What Makes a 'Good' Mouse?
From Greg in response to Apple
Mice: Lots of Room for Improvement:
You wrote:
Blogger Troy Simpson raises a point that has perplexed
your editor over the years: Why can't Apple, which pioneered and
popularized the computer mouse as an input device, make a decent mouse.
Simpson accurately observes that not a single mouse designed in
Cupertino, California, has been top class, causing him to wonder how
Apple can make a great laptop, MP3 player, desktop computer, tablet,
phone, and various other products yet still make such poor mice.
Excellent question. Simpson goes on the review a sorry
succession of mice Apple has foisted on us, beginning with the Apple
USB "hockey puck" mouse of 1998, although he could have reached back
farther than that.
Publisher's note: I have to agree with Simpson and
Moore on this one. I have used Macs since 1987, and while Apple had a
couple decent ADB mice and one decent USB mouse (the "no button" Apple
Pro Mouse), I left them behind long ago for well designed multibutton
mice from Kensington, Contour Design, and Logitech. dk
I think the answer to this is fairly straightforward. The idea of
what characteristics that define the quality of a mouse are too
subjective for any mouse to not be considered "poor" by a substantial
portion of the user base.
The hockey puck is
much vilified, but I know people that loved it. Why? They were actually
in the demographic for which it was created and to which it was
initially sold. I was lukewarm on it myself, but when I got my Sawtooth, I distinctly
remember that replacing the mouse was much less urgent than replacing
the original USB keyboard. I had no
trouble using the puck while I looked around for a replacement that
really suited me. If Apple had included what a lot of people insisted
was a "good" mouse I would've had to replace both immediately. I have
yet to find a wheeled mouse I can use comfortably. (And by
"comfortably", I mean "without the rapid onset of outright pain.")
Greg
The original Mac USB keyboard.
Hi Greg,
Thanks for your comments. My daughter was a big fan of
the hockey puck mouse, and I actually found a use for it. I have
chronic peripheral neuritis, and try to spread the mousing stress
around as much as possible, especially including foot-clicking, and
I've discovered that the hockey puck makes a very decent and
comfortable foot-clicker. I remove the tracking ball and tape over the
aperture to inhibit dust ingress. I found that they last about one to
two years in this sort of abuse, but I haven't found anything else
inexpensive that works as well for me.
As for conventional Apple mouse usage, my complaints
have been generally uncomfortable ergonomics, too-heavy-to-suit-me
button-clicking action, and heavy weight. I prefer a mouse with
positive, feather-light, short travel button action and very light
weight for easy, low-effort tracking. In general, Logitech mice are the
best in these contexts.
Charles
Fake 800K Floppies and RAM Disks for Classic
Macs
From Russell, responding to Trials and Tribulations with Zip 100 Plus
and a Mac SE:
Hello Charles,
I do still have a few 800K floppies, but I'm currently halfway
around the world from them and my Mac Plus. If my memory serves me
correctly, you can place Scotchô tape across the little hole on
the opposite side of the disk from the write protect tab on a high
density (HD) floppy and fool the drive into thinking it has an 800K
disk in it. We used to do the exact opposite with 800K disk by making a
hole there to fool the drive into think we had put an HD floppy into
it. The mileage did vary, as I believe that the media is a little
different between the two.
Another method that might be viable for him is to use a RAM Disk.
There are two shareware programs that I can think of that one can use
in lieu of an actual floppy - AppDisk and RAMdisk.
AppDisk requires System 7, but RAMdisk works with either System 7 or
System 6. AppDisk is still readily downloadable from the Internet, but
I was not successful at locating RAMdisk for download. (I didn't do a
very extensive search. [Editor's note: I did and have included a link
to a page where you can download RAMdisk 3.23+.]) However, I do still
have a virgin self-extracting copy of it in my archives (I back up
everything). Believe it or not, I actually have it with me as I use
vMac with an
image of my Mac Plus' hard drive to play some of my old favorites.
He will also need to make sure not to install any version of
the Iomega software greater than 4.2. That is the highest version that
functions with Compact Macs. Iomega wrote their software to
self-update, so he will need to be careful and not stick any of his Zip
Disks into any system with a higher version or take the chance it will
inadvertently update his and he will then have to reinstall and format
the affected disks. Jag's House has a very good step-by-step guide on
this. The coolest thing is that he can actually boot from the Zip
Disk.
Keep up the good work!
Russell
Hi Russell,
Thanks for the great tips!
Charles
Editor's note: Charles Moore reviewed
AppDisk and ramBunctious for Applelinks in 2002. I used ramBunctious for years with
the Classic Mac OS. As I noted in my review, "ramBunctious lets you
launch and close RAM disks on the fly, and it can automatically back up
the contents of your RAM disk at shutdown, at a chosen interval, or
every time you change any data on your RAM disk."
The Classic Mac OS also included a RAM Disk option in
the memory control panel, but it is not compatible
with 68000- or 68020-based desktop Macs, including the SE. Under System
6 and earlier, the RAM Disk must be between 192 KB and 256 MB in size;
in System 7.5.2 through 7.6.1, the range is 416 KB to 256 MB; and in
Mac OS 8.x and 9.x, the range is 512 KB to 256 MB. dk
Zip Drive Tip
From Alfred:
I think that the following might work:
- Both SE & Zip are off.
- Insert the cartridge into the Zip drive.
- Turn the Zip drive on.
- Turn the SE on.
Alfred
Thanks, Alfred.
Charles
iPad Street Musician
From Kas:
Hi Charles, wanted to share this with you: http://vimeo.com/15341913
Street musician girl playing sitar on iPad. Excellent nerd, looks so
carried away.
-Kas
Hi Kas,
Thanks for the link. Haven't heard a sitar for a
while!
Charles
Opera Nay - Then Yay!
From Ponter after reading Opera 10.62 for Mac: Fast, but Some
Bugs Remain:
Charles,
I, too, have long preferred Opera - until recently. The bookmarking
function - and I store a lot of bookmarks - has become
completely brain-dead. Basically, it is practically impossible now to
add a new bookmark to an existing folder or subfolder. The bookmark
dialog box fails to show any listing of existing bookmark folders. It
merely offers to dump the bookmark - well, God knows where. There are
no drop down arrows to expend the dialog and offer a listing -
nothing!
The Manage Bookmarks page shows the folder listings, in proper
hierarchical format, and has many useful control, but if you try to add
the bookmark manually, it shows a simple, unsorted, nonhierarchical
listing of all folders on your bookmark system, leaving you to guess
where the one is you want. Just amateur hour.
And to add insult to injury, I cannot for the life of me find a
proper support contact email address to inquire about what I consider
to be a serious flaw. I'm glad that you can make friends at Opera, but
the rest of us seem to be held at arm's length. Even Apple is more
approachable than this.
Very disappointing. I've abandoned Opera as my primary browser in
spite of its many good points.
Ponter
Also from Ponter, this time after reading Opera Issues Resolved, at Least
for Intel Macs:
Well bless my soul. I hadn't finished your Opera article when I felt
compelled to email, but after emailing you - and just on a whim, as the
problems you alluded to seemed completely unrelated to mine - I deleted
all of the files suggested in your article, and bookmarking now
works as it should!
Unfortunately, in ridding myself of all those old files, I also
deleted all the bookmarks in there (don't worry, I have backups). But
the next question is: Do you have to reload all those bookmarks
manually via Opera, or can you import bookmarks without messing up this
functionality (which was what I had done previously)? And why would
there be a completely separate bookmarking functionality at all?! None
of this makes any sense from a design point of view. Anyway, I will
explore this issue with some experiments and let you know what I
find.
Cheers,
Ponter
Hi Ponter,
I'm delighted to hear that Daniel Aleksandersen's fix
worked for you too.
Regarding bookmarks, I've had some success dragging a
backed-up Bookmarks file into the Opera Preferences folder to displace
the new one created by the fresh install. I also usually import my
Safari and Firefox bookmarks, since it's easy to do.
I'll be interested to hear what works for you.
Charles
Flash Navigation Problem with PPC Opera
From Demetrios:
I read, and subsequently downloaded & installed Opera
10.62 for [Mac OS X 10.4]
Tiger after reading your glowing review.
Sites that require Flash navigation still do not work on this
version of Opera - or the previous few versions on PPC Macs running
Tiger. [Editor's note: I have also verified this on Opera 10.62 with
OS X 10.5.8 Leopard.
dk]
Obviously, if you do not use your browser to look at art sites, then
you wouldn't know this.
This is a link to the directory page of my site: http://www.vakras.com/directory.html
After starting the animation, the animation plays but remains
non-interactive - rendering the site unusable. (I have tried Opera 10.6
versions on Intel Leopard, Snow
Leopard with no problem; and on Windows XP, which still requires
that a click onto animation is needed to make the swf active so that
one can navigate the site)
You can always try Giger's site, if you assume
that the problem is limited to my own site, or Aparin's site, or any number of
other artist's sites....
Opera is a dud,
Demetrios
Hi Demetrios,
Upon visiting your website, it was obvious why you
would object to Opera's Flash limitations in Tiger, but I think it's an
unfair overstatement to declare Opera a "dud" on those grounds. Opera
has been my most-used browser for years on both PowerPC and Intel, and
any Flash issues have not posed a hardship for me - and I expect for
many other users. As you're aware, the iPad doesn't support Flash, and
that doesn't seem to be slowing its sales much.
As I noted here in a follow-up article last week,
Opera Software's Desktop Product Tester Daniel Aleksandersen tells me
that since Opera 10.52, they've started using newer APIs that do not
function on older OSes, and while they've have put some workarounds in
place for OS X 10.4, as he puts it: "these are not optimal for
performance, causing issues like the slow typing on these systems."
Aleksandersen further noted that Opera plans on
supporting Mac OS X 10.4 for a while longer, but recently decided
to drop PowerPC support after the 10.6x releases. In a blog entry,
he elaborates that starting with the next version of Opera, they will
be discontinuing the PowerPC architecture on Mac and Linux, noting that
while this is unfortunate, with third party vendor support dwindling
away, Opera can no longer keep developing the browser for this
architecture, and after ending support for PowerPC, they will be able
to focus more on making sure Opera meets the need of the modern web
browser user on the popular architectures.
Consequently, I expect Opera 10.62 is likely as good
as it gets for Opera on PowerPC and Tiger.
Charles
Hi Charles,
I wasn't expecting a response, so it's good to receive one. Unlike
yourself, I myself pretty much only use Safari - I just can't go past
it.
I go to my browser's history quite often, & Safari's "History"
is without peer.
I go to "Top Sites", click onto "History", and, with the Magic
Mouse, which runs on Tiger with the MagicDriver by
plentycom, I swipe back the pages to find what I am looking for.
Sometimes I just do it because I like to see the pages flicking
past(!)
I don't use Opera. On Windows, as a case-in-point, you still have to
click into a Flash animation to make it active, to then navigate. Opera
only works the way it should on Leopard and Snow Leopard.
I wonder why you don't mention other browsers? There are other Tiger
compatible browsers: Camino and
SeaMonkey (Camino is my
2nd browser of choice). And Safari 4 for Tiger is still being updated
(but for how long?).
I do feel that Apple are given too much leeway; and what criticism
there is of Apple is often from Windows fans who miss the mark. I can't
believe that no-one has criticised Apple on its bogus green
credentials. What is so green about a computer company that makes
software releases intended to make old hardware obsolete, so that users
will have to buy a new machine? I disagree with the concept of a
disposable society. Yet disposability is what Apple deliberately
introduces, and yet Apple proclaims itself "green".
On obsolescence: My G3 is on [OS X 10.2] Jaguar, simply because
Apple made built-in USB ports a prerequisite to upgrading to [OS X 10.3] Panther (based on
what I have read, some upgraded to Panther by inserting their hard
drive into a machine with built-in ports, which they then placed back
into their old machine). (It's an old machine, which I turn on once a
month and keep as a souvenir).
The relegation of Tiger to obsolescence by Apple is appalling. Apple
have released an update to iTunes 10.0.1 for Windows XP (Windows is run
on my SnowLeo Mac via Parallels), but there is no upgrade to iTunes 10
for Tiger. What's worse, a few weeks ago Microsoft had an update to
Word 2004 for my Jaguar G3! I suspect some Tiger users (like me) are
still on Tiger because their dual-processor 800 MHz machines, though
faster than an 867 MHz machine, were prevented from the upgrade to
Leopard by Apple's deliberate introduction of obsolescence by way of
software upgrades.
I always thought that "Universal Binary" was meant to be so that
software would run on both architectures!
I don't blame FireFox for dropping support for Tiger. Why should
they if even Apple doesn't support it?
It was my anger with Apple that caused me to buy Parallels and the
last copy of XP that I could find, so that I could install all the old
programs that I had which still ran on Windows but could not be
installed on the same Intel Mac.
With regards to the iPad, I'm pretty astonished by the fervent
religiosity of those who buy it!
regards,
Demetrios
Hi again Demetrios,
Thanks for the further interesting comments.
I don't disagree with you about Safari having many
excellent qualities. I particularly like the new "Reader" feature in
Safari 5. I'm not a heavy history user. Safari, as you say, is
excellent in that regard, but I find history in the other browsers
satisfactory for my occasional reference.
As for other browsers, I can't imagine using just one
browser myself. I keep at least three - and sometimes four - up and
running all the time. On my Intel Mac running Leopard and Snow Leopard
(I have both installed on separate hard drive partitions), I use, in
order of intensity, Opera, Chrome, and Firefox (currently the
FF 4 beta). Safari and Stainless get a bit of use as well. I switched
to Safari 5 as my number three for a while, but I went back to Firefox
when the version 4 betas arrived.
On my two old Pismo PowerBooks running OS X
10.4, I also use Opera as number one browser, but two and three are
SeaMonkey (which I find is a happy camper so far on Tiger), and
iCab, which is also Tiger-friendly.
I agree with you about Apple being largely a poseur in
the "green" context; your observations on planned obsolescence being
well-taken. Like you, I oppose the concept of disposable commodities,
and my perseverance with the old Pismos is a case in point. The degree
of component modularity incorporated in the Pismo's design has kept it
in the game as a decent-performing tool much longer than will be the
case with any subsequent Mac laptop design, including any Intel Mac
laptop, and the superb reliability and amazingly long useful service
life I've experienced with my Pismos has convinced me beyond doubt
that, could I design my ideal computer, it would be easy to take apart,
upgrade, and repair and composed of modular components as much as
possible. The Pismo is not 100% in these departments, but it comes
closer than any other Mac laptop has before or since.
I also share your dismay at Apple's evident likelihood
of dumping Tiger support in the near future. As you say, it's tough to
blame third-party developers for abandoning Tiger when Apple is leading
the exodus.
I'm also somewhat bemused by iPad-mania, although I'm
withholding judgment until I get my own tablet, which could be useful,
albeit no substitute for a full-featured laptop. However, the tablets
recently unveiled by RIM and Samsung both appeal to me more than the
iPad does, except for the 7" displays (Samsung is rumored to have a 10"
tablet in the works).
Charles
Waning Days of PowerPC Browser Support
From Dave:
It will indeed be a sad, sad day when browser development stops for
the PowerPC platform. I use the G4-optimized Camino exclusively on my
1.2 GHz iBook running
Tiger. It's a godsend, speedy, stable, and can even still keep up with
most YouTube videos. I said most.
I really don't like running outdated browsers, especially for online
banking and the like.
Recently, I let out an audible cheer when Cameron Kaiser, the
developer of Classilla said on a
recent post (on the Mac OS 9 LEM board, I think) that if and when it
comes to it (seems more like when than if), he will continue to update
a PowerPC and Tiger browser. He also says it will be considerably
easier than his Classilla work, as he will have an up-to-date toolkit
and a more modern browser to start with.
After years - if not decades - of chasing the bleeding edge, I have
realized my personal computing needs are basic. Yesterday's software
running on yesterday's hardware will work just fine, for awhile at
least. I am hoping for at least two more years service out of this
five-year-old $90 iBook, which contains a hard drive and LCD from my
previous 12" G3 iBook, which died the dreaded logic board death one day
in 2009.
By then, the first generation MacBook Pros should be down to a more
reasonable price point (sub $400?), but I will definitely shed a RISC
tear the day I leave behind the PowerPC.
Dave
Hi Dave,
I applaud your rational good sense and resolve in
using low-end hardware that does the job you need it to do.
It's interesting that many people are making similar
evaluations about their real computing needs being basic in opting for
the iPad over a laptop.
My old Pismo 'Books running Tiger are still doing a
great job for me, within their acknowledged limitations, but I expect
that browser support will ultimately prove the tipping point of
practical obsolescence for them, hopefully not for a few years yet. I
fully intend on continuing to use them as my utility computers for as
long as they don't impose compromise that significantly slows me down
or they hit an incompatibility wall.
Charles
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