Why is the number pad on all keyboards positioned on the right? It gets in my way: I use it almost never, but I use the mouse a lot, and the number pad creates distance between the normal part of the keyboard and the mouse. If I center the keyboard comfortably in front of the screen, the mouse hangs out way off to the right of the desk; consequently I generally type with my hands a little bit to the left. If the number pad were on the left, you could keep your hands centered on the keyboard most of the time, but the right hand could drive the navigation keys and the left could operate the number pad. This would be a bit less convenient for left-handers, but I suppose they could continue using any of the millions of keyboards using the normal layout. I’d be happy to drop the number pad entirely, in fact, provided I could keep the navigation keys. In fact, drop the mouse, too: what I really want is a laptop-style keyboard and trackpad, all packaged together as a single unit.

postscript: it appears that the keyboard I want actually exists.

post-postscript: it appears that the Adesso keyboard basically sucks. What I really want is of course this Apple keyboard, plus a trackpad (and I don’t really want bluetooth, but I can put up with it if necessary).