APR.05.2025 - #18

Hi all 👋, after what felt like the 4th or 5th resurgence of winter here in Toronto, the sun finally decided to make an appearance near the end of the week (just in time for my birthday), and I couldn't be happier.

This week while writing this issue, I was sitting back and witnessing all the April Fools “pranks” everyone was attempting to pull. Nowadays it feels impossible to actually trick people, so I think the best course of action is to make something funny, light-hearted, and interactive (those are my fave April Fools). Usually I don't really participate in this kind of discourse as I find many companies' attempts to be weak or just plain cringey, but this year I found many to be cute and actually funny, so I'd like to highlight a few before we move on. My favourite keyboard-related Fools had to be Omnitype's keyboards made out of chocolate, wax, ice, and gelatin—the kicker, though, is that you can actually buy the mould they used to create these “unconventional material keyboards”. I also liked Work Louder's Severance-inspired Lumon Nomad E keyboard (which people are now begging for it to be made real). Outside of the keyboard realm, Razer announced a headset to translate Gen-Z “brainrot” speak into a more understandable lingo, dbrand made a purchasable phone skin that looks like astro-turf allowing us to touch grass without having to actually go outside, and Discord released this cinematic trailer to go along with their, you guessed it, actually real mini-game “The Last Meadow” (playable in the Discord app until April 7th) in which you click the screen to “touch grass” (re-occurring theme this year). I thoroughly enjoyed playing The Last Meadow and as you can tell by my above picks, the best jokes are the ones you can have some fun interacting with.

April Fools aside, I've also been watching and getting hyped over the Nintendo Switch 2 pre-order announcement/release date video, celebrating my birthday at all my fave Toronto spots, and enjoying some much needed time in the sun.

clicks 🔗

Your next mouse goes vertical

→ Made by Alex Muñoz, the Hansker is an ergonomic vertical mouse designed for productivity and long creative sessions. I really like the look of this mouse—it has a more pleasant minimal aesthetic compared to something like Logitech's ergo mice, and also has a less chunky form factor than another popular vertical mouse, the Evoluent VerticalMouse. I particularly appreciated reading Alex's thread about why he created this mouse and the decision process behind making “a product that already exists”. I've been pondering getting a vertical mouse (I use the Apple Magic Trackpad 90% of the time) to combat wrist fatigue and any other long-term issues before they become a problem, and this mouse has earned a spot at the top of my wishlist. The Hansker also comes in a sleek black version for gaming with an upgraded optical sensor, and also sold on the site are some sleek, matching desk mats.

Convert any file

→ The discovery of this tool, “How to Convert”, has been an absolute lifesaver for me—created by Jake Manger, this app helps me convert any file into the correct format I need. Gone are the days of searching for sketchy online file conversion tools, hoping the website doesn't steal my data or give me a malware loaded download, only to find that my file exceeds the browser upload limit. How to Convert is 100% offline and supports a wide variety of file types to convert to and from—WAV, GIF, MOV, MP3/4, MD, DOC, PDF, you name it! I dismissed the upsides of finding a good offline conversion app for so long but recently, especially with this newsletter's workflow, my need for a tool like this has drastically risen. I've been using How to Convert for about a week now—it has helped speed up my workflow, resource-wise it is fairly lightweight, and I love that it is a one-time payment for a lifetime license (50% off right now during the launch period).

Trading Pokémon from your iPhone??

→ Next up is a major update for Delta, a retro game emulator for iOS. Delta can emulate old handhelds and consoles including the GameBoy, Nintendo DS, NES, SNES, and N64! Delta was created by Riley Testut, who has been developing and pioneering emulation on iOS devices for over a decade now. In this long awaited 1.7 update, players can now use the online multiplayer functionality (previously only included on physical Nintendo DS models) to do things like race together in Mario Kart or trade Pokémon. I don't typically play games on my phone (Pokémon TCG Pocket aside), but Delta has become a mainstay on my home screen—I mostly use it to replay Nintendo DS childhood classics, as I use my Analogue Pocket to play all my GameBoy games. So far I haven't convinced my partner or any of my friends to join me in the Delta fun 🙁, so I may not get to make use of this update anytime soon, but that will not deter me from persuading them to download yet another random app.

clacks ⌨️

Keyboards with a nub

→ First clack this week is keyboard maker TEX Electronics, who produce a plethora of keyboards, keycaps, and building accessories. Many of their products are inspired by the design language of Lenovo keyboards—including the little red nub (or TrackPoint) and extra keys below the keyboard to simulate the mouse's left, right and middle clicks. Their most recent keyboard, the Shinobi, replicates this Lenovo-like design, comes with a retro-inspired keycap set, has a variety of switch options to choose from, and even comes in a DIY version if you'd prefer to build and tinker with it yourself. What drew my attention to this maker in the first place, however, was this tweet teasing their newest prototype board. This looks to be their first ergonomic split keyboard and I love this new look with silver accents, multiple knobs, built-in padded wrist rest, and of course the little red nub. I'll be watching these makers closely and hoping they release this prototype keyboard soon 🤞, give them a follow on Instagram if you're loving this style as well.

capybara 🎵 capybara 🎵 capybara

→ This cute capybara inspired board from Bowl Keyboards made it's debut back in February of 2023, and is making an epic comeback due to its resurgent popularity. The Capy60 is a fairly tame and simple 60% that comes in a variety of colour-ways and has an adorable image of a capybara engraved on the back weight of the board. I felt like I just had to feature this keeb as this meme has been playing non-stop in my mind due to its many appearances on my Instagram Shorts feed (here is a little meme info for those out of the loop). Side note: given the Dymium65 build I recently featured, maybe I should have waited to put the Kinetic Labs Capybara switches on something like this to really commit to the giant rodent bit.

Double layered all the way

→ KAP Generation—designed by Kapowaz Industries and manufactured by Keyreative—is the first keycap set to be produced using a hybrid double shot moulding/injection method called the KAP Legend System. Typically when keycaps are created from a mould, manufacturers choose between two distinct methods, dye-sublimation or double shot. In short and simple terms, the dye-sub method prints the legends (letters/symbols) onto the keycap face, while double shot injects the legends into the cap itself (more detailed write-up here by Switch and Click if you want to get technical). The new technique involves combining these two to get the crisp legends possible with double shot keys, while maintaining the colour options you get when using the dye-sub process. Designer Kapowaz open-sourced this entire system to allow anyone to design and manufacture using this technique. This first KAP Generation set delivers a captivating crimson colour with a translucent shell and super defined red legends—you can buy these caps here on CannonKeys' website (North American vendor).

That’s all for this week! I hope you enjoyed it, and now it’s time to hear from YOU 🫵. I want to know your opinion—what you liked, what you loved, what you didn’t like, what you skipped. Reach out at mail.clicksnclacks.com (or reply to this email!) and have a great weekend!!