Ross Burtonhttp://www.burtonini.com/blogA potted account of Ross' lifeen60Ross BurtonPosturelife/desk-2005-10-27-20-00http://www.burtonini.com/blog/life/desk-2005-10-27-20-00Recently I've started to suffer from using a laptop as my primary work machine, namely stiff neck, sore back, etc. ... Recently I've started to suffer from using a laptop as my primary work machine, namely stiff neck, sore back, etc. So I went shopping and purchased a PS/2 to USB cable, and an iCurve. I did toy with other laptop stands but they were either expensive, or incredibly ugly (think huge sheets of grey steel). The iCurve on the other hand is invisible...

My Desk

Here my unsed desktop's mouse and keyboard are plugged into the USB dongle, which through the magic of the kernel 2.6 input layer Just Works without any action at all.

When I want to use the desktop -- a monthly event generally -- I can just whip the USB adaptor from the laptop and plug it into the desktop. Then I can watch Windows XP fail miserably to handle hardware changing between reboots. It appears that although Windows managed to handle the keyboard moving from PS/2 to USB, it refused to acknowledge that the mouse wasn't plugged into the PS/2 port still.. I had to figure out the keyboard navigation for the login screen and then remove/insert the mouse again. Not a great pain, but I bet that will catch out some normal users.

Anyway, the iCurve totally rocks and is a great example of design via simplicity: it's just a curved piece of plastic but the laptop sits firmly on it. I recommend it to everyone who uses a laptop all day.

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