Ask Paul: November 3 (Premium)

Happy Friday! We've survived Día de Muertos here in Mexico City, so I can take a crack at some great reader questions and kick off the weekend.
Laptop keyboards
Markld asks:

Recently it became apparent that I cannot type well on my laptop vs my cheapie desktop keyboard. This also applies to no matter what laptop I have recently came across. I tried lots of laptops at Microcenter and I was 'all thumbs'. My typing is OK on a desktop keyboard, I am slow to moderate in speed, but without too many mistakes, I can hit the symbol/# keys pretty well without looking. I found out the hard way that my laptop is no fun when I have to type on it. I had to use it for 2 days while I was upgrading and backing up my home office equipment. Its either the travel, or the feel, or the spacing that I am having so much trouble with. Not sure how to describe it, but you have any suggestions, besides just not use my laptop for typing?

I have a lot of issues in this area myself, between being a fast but messy/error-prone typist, switching between a desktop setup and a laptop each day, and in reviewing different laptops, as each has a slightly different key layout and typing feel. The worst of it is when I switch from laptop to laptop during the day, as my muscle memory can't kick in with regard to the layout in particular, so I kind of fumble-key my way around a lot and rely on auto-correct when typing.

Related to this, I switched to an ergonomic keyboard and mouse decades ago when I started feeling the first pangs of what I assume would have turned into carpal tunnel syndrome on the backs of my hands. I use a Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic keyboard and mouse now, and this setup is so important to me that I brought an extra set to Mexico City (which I'm using as I type this) and have a new, in-box extra at home should the one I'm using come up lame for whatever reason. This has saved my writing career in many ways---I have never experienced that hand pain issue, not even once, since then---so it's obviously important. But it also exacerbates the issues in moving between a desktop setup and a laptop because the desktop keyboard is so different. I wish there were semi-ergonomic keyboard options for laptops, but there aren't (and it's not clear there could be).

So.

With the underlying theme that I feel very strongly about ergonomic keyboards and will now have to ignore those feelings, the best thing you can do is not switch between PCs if possible: The more time you spend with one keyboard---the laptop keyboard---the more familiar it will become and the fewer errors you'll experience. But since that is likely impossible, the next best thing is to limit the differences between the two keyboards you use. The problem with laptop keyboards is that they have an additional Fn (function) key in the lower right, which can misplace the Ctrl and Alt keys. And in some cases (cough, Lenovo), the Ctrl key is misplaced regardless. On the PC side, you could look at a s...