Dell Mini9 Keyboard Rearrangement Mod Thread

Preamble
So as you all know, the keyboard layout on the Mini9 from the factory sucks to the point that it's near impossible to type properly on it.

However with a couple of tweaks I've made, I can type at my full 120wpm without having to hunt and peck at the "special" keys that were placed in very odd places originally.

The New Setup:

Swapping the Keys Functionally via Software
1)You'll notice that the "-" key was swapped to where the "Delete" key was. I don't know about you, but I use hyphens and underscores a LOT in day to day typing, and I'm accustomed to it being placed next to the 0 key. This is my favorite swap by far, as it now allows me to use hyphens at full speed.

2)Next, the apostrophe ("'") key has gone to where the "=" key was. On the standard keyboard, the apostrophe is next to the semicolon. Because the "Enter" key is in the way however, our next best choice is to place it so that the pinky will naturally find it without the risk of fat-fingering another key. This works extremely well for me and it's getting to the point where 80% of the time I hit the apostrophe properly instead of forgetting and hitting the "Enter" key. Definitely better than the original spot next to the "Left Arrow" key!

3)Following up, the "=" key has been moved to where the "-" key used to be. I find it natural to have the "=" key to the left of the apostrophe, as I don't know about you, but I'm used to hitting the "=" with my third finger. This was important for me because I use "+" (shift-"=") very often in my day to day typing.

4)Finally, the "Delete" key has been moved to the useless out-of-the-way spot where the apostrophe ("'") key used to be, way down next to the "Left Arrow" key. While I use the "Delete" key often in my work, it most certainly isn't while I'm typing, but rather for editing documents, excel sheets, or manipulating objects in Windows.

The key swaps were done using software called SharpKeys, which (reversible at any time, should you so choose) remaps the keys in Windows through a very easy to use, intuitive interface.

Swapping the Keys Physically
So now that the keys have been remapped, the next step is to swap the keys physically. What I did was remove the key covers on the keys I changed (they snap off on the side closest to you, and slide off towards you once that first part is snapped off. be super careful! if anyone wants, i'll try to elaborate in a subsequent post), and put them back in the location I wanted them to go.

The exceptions were the "Delete" and "-" keys. Since the keys are actually physically different sizes, I found that it was impossible to switch them over. Hopefully someone will have a suggestion for what to do about it, but if no one does, I'll print out and apply stickers that'll closely match.

Conclusion
All in all, this mod was very worth my 20 minutes spent. As I mentioned before, I can now type at my full 120wpm, and am almost as comfortable typing on this keyboard now as I am on my full keyboard. The only thing now is I keep fat-fingering the numbers with the top row of the keyboard in my haste, but I'm sure as time passes I'll learn to adapt to that too.

Any questions, or comments, recommendations for further revisions? And I'm curious: what are your guys' setups if you'd had the same idea and done your own keyboard mod?

RabidRat Notebook Enthusiast

MrNYC Notebook Geek