Apple Magic Mouse Review

When Apple announced it's new "Magic Mouse" this week, a new mouse with a trackpad on the surface of it, I was quick to order one. It arrived this evening and I've had about half an hour to play around with it.

First impressions are, "cool looking mouse". It's very slick indeed, aerodynamic even (as if that were relevant for a mouse). It is a bluetooth device, and synced up easily with my Mac, although I had to download a driver and restart before I could use the advanced features.

Two major negatives on the "second impression":

1. Even at the fasted speed setting, this mouse is sloooow. I couldn't make it from one end of my screen to the other without lifting it up. If you are going to buy this, installing this mouse speed increaser is a must.
2. Despite it's aesthetic appeal, it's definitely form before function. It's really small, made for a small girly hand. There is no way you can rest your hand on this like you would with a regular mouse.

Problem number 2 is fairly typical with Mac hardware, so I'll let that slide. But issue 1 has a huge impact on usability, and I don't understand why Apple would let that issue make it out the gate.

The surface of the mouse is touch sensitive, kind of like a track pad. You can swipe up and down, left or right, like you would on an iPhone to scroll on a webpage. This is definitely it's coolest feature, as it even includes momentum in the scrolling (again, like the iphone).

Also, you can move forward or back in a browser or in iPhoto with a two-finger swipe, which is also handy.

One problem with this though is that if your fingers are at all sticky, the swipe motion is very unnatural and doesn't work very well. I found a few times where my fingers gut stuck while trying to swipe, then I accidentally clicked the mouse and opened something I didn't want to open.

I couldn't help but feel like Apple didn't make the most of the touchpad though. It would be nice if there was a multitouch method to activate expose, spaces or the dashboard. Also, I would like to see a way to zoom into a picture or rotate it built into the mouse.

This mouse had the opportunity to be a revolutionary input device, but I think in it's current form it falls far short. I would recommend this mouse as a "laptop bag" mouse for it's slim wireless form factor rather than an everyday mouse (although I am going to try and give it every day use and see if I can get used to it.)

It is worth saying that this mouse is far and away better than the old "Mighty Mouse", which had trackball problems, travelled too slow and has useless squeeze buttons that made it impossible to pick the mouse of the table while dragging something (a problem amplified by the slow travel speed).

For the next iteration of the magic mouse, what I'm hoping for is a mouse that is ergonomically shaped (i.e. about 3 times the size), a slipperier track pad surface, a few more gestures, and a method to activate expose from the mouse. Hopefully Apple will do this eventually, but I'm not holding my breath.

Picketpockets take a flying elbow to the ribcage!

I am in Togo West Africa for the second time, (last time was for about 6 months in 2004), and I had never encountered anybody with intentions of stealing from me or hurting me. All that changed today as we were walking through the Grande Marche in the capital city of Lome.

My wife was following behind me as we walked peacefully. I jostled through a slighly busier section when suddenly BAM, my wife throws her elbow into this guy's chest and starts yelling at him. She saw him reach into my pocket and before he could pull anything out she intercepted him.

My wife the superhero. Since the name "Wonder-Woman" is already taken, I'm now going to refer to her as "Great-Girl".

Apparently what happens in the market is a group of guys will swarm you so that you are crowded on all sides, and while you are distracted one of them will pick your pocket. (but not with Great-Girl on the lookout .... KA-POW)

When slow is better than fast

We just came off a whirlwind tour of Ghana. We visited Accra, Cape Coast, Elmina, and Kumasi. We did all of that in just under a week, covering probably 1000 to 1500 km of ground. Now, that might not be too much in Canada, but in Ghana many of the roads are soooo bad that you are only moving about 20 km per hour.

I don't think I would recommend that, as the appeal of Africa is less about it's sights, and more about it's culture.

Since we arrived in Togo a few days ago, we have been taking it very slow and soaking it all in, which is a much better way to go. It takes time to get to know the people. So, that is when slow is better than fast.

On the other hand, internet connections are painfully slow. Add that to the fact the keyboards here in Togo use a different layout (AZERTY vs QWERTY), and typing out a simple blog post becomes quite a painfull affair. This itty bitty post you are reading just took me 30 minutes to write... meanwhile I think my lunch isn't agreeing with me so I gotta jet!

Africa: Things I remembered, things I forgot

A few years ago I spent 6 months volunteering in Togo. I had a girlfriend at the time, who is now my wife. I've made her suffer through hearing many of my stories many times, so now I've brought her back to experience it all with me!

As soon as we arrived, it all seemed eerily familiar, the sights, the sounds, the places and the people. I've fallen quickly back into negotiating for price, finding my way around what is truly a massive maze of a transit network with taxis and Tro-Tros, eating foufou & and reducing my sense of self-preservation while adapting to the bonkers driving techniques of taxi drivers.

One thing that I had forgotten that quickly came back was the smells. Things generally smell quite different here, not bad (usually), just different. The dirt and trees and water and buildings all just have a bit of a distinct scent that I had completely forgotten.

We picked up a cell phone for roughly $40, and then put on $8 is phone credit to use for texting, which should do fine for us for must of the trip. (BTW: Feel free to text us at 233-2400-46347). What a great deal... and this is in Africa of all places. And all I have to do to check my unused credit is text *241# and it immediately tells me my remaining balance! Rogers... you've got some learning to do.

PS: One of our relatives that will remain unnamed sent us the following txt: "Love you too smo glad you are vddejl wel5 6 ok igive vp". Glad to see somebody try to break away from their comfort zone just to get a hold of us, that's true love :)

Don't clean your lint tray

I used to be an apartment dweller, and there was a sign at the dryers in the basement that said

"Empty the lint tray when load is done!!!"

Seems like the courteous and fair thing to do, empty out the lint you made. (The triple exclamation marks emphasized just how important an issue this was ... made me feel like there was a cop watching me when I did the laundry)

The problem is, not everybody does it. When a courteous person arrives at a dryer where the lint HASN'T been emptied, then they have to empty it twice, once for the guy before them, and once for themselves.

The only people this system words for is the guys who don't empty their own lint tray. That doesn't seem very fair to me.

We should all come together and agree that NOBODY empties their own lint tray, just empty it when you arrive. That way, everybody only has to empty the lint tray once.

The guys who don't empty the lint tray only have themselves to blame when they get lint-filled laundry.

Who's with me?


Also applies to:

• Milk bags
• Toilet seats in a men only environment, such as a dorm.

Definitely does NOT apply to:

• Dishes
• Golf turf divets
• Garbage on tables in fast food restaurants
  

Al Gore's desk is messier (more messy?) than mine

I stumbled across this photo of Al Gore on his blog.


And here i thought my desk was a mess ... I've got nothing on Al Gore. A lot of trees have been killed in those reports on his desk ... all for the greater good I'm sure.

At least he looks like he's working hard to save the plantet...

New Mac User - Day 398 - The "dock" just isn't doing it for me

Last year I posted a "new Mac User - Day 1" entry on my blog with my first impressions. Well, it's been 398 days since then, and I know a bit more about the mac now and figured it was time for a follow up.

I suppose it's more like, one year later now...

Topic: The Mac "Dock"
It's the one thing that right away, when windows users look at, they say "what the heck is that?".

It's Mac's equivalent to Windows taskbar, and it works a bit differently. The Mac universe seems to love this thing ... I don't really understand why.

First, the good:

• I really like that when I want to open up a certain app (say, firefox or iphoto), the button that opens it, whether it's open or not, is always in the same spot. Very handy (whereas in windows, apps resort themselves on the taskbar whenever they get opened.)

Now, the bad:

• The doc takes up way to much screen real estate, especially on modern widescreens. It may have made sense with the traditional screen aspect ratio, but it doesn't on my little macbook pro screen (even worse on a macbook). GAH.
  
• Windows can only be resized by clicking the bottom right hand corner of them... but sometimes large windows get stuck BEHIND the dock and I cant get at the re-size button without accidentally opening another application. ARGH.
  
• Minimizing windows to the doc is pointless because unlike the windows taskbar, you can't clearly see what the minimized application is, it's too small. BLECK
  As a result, I don't ever minimize these days, I just let my desktop get all cluttered up and find my apps with expose (which, is super handy BTW)
  
• The dock get's really confused when the same app has multiple windows associated with it. My biggest pet peeve is with firefox. Lets say you downloaded something at somepoint in the day, and you have minimized your firefox window. Later on in the day, click on firefox on the dock and it opens up your list of downloaded files, with firefox itself nowhere to be found. I click like mad on the firefox button, and nothing pops up but this silly download list (until I close the download list). YAR.

I get the feeling that the "dock" is there on the Mac simply because it is "different", not because it's particularly functional. I have moved my dock to the right side of my screen instead of the bottom to get it out of the way, which makes it a bit less obtrusive (but makes minimized windows even more impossible to figure out).

Paris Hilton ruined my planet

Imagine how hard it would be to stick to a budget in a store with no prices. Well, that's pretty much how we buy electricity today.

from the Official Google Blog: Power to the people

Apparently Google is going to work towards making the information from power "Smart Meters" (Not installed in MY home yet) easily available. So you waste less money. So you pollute less. So you save the planet!

For example, lets say somehow I get sucked into watching "Paris Hilton's Best Friend Forever" reality TV show. Google could help me understand that not only did I completely botch 1/2 an hour of my precious life, but I spent $32.6 cents in energy that I could have used to buy organic carrots instead of plunging our planet further into a carbon death spiral.


Groovy. Now if only Google could tell me how much I'm spending on my cell phone bill before it shows up on my doorstep...

Free cable TV legally

I have only had cable periodically since I started university. Two degrees and two jobs later, I still don't have cable. I don't really miss it as most of what's on TV is complete trash, but there are a few shows that I really enjoy and like to keep up on, usually of the drama/sci-fi type.:

1. Battlestar Galactica (dumb name, great show)
2. Lost (Has a great "mythology" and some of the best fiction writing ever)
3. Heroes (about to fall off my list... it was pretty bad last season)

I was hooked on 24 for a bit after getting the DVD box set in my hand, but it turned into the same horrible plot-find terrorist-accuse-the-wrong-person-get-tortured-torture-somebody else-save-the-day lather rinse repeat cycle a few time each season, so that show fell off my radar.

The thing I like the least about cable is having to schedule your life around it, or sitting down and watching something totally dumb that you never meant to watch and losing your whole evening.

... and... after spending a lot of time watching seasons of shows on DVD, it's REALLY hard to go back to getting interrupted with commercials.

PVRs help with that, but the thing I don't like about those is... paying for them.

Fortunately the internet is here to help out. Get yourself a good super-high speed internet connection and you can actually get some really good FREE TV these days. (The Americans have got it better than us Canucks, but we can still usually find the shows we want).

All the shows I like are available online, and in pretty good quality too. They can be found here:

• Battlestar online
  
• Lost online
  
• Heroes online
  

It's completely free, legal, and no hassle. The only downside is that you have to watch a few commercials, but the commercials breaks are only 30 seconds long instead of 2 minutes.

I hook my computer up to my TV and sound system so I can watch it from my couch instead of crouched around my computer.