The Magic Mouse

For a while I thought I didn't need one... but finally I bought a Magic Mouse! 

When it came on the market, I went to the local Apple Store to look what exactly the mouse was all about. I had read some reviews on the Internet, and these were not all equally enthusiastic. Well... everyone is different and has different needs, right?! These critical words however resulted in the fact that I was not immediately convinced, and didn't buy one immediately.

The mouse would be an ergonomic disaster, and getting used to, would take some time. 

In the Apple Store I saw that it was better than expected. It seems logical to me that getting used to something so different will always take some time, so no worry.

I had the packaging removed, and took the mouse out of the box. First impression is that it feels quite heavy, which will not necessary mean a disadvantage, because it's causing it to be sitting somewhat firmer on the desktop. The weight is mainly because of two penlight batteries which are already installed. Nice! 

Goto [System Preferences] and [Bluetooth], and use the [configure new device] to let the Mac find the mouse and then add it. In my case it was necessary to switch the mouse off and on, because the Mac did not recognized it right away. 

Click [Show all] and go to [Mouse]. Most settings are already good, I only added the right-click function. 

Attractive element on this screen is a video presentation of the various possibilities of the mouse which plays automatically. The played video is determined by the location of the mouse pointer! Below in the window you see the battery indicator, so you know when you may need to replace them. 

First impressions: 

The mouse sits firmly on the desk and is easy to move. Unlike the Mighty Mouse, the palm is no longer resting on the mouse, but the hand rests on the thumb, little finger and ring finger. Is that annoying? Maybe we can compare this with the hands doing typing. These hands also rest only on the wrists, and the fingers constantly moving in the air above the keyboard. Seems no problem to me, and the hand moving the mouse has enough support to the left and the right. This support (thumb, little finger and ring finger) also control the mouse movement. Has a natural feel to it. 

Maybe you should get rid off the idea that you have to feel the mouse in the palm of your hand, and move the hand a bit backwards. Doing so will result in more touchable area on the mouse surface. 

Scrolling with this mouse is a pleasure! You no longer have to find the scroll ball, and the touch surface is very large (3/4 of the top layer). It might happen you become used to using your middle finger to scroll, while previously you only used the index finger. I prefer the index though. 

The swipe scrolling we know from the mobile Apple products, is a very pleasant effect. A strong swipe results in a fast number of pages scroll movement. When you touch the surface while scrolling it stops instantly. A small swipe or slowly results in a smaller range. 

The clicking (right or left) is also nice, because the position of the finger pressing determines whether its a left or right click. If you click in the middle, it's a L-click, you'll get a R-click when the finger is right of the center (of course towards the edge!). Very effective! The 'click' is similar to that of the Mighty Mouse. Meaning; the entire front top area is a clicking element. I had the idea that clicking would be a touch sensitive thing. Perhaps in the future it will, who knows. 

Sideways scrolling: although you will not use this as often, is as easy as the vertical scrolling. Also here you will see the swipe effect. Cool! The sideways scrolling is done with ONE finger, some of the instruction movies seems to indicate that its done by two fingers. 

The Mighty Mouse had two extra mouse buttons, which I used often for Exposé and Spaces, with the Magic that seems impossible. I programmed F16 and F19 to replace this functionality. Hopefully an update gives these buttons back to use. I fear that this will not be done though. 

Within Boot Camp (Windows XP), you can use the Magic also. After you install the mouse drivers, and switch the Bluetooth connection on, the mouse is ready to use. The extra features (swipe and horizontal scrolling) do not work, and the pointer occasionally hanged. In my opinion you better plug in a mouse that works well with Windows. I do anyway, for playing games I prefer a Microsoft mouse ... 

Pros: 

- No mechanical scrolling mechanism 

- Nice control 

- Easy installation, and recognition 

- Drivers are already installed in Snow Leopard, and also the instructional videos 

- Scrolling is silent 

Con's: 

- No more secondary mouse buttons (3 & 4)

- Under Windows Boot Camp; not a good choice 

Bye bye scroll ball .... heheheheehhe 

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After one week: Ergonomic problems I did not notice! At some point I had to do something with the notebook PC and started laughing when I felt something round under the palm of my hand.... hehehehehe. A little later I tried to scroll through a sweeping motion on the surface of this Microsoft mouse. You get used to this new Magic mouse so quickly! When using the PC I discovered that the scroll wheel has a very small radius and slow movement! 

Zooming in Google Maps/Earth, is not as good as it needs to be with the Magic. Especially when your hands are a little sweaty, you'll always zoom in or out much too far. Very irritating! This is easily solved by adjust the scroll speed to the minimum setting! This makes the mouse react at the same speed as you were previously accustomed too. I am fond of the quick scrolling in other app's, so I set it one or two lines from the left. 

With a VMware installation of Windows XP the mouse works fine (without the special features). 

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USB-Connection on Keyboard

Ever since I can remember, or at least from the moment that USB had become a standard, Apple made their keyboards with one or two USB-connectors. 

And in the decade before USB the keyboard had a connector for the serial mouse. With this Apple indicated that they think seriously about making computers work the way we 'users' want or like to. 

PC's have taken over this method of connecting USB-devices to the keyboard, among which of course; the mouse. Although I still see that most PC-keyboards ship without this connection possibility. At my office for example, there are no connectors on the keyboards. Why factory’s still ship those keyboards without USB-connectors, I don’t know. Maybe because it’s cheaper? And they don’t care about the consumer?

It’s much more intuitive to connect a mouse through the keyboard, than to have a long cable sitting on your desk and working its way to the back of your computer casing. My mouse is fitted with a short cable (50 cm) which is long enough to connect it, and it easily twists on the desktop. No more long cables on my desk, and no more pulling at it because it snaked beyond your desk again…

I hear you think: "Do you not use a wireless mouse then?!" Oh yes you have a point there, however a wireless mouse had a considerable number of disadvantages in my experience; their batteries always run on empty, which you can RE-charge of course. Could be through a dock system or you replace them once in a while. Whether by new ones or reloaded batteries. I have a wireless mouse though for use with my MacBook and notebook PC, but I do not prefer them. For a computer which is stationary it makes not much sense to me to have a wireless mouse. Maybe it’s me but I think it lacks functionality. 

Anyway if you dislike cables on your desk, it’s a good option. To me it’s okay to have it connected thru cables, it doesn’t bother me at all. 

Besides the mouse there are other uses for connecting devices to the keyboard: USB-Flashdrives, USB-Lights, iPod, digital camera, etc.... there are a couple of devices which you cannot connect to the keyboard though. These are devices that need a certain amount of power, such as external hard disks. If you connect such an apparatus it’s possible that it will not work because of the lack of power. The OS will report this on screen, so you know you have to connect it directly to the computer. 

In the near future we will use keyboards which work by means of a laser technique, and control on the screen by means of hand gestures. COOL!  

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Connecting your Mac to a LCD TV

A while ago I decided to investigate the possibility of connecting my MacBook to my Grundig Widescreen LCD TV screen. On a blue Monday I already tried to connect a notebook PC using a VGA (PC-in) connector. I was not really impressed, but at least it was nice to see that it worked. 

By my knowledge VGA is an analog connection so this was probably the reason for the limitation in quality. At some point I decided to use the TV's HDMI connector (Digital). Since I did not yet have this cable, I ordered one online: a DVI-HDMI cable of two meters long (€ 14, -), and for connecting to the MacBook: a mini-DVI-DVI adapter (€ 19, -). 

It was a pleasant surprise that the Mac after connecting to the TV immediately recognized the new display! And the picture looked very good! 

If you want to connect a computer to a TV, keep in mind that the HDMI connector is only for video (the same goes for VGA by the way). For the audio part you will need to have an audio cable to connect to either the TV-unit or a Hi-Fi set. 

I connected the MacBook to the audio input of my dolby surround set, and by doing so my media center was complete! Nice! 

Now I could watch video directly from the HDD of the MacBook: films / series / Youtube / Frontrow. 

Very cool indeed!!! 

Less cool was the fact that the MacBook was not really mobile now... Unplugging the cables every time I needed my Mac at another location, was not very handy! The MacBook was also connected to the network with a UTP cable so it could communicate with the iMac. In all, disconnecting three cables, and reconnecting them afterwards... Hmmmm not good fun!

Therefore a solution had to be found! The most obvious solution was using the iMac to connect to the TV.  Seemed to be reasonable, so I bought a 10 meter long HDMI cable (€ 52, -). 

Thus the MacBook was again free to use as a notebook, as it was invented to be.

Since the iMac has more hard disk space and has 2 TB connected to it by external drives, it was also the best choice for playing the various video sources. I use the standard DVD-player from Apple, because this works very well for me and the Apple-remote works with it like a charm! So you have no need for buying other DVD-software!


And you know what? I even stopped using my stand alone DVD-player, every DVD is played by the Mac now! Steve Jobs would say: "Is't that great?" Hahahaha

Memory Upgrade

First of all the issue of the maximum quantity of RAM. Recently I’ve been told that the 32 bit Windows OS can use no more than 2 GB to RAM. Of course there are techniques or software for changing that, however, the standard OS does not support it.
On the WEB there is quite a bit of confusion concerning the availability of the RAM memory under Windows. So people claim this and others claim that, there seem to be no way of knowing what’s true or not.
More and more people can afford a memory upgrade, and more users have experiences with these greater amounts of RAM.

If you want to know more, Google on the subject and I guess then to the site of Microsoft as a main reference point, which I presume will not lie about what their OS can or can’t do.
It seems that the 2 GB limit has an effect on how much an application can use. So if you have like 4 GB installed (and recognised) the limit for application X = 2 GB. the other 2 GB can be used by another application. Sounds logical? Not really… if you have for example a heavyweight application such as graphical programmes, then you want to use all available RAM, right?
Nevertheless? As a Windows user I never had this problem because I did not have more than 1 GB installed at any time.
Apple, like so many times, is different! The amount of RAM you have installed, a application can use in full. And how much you can install is limited by your computer. For example a MacBook has a maximum of 2 GB, an iMac 4 GB, and a Mac pro has no limit or it should be something like 32 the GB!!!! Now I understand why Apple is such a big competitor in the graphic industry or for the individual user who want tot use as much memory as possible: audio editing, video editing, desktop publishing etc. A while ago I have ordered an RAM upgrade for both my Mac’s at http://www.interngeheugen.com/. With this upgrade I will bring my Mac’s to the maximum. My MacBook will go to 2 GB, and my iMac to 4 GB. After done some research on the WEB, I found out that there are much differences in the price you have to pay for the same size memory modules, however, it’s another brand. If you look on the official site of Apple, then you have to pay for a 2 GB upgrade for a MacBook: € 400, - whereas on the site I ordered my upgrade the same quantity of memory (’Kingston’ no small brand I think) I have to pay just € 52, -!!!

For the 4 GB upgrade of the iMac I paid € 95, - whereas the Apple store will bill you for the amount of nothing less than € 950, -
Question: why this massive difference? I have absolutely no idea! Why does Apple ask for an equivalent product so much more? The Apple site states that their product is much better, but this claim is not proven yet. The modules which you can buy elsewhere are by not definition worse. , and I believe the quality is the same. The only difference is the price you have to pay! I have this memory installed for many months now, and did not once have a problem! So people: watch out where you buy your memory modules. Wanna pay more: go to the Apple Store, wanna pay less, shop around and pick a good brand (like ‘Kinston’) for a bargain.

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Label Your Files With Color

On the Mac you can use color labels to mark files or folders you want to stick out, or simply mark them for any reason. Maybe you want certain files to stick out because you use them more often than others. This sounds very simple and that’s just what it is really. You will learn to like this method so much that when you are working on a Windows machine you would miss it enormously! Believe me this will happen to you too! ☺ This is one of innovations with which Apple distinguish themselves from the competition for many years now.
My first iMac ( 1998 ) had that functionality build in. So we are talking about nothing new here!
As a Windows user I did not miss this feature though. And the main reason was that I just did it in another way. A clumsy way really, lookin’ back at that period in time…
What you do not know, you can’t miss… right?
Now and again when working with one of my PC’s (yes I have more than one, to be precise; One stand alone Pentium 4 and a notebook Pentium 4) I have the feeling of missing the functionality of ‘marking’ my files and folders. One get used to do things a certain way I guess, and if this way of doing things is more intuitive, well you gonna miss it very soon in another environment!
In Windows I can’t mark files in any way, and that annoys me. I can’t distinguish one file from another in appearance. Yes I could use high caps… (right…) or use an exclamation mark to make the file go to the top when sorting on alphabet. But that’s about it, nothing more Windows can do to help me.
Lets say I have certain folder with a lot of files in it, and I want the files I use the most to appear important. So that when I look at the folder I see the most important files first. Common sense right?
With my Mac I can do just that. Normally I give these files a green label. I guess you all know the yellow marking pen you use to accentuate bits of text or words on paper, so it catches your eye immediately… the labeling method is kinda the same way.
On paper you can’t remove these accents though. On your Mac you can change whatever you want. Use a different label or remove it all together.
Another use of labeling I use very often is the labeling of downloaded music which I have or have not listened to yet.
When a certain track or album has been listened to; then I give it a green label. When I look at my music folder I see what I’ve listened to and what not. Very handy feature for a geek like me!
If I find a certain track or album worthless… well it gets a red color, so that I can throw it away at some point.
You could argue that I could simply throw it away immediately, well is a bit complicated… if I throw an album away while I have a complete discography of an artist it would make my collection incomplete. When marking red I know its not worth to listen to again.
We can also use the labels as an actual organizational tool!
By using the OS X Smart Folder feature, we can group files by the color of the label you chose. So for example, say you decided to mark all of your MP3's that you very much like with GREEN, you can then create a Smart Folder to automatically group all of these songs in one place. It then automatically updates whenever you label a new MP3 with that color. Nice!

Now lets create a Smart Folder to group all of files labeled with green into one folder.

1. Go to the Finder. In the menu bar at the very top of your screen, select File > New Smart Folder. A new Finder window will popup with no files inside.
2. Next we’ll be creating the “rule” that finds all the green-labeled files. In the upper-right corner of the new Finder window you will see a plus sign. Click on the plus sign to create a new rule.
3. You’ll see a couple of new drop-down items. Click on the first one that says “Kind” and select “Other…” from the bottom of the menu. You’ll be presented with numerous additional attributes you can use. We want to find the attribute called “File label” and select it. The select Okay.
4. The rule has now changed to let you pick the color label of your choice. In our example, we’ll select the green label. After selecting your label, your Mac will search all the files on your computer for any labeled with green and will then show you the results.
5. If you’d like, you can now save this Smart Folder by clicking on the Save button.
   
   

Nice Fonts on Apple Mac

Since my first Apple computer I have been astonished by the way text was presented on screen! Compared to my PC monitors the screen of my iMac was superb, but also the characters (fonts) were so much better looking on Mac than on my Windows computer; better readable.
I say astonished, but it was more an effect of surprise to see that there was a computer brand that made a difference, and made every thing look more nicely. For some reason Windows holds on to the screen presentation of fonts in a dot like way, whereas Apple always presented the fonts in a way that it seems there are no dots at all. Maybe that sounds complicated…
If you have or use a Windows machine, just look closely at the figures and characters on screen. Most of the characters seems to exist of a number of somewhat square cubes. For the elderly among us… it looks a bit like how a matrix printer reproduced fonts on paper.

In the image below (from Wikipedia) you can see what the difference is between the two methods. Apple presents fonts in the manner on the right, and Windows according to left. I have to say that the way a font is presented may vary because some applications overrule the OS. Normally the OS dictates the way for applications though. Because of this it’s possible that the standard
aliased font of Windows may be overruled by application ‘X’ so it will be ati-aliased.

Anyway, look at the pictures and ask yourself the question what you like best, which font and shape looks best?
If you ask me… the aliased one is way to ugly to be a in the competition! It looks so backdated! But hey, that’s what I think. Maybe you think anti-aliased fonts are too vague… and you like the crude lines for some reason. It’s a matter of taste really.

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The Apple Mac Experience!

My history with computers goes back a while. I started with a Commodore 64 and then an Atari ST and from that I went to ‘IBM’ computers, (my first was a Packard Bell 386) I got involved with PC’s and worked with these machines for a very long time. Every computing task thinkable was done with PC’s from spreadsheets and word processing, to optical character recognition (OCR). And of course I’ve played lots of games on PC’s!
Somewhat ten years ago I had my first Mac experience with the light blue iMac.
A good friend of mine introduced me to the world of Mac with such enthusiasm that I had to see and feel this for myself. I entered a brave new world of computing!
Especially I liked the way the Mac managed things differently, a refreshing new way of doing things. Just because of the fact that OS8 & OS9 where not capable of doing ‘everything’ I wanted to do with my computers, and to be more specific; do everything I could already do with my PC, I turned back to using my PC more than the Mac. It was a painful decision, because like I said I really liked this Mac. But hey… if it does not do everything you want or have to do… it’s a run race.

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Last year, on February 7th 2007 I bought for the amount of € 217,- an upgrade of ‘Vista’ Home Premium; Microsoft’s brand new operating system and was very disappointed in how it worked and what it did or did not do! I was so disappointed that after a few weeks of trying to get things working, I went to the local Apple store and bought myself a MacBook. With this my appreciation for the Apple brand was renewed.
In my future Blogging I will tell you all about why I like my Mac so much.

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