Apple Finally “Gets it” With New Magic Mouse

November 5, 2009 by admin · View Comments 

The Bottom Line:
If you’re a Mac owner and are looking to upgrade the lousy mouse that came with your system you will be very satisfied with the Apple Magic Mouse Those looking for more buttons and macro functionality should look at similarly priced products from Logitech and others.

Review:
Apple is known for elegantly designed products, but unfortunately its input devices have fallen short over the last decade or so. That all changes today. The Magic Mouse is the first Apple mouse in probably twenty years that lives up to the elegance of the products it will be connected to.

The entire mouse is touch sensitive, and surprisingly it actually works without many ‘false’ reads. The Magic Mouse is smart enough to detect finger movement for scrolling even when my palm is resting on the device.

A ‘momentum’ setting in the software driver gives your Mac the same type of scrolling behavior as the iPhone. Fast flicks of the finger scroll faster, while slower movements give finer control. It gets a little flaky when a scrollable form is embedded on a webpage, but these are things that can get worked out with future driver releases. Best of all most of the mouse behavior works in virtual environments like VMWare and Parallels.

Magic Mouse also has a very satisfying mechanical clicking system. Like the trackpad on the new Macbooks, it just feels right. Right clicking is available, but it must be configured first in the control panel.

I am puzzled that while Apple prides itself on designing non-replaceable rechargeable batteries into its products, the Magic Mouse runs on AA’s. Batteries are included, but they are not rechargeable. You’ll need to get your own charger and batteries if you wish to use rechargeables. Battery life is decent, and after three full work days I’m still at 90%.

PROs
Beautiful design with an innovative touch sensitive surface
Satisfying clicking mechanism
Seamless bluetooth connectivity

CONs
Only has two possible button combinations (click and right click)
Apple software update required before the mouse is fully functional (as of 11-3-09)
Right clicking needs to be configured in the control panel first
You’ll need a seperate battery charger if you wish to use rechargeables
Windows users won’t get the same functionality as Mac owners at this time

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Fix the Ugly Dock in Leopard

October 15, 2007 by admin · View Comments 

I’m going to do a little tech blogging this morning. I just upgraded all of my Macs to Apple’s new Leopard operating system. For the most part (beyond the usual first version bugs and compatibility issues) it’s a welcome improvement.

One thing I dislike about the upgrade are the changes they made to the dock.. To try and make it more aesthetically pleasing they made it more difficult to see what applications were currently running (the little dot underneath open apps blended into the background).

Thankfully there’s a fix. Simply type this command into terminal:

defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
then type killall Dock.

After you’re done the dock will appear and look like this:

Sometimes simple is better! If for some reason you want to return to the old/new dock, simply replace the “YES” in the above command to “NO.”

Filed under: Tech Tips
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