I am one of the fortunate few on this planet whose mother tongue is in use on the default keyboard layouts I encounter. What a great time to speak English, eh?

What drives me nuts (and I don't blame Microsoft for this) is the wholesale change in notebook keyboard layouts that have emerged over the course of 2008. Am I the only person who is peeved at the introduction and almost ubiquitous use of a new larger 'Enter' key? This new backward L shaped key has caused the removal of the backslash key to places unknown. It isn't like this is the key to the left of 1 in the QWERTY layout (is its shifted character called 'tildie'?) The backslash key is RATHER IMPORTANT and used on a regular basis by anyone who needs to type a directory path or a command line switch that requires the 'pipe' character (the shifted value of that on my keyboard).

Like I said, I don't blame Microsoft for this, and perhaps that is the problem; I don't know WHO to blame or complain to. This keyboard change is spanning manufacturers; Acer, Gateway, HP, Toshiba, Compaq, Sony and probably a few others all have new models showing up with this awful design!

I guess forming some sort of Facebook group might be good therapy, or perhaps some sort of pathetic and time consuming letter writing effort to each of the companies might make a dint in my self-perception of 'making a difference' but I highly doubt that it will really cause them to go back to the 'good old days'.

The real question is; why did this change? I don't recall seeing any groundswell or clarion call for this change to keyboard design to be made. I wonder if the person or committee that decided to screw with millions of keyboards took in to consideration the impact of this change. I realize that most notebook keyboards don't keep to much of a standard when it comes to arrow and Home, Page Up, End, Page Down and F-key locations and sizes, but the backslash key is one of those key locations that I use as a touch-type key. I don't (and shouldn't) have to stop and look at my fingers to figure out where the backslash key is, rather I spend my time typing! I know that when I am confronted with this new dumb layout I will be hitting the enter key when I want the backslash key and my productivity will plummet as I swap between machines with this modified keyboard layout and the other, more accepted standard keyboard layouts.

My only hope is that this design change is short lived and that we will once again begin to see new notebook models with the traditional rectangular Enter key with the backslash where it belongs; above the Enter key, and not somewhere else.