That being said, I recently acquired Apple’s latest keyboard for personal use. It’s slim, silver, with 2 high-speed USB ports and white keys. The keyboard also has built-in buttons for some of Mac OSX’s most common and used features and software (Dashboard, iTunes, Volume up/down, etc.). Although I used the keyboard for a few hours using a Mac, I’m primarily using it at home on my IBM laptop running Windows XP. I was thinking of getting the wireless bluetooth version of the keyboard but after some research on the net, the compatibility with Windows didn’t seem to be quite there. Officially, this keyboard does not support Windows at all. Unofficially, the full version of the keyboard works just fine with it.

My experience in plugging it in was seamless; I simply connected the keyboard’s USB to my laptop and then, I did nothing. A few seconds later, the keyboard was detected and ready for use. I then ventured into plugging a wireless mouse into the left USB port of the keyboard and that also worked immediately! I was very happy by then. Though most of the keys were being recognized, including all the letters and numbers, some useful keys were not; such as the function keys, some number pad keys, etc. In order to fix this, I downloaded a neat little program called SharpKeys which allowed me to easily re-map the keys to functions that were already built into my system by other keyboard drivers.

All in all, this is a nice keyboard. My old keyboard, a Wireless Microsoft Mouse+Keyboard set, still works fine and I have nothing to complain about it; except for its bulkiness. This new Apple Keyboard is a welcome change mostly due to its size and layout.

Conclusion:

• Positive : The size, the faster and nicer typing, the quick acces keys
• Negative : I’m worried that they white keys will not stay “white” for more than a year.

So… when can we expect a new mouse?   

Although I know the Middle East region quite well, I had never been to Qatar. I was precisely located in Doha, the capital. This place is quite interesting and amazing in what it has been able and is still in the process of accomplishing. Most impressive. Here’s a breif break-down of the trip. I might take several days to get through this.

The flight from Paris takes about 6 and a half hours. When landing, all I could see was lots and lots of sand. In fact, there was a small sand storm when I landed so this impression was even more dramatic. Once out of the airport, traffic became an issue. Like many of these countries, they did not think very far ahead when they built their roads. As a result, a few years later, when the traffic quantity has increased dramatically, traffic is constant. It takes way too long to cover short distances. That being said, the first drive was not that bad.

I was able to drive along the “Corniche” area of Doha which is a beach strip that has been recently revamped and embellished. This beach strip is absolutely breath-taking. On the other side, we can see other buildings such as the Sheraton Hotel, Four Seasons, or Movenpick tower. At the end of the beach strip is the trendy area which is stil under construction. The amount of sky scrapers under construction here is amazing. It reminded me of how Dubai was about 8 years ago. Building after building after building…

Interesting fact - China and Qatar alone used up ALL of the world’s supply of steel in 2006. This scarcity has caused all of the construction in the city to halt and be delayed for at least 10 months.

I will continue this some other time… in the meantime, some pictures are available in the Travel Log of http://gallery.nickology.com/