The typewriter layout and that of the computer keyboard are not parallel for English and Russian. Was there a good reason why the Russian keyboard is arranged differently? I need the information for my blog... American Russia Observations which I post from St Petersburg.

I am compiling a lexicon of Russian computing terms with English translations. As far as I know, there isn't anything on the internet that is simply a list of Russian computer commands and vocabulary with English equivalents.

While typing Russian, I have trouble finding some punctuation marks. The @ sign, or собака, is missing.

Does anyone know of a similar list, or have tips on typing punctuation in Russian?

The reason it's different is so you can type in Russian faster. It's organized that way that the most common letter are in the middle of keyboard. Here is layout for russian keyboard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JCUKEN
You can also buy russian keyboard stickers, it helps a lot. I use it myself even though I know russian layout pretty well.