Archive for April, 2010

Apr
30

Magical!

I’ve gone through three mice in about two years. They haven’t broken, but trying to find one that matches what I’m looking for is a challenge, to say the least. The first was the black Logitech. It isn’t anything special, but when I bought it — no, it wasn’t interesting then either. It’s as featureless as the Photoshopped faces in Flair, though it does have side-scrolling. I abandoned Logitech when we got our iMac – the bundled mouse was the worst I have ever used. Mighty? Hardly. The ergonomics were nice and the lack of visible buttons was clever, but there were two things that just about any Mighty Mouse owner can attest to. Firstly, the buttonless design meant that you had to release all fingers from the surface before attempting a secondary click — if you left your index finger touching, it would register as the primary button. This was quite irritating, but not nearly as annoying as the scroll ball. Apple chose to make this (quite ingenious) feature out of a soft-touch plastic. This felt nice to the finger, but attracted dirt, dust, lint, hair, bugs and other little things, causing the scroll ball to jam, preventing scrolling in one or more directions and generally causing a nuisance. Apple’s solution? Rather than switching to a harder surface for future models, they suggested that users flip the mouse over and rub the ball vigorously on a clean, hard surface. If that isn’t an afterthought, I’m not sure what is.

 
Apr
29

March & April in 90 Seconds

This is a video post. March through April 2010 in 90 seconds of footage. Click through for the full video.