Rubbing the lamp: find me a keyboard!

I'm very happy with my Logitech DiNovo Edge keyboard, but due to security policy changes at my workplace, I'm no longer allowed to use a Bluetooth keyboard (or Bluetooth at all) in the office. So, I need to find a suitable wired replacement.

Googling for Mac-compatible USB keyboards with integrated touchpads leads me to a bunch of keyboards that are either (a) discontinued (b) sucky or (c) explicitly not Mac-compatible, or (d) not explicitly Mac-compatible. My ideal situation is to find something as close to the DiNovo Edge as possible except with a USB interface rather than Bluetooth.

Anyone seen anything remotely close to this in their travels?

Define sucky for us. I know you dislike Cirque GlidePoint touchpads. Anything else non-obvious?

Cherry makes good keyboards (or at least good keyswitches), and they have a model with a trackpad. Yeah, it's got all those extra keys, but you can probably do something with them, and you can get it without the magstripe reader.

Alternately, you could geta good keyboard and an external touchpad. Again, I know you hate the GlidePoints, so here are some (probably) non-GlidePoint options:

• Bamboo Touch
• USB Multitouch Smartpad

So RF is out too? I can't see how that would be much of a security risk. Besides, I GREATLY prefer RF to bluetooth anyway. I despise bluetooth mice and keyborads. My wife has a set, and one or the other will randomly become unpaired from the computer, and I'll tell you, reconnecting the keyboard with the mouse is a lot easier than the other way around. It had reached the point where I kept a cheap USB mouse around just for this reason, until a couple weeks ago the mouse refused to connect completely, and the cheap mouse stays plugged in all the time. [and yes, the batteries were new]

All in all, I really hate bluetooth as a technology. I'd say I've had [or dealt with] about 25 devices (cell phones, keyboard/mice, headsets, car adapters, cars themselves), and not once have I had a pairing that was rock solid 100% of the time.

My Logitech MX-1000 mouse, however, has been in constant use for at least three years now, and not one single time has it become disconnected from the computer. It gives me that 100% reliability. Sadly, Logitech discontinued it and IMO there is no direct replacement for it, so I plan on buying up a couple replacements just to have on hand.

***RANT OVER***

My apologies, I just had to get that off my chest. All of that said, I found this. Would you be able to explain the difference between an RF keyboard and a bluetooth keyboard at work?

What you're really complaining about is Windows' implementation of Bluetooth. It's 100% rock solid on both of my Macs.

Well, partly, I admit, but as you'll also note, I was complaining about bluetooth in devices that have nothing at all to do with Windows, so no, that's not what I'm complaining about in general.

I've had only experienced sub-par reliability with all bluetooth pairings. I've had good experiences with it too, where it'll work for a month or so, and then just choose a moment to flake out and stop connecting.

But still, I just wanted to point out that the decision didn't necessarily have to be between bluetooth and wired.

While they can set a policy banning Bluetooth, I doubt they can even tell that an rf keyboard is connected. edit: Unless they do a physical audit.

For that matter, while the Dinovo is a labeled as bluetooth device, it sets up when power gets to the usb dongle, so you can use it to trigger the bios setup. Most systems tend to see it same as a wired device.

The Adesso AKB-440 looks nice. The press release claims it's Mac-compatible, though I can't find anything else on their site that does.

My apologies, I thought I'd seen Mac support on one of the pages that led me to that keyboard, but I guess it was for something else...

I'll continue to offer some wireless options, though:

Adesso
DSI

Admittedly, neither of those look great...

RF is no good, and neither is a USB->Bluetooth dongle -- it needs to be completely wired. This isn't just a draconian IT policy that can be skirted, and a physical audit is pretty much guaranteed in a few weeks.

I just posted on Macrumors asking about the Adesso AKB-440; I'll see what they say.

The Bamboo Touch combined with a regular old keyboard is probably an acceptable Plan B if nothing else works out.

If you do fall back to a separate touchpad, I really like the borderlessness of the Ergonomic Touchpad. They have clips to mount them directly to keyboards, though that's going to obscure keys in most cases. Maybe you could get a separate numpad? Or, actually, since you're currently using the DiNovo, you're not currently using a numpad at all. It's a GlidePoint, though, and no multitouch like the Bamboo has.

Well...that's just dumb. Isn't it?

Depends on what you're working on. Wireless keyboards aren't likely to have the best encryption, and even with the best encryption, key presses can be predicted surprisingly well from the timing alone.

On top of that, wireless keyboards are a support nightmare. While you or I would never call the helpdesk because our keyboard batteries were low, you can't say the same thing for the rest of the staff in most offices.

That "ergonomic touchpad" would fit very nicely on the blank spot in the middle of a Kinesis "Countoured" keyboard.

I love my Kinesis Contour. I had an old PS/2 model since around 1999 or so that I finally upgraded to a new USB model earlier this year. Well worth the money as far as I'm concerned.

Would an IR connected keboard be ok.

Google

It is also horrific when you have multiple people in an office with wireless keyboards/mice.

We successfully snoop all sorts of traffic from the banks that have been stupid enough to put in bluetooth or RF keyboards. The encryption is laughable on all implementations I have seen.

That said - I would rate the bigger risk in most environments as unintentional denial of service due to interference.

as ever ymmv