA mounts so they are suspended above my desk, and
between them I have 7,454,720 pixels available viewing area. One keyboard
and mouse can service them all.
Desktop area is like memory or speed -- you can never have too much.
midrange.com
