Playing (IT Pro) Games
By Simon Bisson & Mary Branscombe in Editorial
Posted in Toys & gadgets, Hardware, USB on
Gamers seem to get it all.
Everywhere you went at CES this year, there were tools and toys for gamers.
They have the fastest, most powerful, best looking machines. Dell’s latest XPS Studio monster has all the looks of a classic US muscle car, while HP’s Firebird takes the F1R3FLY concept laptop and turns it into a sleek and powerful desktop PC. Then there are Logitech’s latest gaming keyboards, with a mass of programmable keys and tunable colours - as well as colour mini-displays.
It’s those programmable keys that make the G19 an ideal keyboard for an IT pro. There’s no reason why a gaming macro can’t actually be a stored snippet of PowerShell, or a set of keystrokes to quickly open up and log in to a remote desktop. There are twelve of what Logitech calls G-keys, and these can have three seperate macros attached to each key - so you can use them to store up to 36 different single keypresses or complex macros. There’s also a key to record new macros on-the-fly. Even the keyboard colour coding can be used to tell you if you’re writing code or managing systems.
If you’re happy with your existing keyboard (and I wouldn’t drop my ergonomic Wave for anything) you can still take advantage of macro keys using a gamer’s gameboard like the G13.
Gameboards are today’s take on the old plug-in numeric keypads. Like the G19 there are plenty of programmable keys, and a simple LCD display - as well as a thumb joystick. What might have been the key to a World of Warcraft session is also an ideal tool for someone working with Photoshop or a video editing application. You can take a tool like this and map in the key strokes and manipulations needed to quickly edit a podcast, or debug some code - or just scroll through and search your log files.
It’s easy to see just how gamer tools can be used by the IT pro. They can speed up tedious tasks, and can store commands you use often. The tricky bit is getting your boss to approve the purchase (and making sure you don’t use yours to thrash him in the office Unreal Tournament on a Friday night…).
–Simon
From CES 09 in Las Vegas
Rated: 20% (1 votes)
Loading ...Comment by - January 13, 2009 on 9:30 am
I can’t wait for my G13. I’ve always wanted to have a gaming mouse/keyboard to help improve my arena/battleground pvp. I didn’t know you could also use it for graphic design.
Great tips!
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