Posts

Posted on

Review: HandShoeMouse

One of the things I enjoy about going to Macworld Expo is finding something I didn’t know I needed. A few weeks back, I was diagnosed with tendonitis in my right arm. I’ve been wearing a brace on it and trying to do some exercises to help it. At Macworld Expo, I stumbled upon a booth for an ergonomic mouse.

I’m not a huge mouse person as I have been using trackballs for many years. However, I listened to the HandShoeMouse pitch, put my hand on a mouse and within minutes, I bought one. This mouse was not cheap (it cost $89 which apparently is a $40 savings), but how much is my health worth? I use a computer all day long and if I have pain, it will seriously impact my ability to earn money, so it is a small investment.

I’ve been using the mouse for about 2 weeks now and am pretty used to it by now. The only quirk I’ve had is that it goes to sleep and you have to press a button on the mouse to wake it up. The developers of this mouse have really put a lot of time and thought into it. It has a rechargable battery that recharges via USB when it gets low; and the light on the scrollwheel lights up when you need it to recharge. They were also very insisitent that they didn’t want it to have any drivers which sold me even more; plug and play.

Time will only tell if this mouse will help me, but it is definitely worth looking at if you use a computer for long periods of time which these days is just about everyone I know.

Pros

  • Glides smoothly on my desk.
  • Very comfortable.
  • Wireless.
  • Very accurate tracking (I got the BluRay Track version.
  • May prove to help with RSI.

Cons

  • High cost.
  • Feels weird using a mouse having used a trackball for many years.
  • Scroll wheel sometimes feels like it is slipping.
  • Takes a second or two to wake when it has gone to sleep; you have to wake it by pressing a button as moving it does nothing.

Summary

I’m pretty pleased with this purchase and am hopeful that it will help with my current injury and help prevent future ones. I still need to look into getting a very smooth mousepad as my desk is a little rough and I’d like a bit less friction when moving the mouse; maybe they could have included one, but I guess mousepads are a dime a dozen these days (maybe not the real smooth ones).

Posted on

Shareware or Freeware?

I was taking a look at programs to go with my new Forerunner 405 and stumbled upon TrailRunner and am fairly impressed. The author says it is donation-ware as he doesn’t have time to support it and people would expect support. That’s fine and dandy, but if you don’t donate, you get a reminder when you launch the app to donate. So what is the difference between shareware and donation-ware that nags you? In my opinion, there is no difference. The author wants 25 Euros for the app to get rid of the screen.

While the application looks well done, I have a problem with what the author is doing. He should either make it free without a nag (and accept donations) or make it shareware. It is misleading, in my opinion, to say it’s free, but nag you at every startup to donate. Will this prevent me from buying (let’s face it, it is not a donation), I’m not sure. I like how it presents the data and like the mapping, but this really irks me.

Hey author, wake up and make your app shareware. You’d actually be surprised how much well written software can earn you and then you can stop making excuses on why you can’t support the software.

Posted on

What not to include in a Mac application

I just got a Garmin Forerunner 405 and will be posting a review in the near future. However, I just had to post about the Garmin ANT Agent software. After seeing an erroneous dialog about a new network interface and thinking that the developers need a lesson in Mac development (I can’t connect to the Internet with the GPS unit!), I decided to poke around in the application.

I found files called DefaultGarminDebugSettings.xcconfig and DefaultGarminReleaseSettings.xcconfig. These files are used by developers to build the application, but should NEVER be shipped with an application. To me, this shows a development team that isn’t all that familiar with Xcode and Macintosh development. While it might have just been a mistake, this is kind of the icing on the cake to me of a poorly written application. Since the Garmin ANT application has to run in order to transfer data, there was really no need to install a kernel extension as all the USB communications should be doable via userspace calls. Anyone that has ever dealt with a kernel extension knows that they’re hard to develop, hard to debug, and could make a computer less stable.

While Garmin has made great strides in supporting the Mac, I’d like to see Garmin invest a little money on developing quality Mac software.

Posted on

End of Garmin Forerunner 305

Today, I got all my gear ready to go for a run and found that my trusted Garmin Forerunner 305 failed to turn on. I put it back in the charger and it went from Charging in Progress to Charging Completed. The device turned on when connected to the charger, but when I removed it, it died. So, the battery on it is toast.

My options are:

  1. Get a replacement battery by sending to to Garmin. Cost unknown.
  2. Get a new Forerunner 305
    . About $150 from Amazon.
  3. Get a Forerunner 405
    . About $350 from Amazon (-$50 rebate).
  4. Don’t use anything.

My Forerunner 305 lasted almost 4 years, so I’m pretty pleased with how long the battery lasted. While a replacement battery would probably be the cheapest option, I’ve been having problems with the speaker on it, so I have no idea when that will go out. A replacement is the second, least attractive option. As I’ve been wanting to get the 405 for a number of reasions, I’m using this as an excuse to upgrade (like I need an excuse)!

Once I get the device and start using it, I’ll write a review. I’m sure the review won’t be as popular as my Forerunner 305 review that still gets comments almost 4 years later, but I’ll write something.

Hey Garmin, if you want to send me something to review, I won’t send it back!

Posted on

Useless Time Capsule Feature

I finally got around to backing up my Time Capsule last weekend as I needed an offsite backup for it. While I have an offsite backup for my MacBook Pro, I didn’t have an offsite backup for my Time Capsule which has my wife’s backup on it as well as my own Time Machine backup. The AirPort utility has an option to archive the Time Capsule to a USB hard drive. There are 2 problems with this option; 1) it is all or nothing with no incremental option and 2) using it takes the Time Capsule off the network for the entire backup. When I did the backup (before I discovered #2), it took about 6 hours to backup.

So, using this option is obviously not geared towards people like me that want to do an offsite backup every week. I realize that I’m not the average user, but how hard would it have been to put an rsync-like feature so that incremental backups can be performed. So now I mount a backup drive on my media center machine and mount the Time Capsule volume; then I do an rsync and can do an incremental backup. Time Capsule stores backups as sparse disc images with bands that are about 8 MB, so the entire disc image “file” doesn’t have to get backed up.

This is not as easy as it could be, but now I’ll be able to store a backup offsite on a weekly basis.

Posted on

The iPad: What has Apple done?

When I read the live blogs of Apple’s announcement last week, I kind of thought that the device has pretty uninteresting to me as an individual. I did, however, think that it had great potential for vertical markets. Medical records and pre-hospital emergency care come to mind immediately. There are, of course, lots of other potential vertical markets for it. At $500, the device is quite cheap for a vertical market.

A day after the announcement, I went to Apple’s Web site and after watching Apple’s video, my view on the device for a consumer, has changed dramatically. The device looks very cool and I could definitely see myself using one for surfing the web on the couch or reading books (I sometimes use my ancient Sony eBook reader).

As pointed out on the MacBreak Weekly podcast, Apple has basically created a device that people didn’t think they needed into a device that lots of people will believe they need. Only time will tell if this is true, but I would not be surprised if it was.

As someone who has written iPhone applications and has been a long time Cocoa/Objective-C developer, I’m excited to start developing applications, even if they are not my own ideas. I love writing code and a “new” platform will make things very interesting.

Now I just have to figure out how to justify purchasing one or find someone to buy me one!

Posted on

Alarmist News Reporting

While it shouldn’t surprise me to have news programs try to increase ratings by alarming the public, I was quite disappointed by NBC’s Nightly News on Saturday. Here’s my letter to them:

On Saturday’s Nightly News, you had a story about the Toyota Recall. In the story, you highlight a retired orthopedic surgeon who had an issue with his 2005 Toyota Highlander hybrid. This model vehicle is NOT part of the current recall and either you know something that Toyota doesn’t or your story is trying to alarm the public. The recall only covers certain new model Highlanders; as an owner of a 2003 Highlander, I didn’t pay much attention to it. Your story didn’t make it clear that this story had nothing to do with the current recall. While the doctor highlighted may have had issues with his vehicle, I think it is quite irresponsible for you to do a story on an issue that has nothing to back it up; one person had an issue with an older car.

I would appreciate seeing a clarification to this story.

We’ll see if NBC does anything. Toyota does have a huge problem, but this story could likely make it even worse.

Posted on

Violating a privacy policy

Today I received a survey from the congressman that serves my area, Duncan Hunter. (Notice I didn’t say my congressman, I don’t think he serves my interests.). The survey was sent to an email address that I used once to fill out a form to tell the congressman to stop sending paper newsletters.

Well, it turns out that the congressman has violated the United States House Of Representatives Privacy policy which states:

Any personally-identifying information which you choose to provide. For example your mailing address, in an electronic mail message or web form requesting information or commenting on current legislative issues. Information collected in this manner is used solely for information and, in some cases, to respond to you. Please also see Security and Policy Notices posted on individual Member, Committee and other House office web sites for information on how individual offices may use the data you choose to provide them via forms on their sites.

It doesn’t say that I can be contacted for a survey, does it? Furthermore, there was no unsubscribe link in the survey. This is almost a violation of the CAN-SPAM act as the act requires a way to opt-out. However, since this wasn’t an ad, it probably doesn’t violate it.

Duncan Hunter, stop sending me unsolicited paper and electronic mail. While you are trying to use technology to be in touch with your constituents, you are doing it in a way to further tick us (me) off.

Posted on

Shifting the blame

When I see kiosks with Windows error messages, I usually love to blame Windows as I’m a life long (OK, I was 16 when I got my first Mac) Mac user so Windows is an easy target. Several weeks ago, I was at the San Diego airport picking up my wife and son when I saw an error on one of the displays. I realized that the displays were still running and the only problem was the crash message on the screen. I attribute this error to the person that setup the kiosk. Software is going to crash running most operating consumer operating systems (Mac OS and Windows primarily), so whoever sets up the kiosk needs to do whatever is possible to make sure the kiosk or display keeps running. This includes background processes to monitor the foreground processes and vice versa. In addition, all error messages need to be suppressed. Mac OS X has a command line option

defaults write com.apple.CrashReporter DialogType server

to prevent the crash dialog from coming up. I can only imagine that Windows has something similar.

I’ve worked on a kiosk system before and setting them up is not trivial. It takes a lot of thinking and failure design to get it right.

Posted on

Fixing broken laws

I’ve written before about the California hands free cell phone law and how useless it is. While studies say that hands free still distracts people (my wife says that I’m distracted when I’m just talking to her in the car), a hands free law is a start to getting people to focus on the road.

On Saturday, as we were driving back from REI, we turned onto Convoy Terrace near the Air National Guard base when I saw a truck from A-Pot Rentals coming out of the base and moving in the same direction I was going. The driver was in the right lane and I was in the left lane; he was yapping on his phone and changed into my lane right where I was. Luckily there was a turn lane and no oncoming cars, so I was able to move into the turn lane and get around the driver.

This driver was clearly distracted by illegally using his cell phone while driving. I called the company later that day and the person that answered didn’t seem to really care. If the driver had hit me, I’m sure the family owned company would have cared! Why can’t people just get off their phones and drive? The fines need to be increased and enforced to discourage people from violating the law. How about raising the fine to $500 for the first offense, $1000 for the second offense as well as driving over the cell phone, and $5000 for the third offense? Maybe that would get people to think twice about talking while driving.