It's all about Control, Baby

Besides the Display, controlling a NetWear device is also a hurdle to it's widespread incorporation into our daily lives. As the mouse, along with it's graphical operating system, helped spread the appeal of the Personal Computer, so to will NetWear devices need a revolutionary control scheme.

I believe that the best method is some sort of "thought control", but that is many years down the line.

As I don't quite live in the future yet (unfortunately), I looked at the relatively inexpensive options available to me to use today.

Chorded Keyboards (wiki) take practice that most people won't want to invest in. Voice Control is inaccurate and cumbersome when controlling all the tasks of a computer.

With my device, I was originally going to use a Frogpad. It seemed compact and portable enough, and even though I knew there was a steep learning curve, I had resigned myself to it.

That was until I discovered this little gem- The Half Keyboard from Madias. It seems to fit my needs perfectly, and since I'm already a touch typist, I believe it will be much easier to learn than with the Frogpad.

For Pointing and clicking, I eventually want some sort of "Air Mouse" with the keyboard built in along the handle. Perhaps at some point I can modify the Half Keyboard into a custom unit. But in the meantime, I've decided on a basic Trackpad, the same technology built into most laptops.

I will mount the two on a small cradle that will hang on the front of my left thigh, allowing me to control the computer while sitting and standing.

Even though I mentioned Voice Control above as being innefficent as the sole control mechanism of the NetWear device, I will still connect a microphone so that small tasks can be controlled by voice. Notably, launching applications and perhaps some speech-to-text operations.

I'm told that Voice Recog on Linux isn't quite up to the same level as a Windows computer, buy I am currently researching this.