TidBITS#696/08-Sep-03
=====================
Wireless buffalo, a new way to block spam, and floating mice:
TidBITS is full of surprises this week. Newly crowned Contributing
Editor Glenn Fleishman expands his AirPort network with Buffalo
routers. Adam looks at Eudora 6.0, including its new SpamWatch
feature. Keith Kaiser thinks beyond the mouse pad with Gyration's
Ultra gyroscopic mouse. In the news, we welcome Fetch Softworks
as a new sponsor, announce the winner of last week's DealBITS
drawing, look at iTunes Music Store sales, and note releases
of new iMacs, larger iPods, Salling Clicker 2.0, and FileMaker
Pro Applications.
Topics:
MailBITS/08-Sep-03
AirPorts Where the Buffalo Roam
Eudora 6.0 Slams Spam, Concentrates Content
Talkin' About My Gyration
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/08-Sep-03
<http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-696.html>
<ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/2003/TidBITS#696_08-Sep-03.etx>
Copyright 2003 TidBITS Electronic Publishing. All rights reserved.
Information: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Comments: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
---------------------------------------------------------------
This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* READERS LIKE YOU! Help keep TidBITS great via our voluntary <------ NEW!
contribution program. Special thanks this week to John Thomson,
Christian Heurich, and Andrew James for their generous support!
<http://www.tidbits.com/about/support/contributors.html>
* SMALL DOG ELECTRONICS: G4 Xserves with RAID! <--------------------- NEW!
Xserve 1GHzDP Plus Xserve 720GB RAID $7299! Xserve 1.33GHz w/
Xserve 720GB RAID $7499! Xserve 1.33GHzDP w/720GB RAID $8149!
Visit: <http://www.smalldog.com/tb/> 802-496-7171
* SIX DEGREES: Automatically link messages, files and people so <---- NEW!
you can navigate through projects quickly. Great timesaver!
Works with Microsoft Entourage and Outlook. Free trial version!
=======> <http://www.creo.com/sixdegrees/index.asp?id=tidbits>
* Keynote for Mac OS X VQS: Apple's 97-page weakling of a manual <--- NEW!
documents the obvious, whereas Tom Negrino's 275 pages provide
tons of tips and advice for making great Keynote presentations.
30% OFF/FREE SHIPPING! <http://www.tidbits.com/tbp/knvqs.html>
* Bare Bones Software TextWrangler 1.5 -- General-purpose tool for <- NEW!
composing, modifying, and transforming text. Now with full
AppleScript support! US$49. For more info, to download a demo,
or to purchase a copy, visit <http://www.barebones.com/>.
* FETCH SOFTWORKS: $5 off Fetch, the original Mac FTP client, only <- NEW!
for TidBITS readers. If you use FTP, you need Fetch!
Use coupon code CPN299257375 when you order through 30-Sep-03!
Download your copy of Fetch today: <http://fetchsoftworks.com/>
---------------------------------------------------------------
MailBITS/08-Sep-03
------------------
**DealBITS Drawing: Tom Bihn Winner** -- Congratulations to long-
time TidBITS reader Harold Kite of usit.net, whose entry was
chosen randomly in our first ever DealBITS drawing. Harold will
be receiving a Tom Bihn Brain Bag and laptop case worth $180.
Everyone else who entered has received a coupon code good for
a 20 percent discount on any Tom Bihn product. Thanks to the
1,295 people who entered, making this first DealBITS drawing
a huge success! Keep an eye out for future DealBITS drawings
coming soon. [ACE]
<http://www.tombihn.com/>
<http://www.tidbits.com/dealbits/tom-bihn.html>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07327>
**Fetch Softworks Sponsoring TidBITS** -- We're pleased to
announce our latest long-term sponsor, Fetch Softworks, makers of
the Mac's longest-standing FTP client, Fetch. Jim Matthews first
created Fetch for Dartmouth College back in 1989, and Dartmouth
soon made it available for free for educational institutions and
non-profits, and as shareware for everyone else. Fetch quickly
outpaced all the other Macintosh FTP clients of the time, programs
like HyperFTP, XferIt, and others I wrote about in the first
edition of Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh in 1993. That was
when I started corresponding with Jim, and I ended up including
Fetch on the book's disk with other such influential software
as MacTCP, Eudora, and StuffIt Expander.
Unfortunately, Jim had other responsibilities at Dartmouth and
for a number of years wasn't able to devote all his time to
Fetch, causing development to lag. Fetch Softworks came into
being in December of 2000, when Jim went almost all the way on
the television show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" and used
some of his winnings to buy Fetch's name and source code from
Dartmouth. Working mostly on his own, Jim has maintained Fetch's
basic look and feel while bringing the program up to speed on
Mac OS X and retaining compatibility all the way back to System 7.
There are plenty of other FTP clients now, but whenever I run into
problems with wacky FTP servers, I always turn to Fetch, which
handles them with aplomb thanks to its long years of evolution
during a less-standardized time on the Internet. Just recently,
Jim brought on noted Macintosh programmer Miro Jurisic, who has
twice won the MacHax Group's Best Hack Contest at MacHack, so we
may see revisions to Fetch a bit more quickly than in the past.
<http://fetchsoftworks.com/>
To kick off their sponsorship, Fetch Softworks is offering $5 off
Fetch exclusively for TidBITS readers, so be sure to check out the
sponsorship area above for the necessary coupon code. [ACE]
**iMacs Speed and Ports Bumped** -- Apple refreshed its iMac line
today, bumping the processor speed up to 1.25 MHz and improving
components on both the 17-inch and 15-inch models. The $1,800
17-inch iMac receives the top-speed PowerPC G4 processor and a
fast 167 MHz system bus, and includes 256 MB of SDRAM, an 80 GB
hard drive, a 4x SuperDrive, and an Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 Ultra
graphics card with 64 MB of RAM. The $1,300 15-inch model has been
upgraded to a 1 GHz PowerPC G4 processor with 167 MHz system bus,
and includes 256 MB of SDRAM, an 80 GB hard drive, a 32x Combo
drive, and the Nvidia GeForce4 MX graphics card with 32 MB of
RAM. Both models include the same port configurations as previous
models, with a slight twist: the three USB ports on the computer
are faster USB 2.0 ports (the two ports on the keyboard remain
USB 1.1). FireWire 800 ports, which debuted on the Power Mac G4,
have yet to appear on the iMac line. Also, both iMacs now support
AirPort Extreme (with the purchase of a $100 card), and can
include an internal Bluetooth model (available as a $50 build-
to-order option). Both configurations are available now. [JLC]
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/sep/08imac.html>
<http://www.apple.com/imac/>
**20 GB and 40 GB iPods Debut** -- Apple today announced the
release of 20 GB and 40 GB iPods, replacing the 15 GB and 30 GB
models in the current lineup. The 10 GB model remains available
for $300, the 20 GB model is $400, and the 40 GB model costs
$500. There are no other changes. The larger drives are certainly
welcome, and it's interesting to see Apple taking advantage of
hard drive size increases and price reductions by increasing
iPod storage capacity while keeping prices static. Although a
much cheaper iPod would undoubtedly be welcome, the economics
of hard drive manufacturing often result in this sort of pattern,
so Apple may not have too much room to maneuver, particularly
while maintaining the iPod's high margins. It's hard to argue
too much, given that the one million iPods Apple has sold so far
have undoubtedly helped the company's financial position. [ACE]
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/sep/08ipod.html>
<http://www.apple.com/ipod/>
**iTunes Music Store Sells Ten Millionth Song** -- Apple announced
today that after about four months the iTunes Music Store has
sold its ten millionth song (in an ironic comment on the state
of online music, the song was Avril Lavigne's "Complicated").
It's an impressive number, and although there's no telling what
Apple's costs in running the store are, it probably contributed
at least $3 million to Apple's bottom line in a quarter of the
year. The sales rate seems to have stabilized, as you can see if
you look at Apple's published numbers. It took 7 days for Apple
to reach 1 million songs sold, 16 days to reach 2 million songs
sold, 56 days to make it to 5 million songs, and 133 days to hit
10 million. It's not surprising that Apple wouldn't be able to
maintain the initial burst of enthusiasm past the first two weeks,
but if you eliminate them from consideration, you can see that
days 17 through 56 averaged about 75,000 songs per day sold,
and days 57 through 133 saw an average of about 65,000 songs
per day sold.
That's not too shabby, considering that the iTunes Music Store
is basically limited to Macintosh users who are running Mac OS X,
have broadband Internet connections, and an interest in purchasing
music online. If market share numbers were to be believed, that's
at most 5 percent of the overall market that becomes available
when Apple opens the iTunes Music Store to Windows users (expected
before the end of the year). Personally, I doubt Apple's current
song sales would make up just 5 percent of the combined sales
to both Mac and Windows users, but that's because I think market
share numbers are about as meaningful as statistics cited in
political debates. [ACE]
<http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/sep/08musicstore.html>
<http://www.apple.com/music/store/>
**Salling Clicker 2.0 Adds Palm Support** -- Salling Software has
released Salling Clicker 2.0, updating the popular utility for
controlling a Mac from a Bluetooth-capable device (see "Salling
Clicker in Action" in TidBITS-694_). Formerly available only for
owners of select Sony Ericsson cellular phones, version 2.0 adds
compatibility with Bluetooth-enabled Palm handhelds such as the
Tungsten T and Tungsten T2. Unique to the Palm is the capability
to display images from your iPhoto library on the handheld. This
version also features "live-updating" for viewing current Clicker-
related activity; for example, you can see the progression of a
song in iTunes or read slide notes during a Keynote or PowerPoint
presentation. For phone owners, the proximity sensor function has
been enhanced with activity awareness, automatically performing
actions based on the phone's state (such as pausing iTunes when a
call comes in). Also, Salling Clicker features an improved Visual
Keypad Editor for assigning tasks to hardware buttons on phones
or Palm devices. The update also adds support for the Sony
Ericsson T616 phone. Salling Clicker 2.0 is available in two
configurations: the phone version costs $10 (and is a free upgrade
for existing registered users); the Palm version costs $15. Each
requires Mac OS X 10.2.6 or later, and is a 1.9 MB download. [JLC]
<http://clicker.salling.com/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07320>
**FileMaker Releases Two FileMaker Applications** -- FileMaker is
going in a new direction with its long-standing FileMaker Pro
database software. In addition to developing the database
applications themselves, the company will also sell FileMaker
Applications, a series of task-specific programs developed using
FileMaker Pro which - unlike most custom FileMaker solutions -
are unlocked to enable customization and extension by FileMaker
Pro developers. Although FileMaker Applications are designed
to provide instant solutions to data management tasks often
overlooked or poorly managed by organizations, by requiring
FileMaker Pro 6 they're also intended to spur upgrades and
sales of FileMaker Pro itself.
<http://www.filemaker.com/applications/>
The first two FileMaker Applications are Recruiter and Meetings.
Recruiter offers tools for managing contacts and candidate data
so users can quickly figure out "who knows who" and "who worked
with who," along with tools for managing background information,
reporting on organizational structure, email tools, plus more
common contact management and reporting capabilities. Meetings
offers tools for developing agendas, tracking tasks and action
items, sharing meeting minutes, and automating repetitive email.
Both FileMaker Applications are available online from FileMaker's
online store and require the $300 FileMaker Pro 6 to run; Meetings
costs $50, and Recruiter is priced at $300. [GD]
<http://www.filemaker.com/applications/recruiter_home.html>
<http://www.filemaker.com/applications/meetings_home.html>
**Glenn Fleishman Joins TidBITS** -- We've always tried to keep
the TidBITS organization lean (though not mean), but our friend
and colleague Glenn Fleishman has helped out for so long and in
so many ways that we had to make it official. He's now a TidBITS
contributing editor, joining Mark Anbinder and Matt Neuburg in
that august position. As a contributing editor, Glenn's entitled
to the full set of TidBITS perks, including a prime parking spot,
use of the company apartment (both at TidBITS headquarters in
Ithaca, NY, of course), use of the royal "we" in articles, and
a tidbits.com email address that works anywhere in the world.
Welcome to TidBITS, Glenn! [ACE]
AirPorts Where the Buffalo Roam
-------------------------------
by Glenn Fleishman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
We've written in the past about the feature in Apple's AirPort
Extreme Base Station that allows you to connect several base
stations together wirelessly to form a larger network (see
"AirPort Extreme: In the Key of G" in TidBITS-663_). This cool
feature goes by the name Wireless Distribution System (WDS),
and it's actually a semi-standard specification also found in
devices made by manufacturers other than Apple. But Apple and
other companies have told us that they are neither focusing on
compatibility nor formally testing equipment from other makers.
So we decided to try it ourselves.
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07047>
<http://www.apple.com/airport/>
Buffalo Technology was kind enough to loan me a few of their
WLA-G54 802.11g access points to test their version of WDS for the
book Adam and I are working on right now, The Wireless Networking
Starter Kit, 2nd Edition. I found that Buffalo's WLA-G54s easily
attached themselves as "remote" nodes of an AirPort Extreme Base
Station network. I opened the AirPort Admin Utility and connected
to the AirPort Extreme Base Station in my office. I clicked Show
All Settings, selected the WDS tab, and enabled the AirPort
Extreme Base Station as a WDS. I then clicked the plus sign to
specify the base stations to use as remotes and relays. Amazingly,
the AirPort Admin Utility presented the Buffalo WLA-G54 for me to
select as a remote. I hadn't yet configured the Buffalo access
point - I had just turned it on. But the AirPort Admin Utility
lists all of the access points that the AirPort Extreme Base
Station can see. (Had that not happened, I could have manually
entered the MAC addresses of the WLA-G54s in AirPort Admin
Utility.)
<http://www.buffalotech.com/wireless/products/airstation/wlag54.php>
The Buffalo WLA-G54 is a pure wireless access point without any
gateway features, like assigning IP addresses via DHCP. That's
fine, since I'd have to turn off those features in a distributed
network anyway. So what's the utility of the Buffalo WLA-G54 for
Mac users? Cost: although AirPort Extreme Base Stations start at
a reasonable $200, you can find the WLA-G54 for as low as $100,
making it a cheaper way of extending your Wi-Fi network.
Keep in mind that using WDS does impact performance for the
entire network, since each remote must receive every packet and
retransmit them wirelessly with a single radio. That's probably
not a huge problem with the 25 Mbps of real-world throughout that
802.11g is capable of in most situations, but you should be aware
of it. If you need the fastest performance, stick with creating a
roaming network by connecting multiple access points via 100 Mbps
wired Ethernet and setting them to use different channels but the
same network name. If you're interested in learning more about the
nitty gritty of WDS, I've written a more technical article on the
subject that appeared last week on O'Reilly Networks.
<http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/wireless/2003/08/28/wireless_bridging.html>
PayBITS: Did Glenn help bridge a gap in your wireless network?
Consider distributing a few bucks in his direction via PayPal!
<https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=glenn%40glennf.com>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Eudora 6.0 Slams Spam, Concentrates Content
-------------------------------------------
by Adam C. Engst <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Last week Qualcomm released Eudora 6.0, a major upgrade to the
company's venerable email client. Eudora's marquee feature is
SpamWatch, a new plug-in that employs Bayesian filtering to move
spam-like messages to a new top-level Junk folder, but there are a
few other welcome changes for users of both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X.
<http://www.eudora.com/>
**SpamWatch** -- There's no question that spam is by far the worst
problem facing email users today. I've personally received about
39,000 pieces of spam this year, and that's even with our mail
server performing (admitedly conservative) spam blocking. Eudora
6.0 addresses the spam problem with the addition of SpamWatch, a
plug-in that employs Bayesian filtering to move spam-like messages
to a new top-level Junk folder. Eudora ships pre-trained, so it
will start working immediately, but you can (and should) still
train it by marking spam it misses using the Junk command, and
marking legitimate messages it catches incorrectly with the Not
Junk command. A new Junk Mail settings panel lets you set the
threshold at which Eudora should consider a message junk (mine
is set to a score of 50; the range is 0 for mail that's definitely
spam to 100 for messages that just ooze spaminess), and a host
of other useful settings relating to SpamWatch.
<http://www.eudora.com/email/features/spamwatch.html>
In my use since it first appeared for testers in April of 2003,
SpamWatch has proven quite accurate, with a false positive rate
well under 1 percent. False negatives are low as well, with only
a couple of mistakes per day. I can't be more specific because
Qualcomm wasn't able to add spam-catching statistics to Eudora's
statistics window in time for the 6.0 release. I strongly hope
that will appear in Eudora 6.1.
The false positive rate is so low in part because Eudora
whitelists messages from senders who are in your Address Book, and
if you mark an incorrectly identified message as Not Junk, Eudora
automatically records that sender in your Address Book so as to
reduce the chance of a future mistake even more. That should work
for most people, but for those like me, who receive mail from
many people who would not otherwise be in your Address Book, try
these two tricks to populate your Address Book. First, if you have
mailing lists where you want to ensure that messages from those
subscribers (like TidBITS Talk for me) are never marked as spam,
add the Remember Sender action to the filter that moves messages
to the appropriate mailbox. Second, consider using Robert
Woodhead's free BoxSweeper program to extract all the email
addresses from your stored mailboxes of legitimate mail; that
way you can be sure no one who has sent you legitimate mail in
the past will be caught, assuming they use the same address.
Remember, though, that spam that forges an address in your Address
Book (like your own address!) will always make it past SpamWatch,
so you may need to prune your Address Book judiciously.
<http://www.madoverlord.com/Projects/BOXSWEEPER.t>
The fact that SpamWatch is a plug-in is significant, since it
means that other developers will also be able to create anti-spam
plug-ins for Eudora that are far better integrated than was
possible in the past. In fact, Michael Tsai, developer of the
SpamSieve spam fighting tool, is already working on a beta plug-in
that will integrate Eudora 6.0 and the forthcoming SpamSieve 2.0.
Although Eudora's own SpamWatch is doing an awfully good job right
now, I think there will be room for other tools, particularly as
spammers learn how to circumvent basic Bayesian filters.
<http://www.c-command.com/spamsieve/>
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07076>
**Content Concentrator** -- SpamWatch is designed to handle the
massive influx of spam, but another new feature, the Content
Concentrator, is aimed at helping you manage the influx of
legitimate mail. The Content Concentrator enhances the preview
pane in any mailbox window in two ways (click the expansion
triangle in the lower left corner of a mailbox window to show
the preview pane).
<http://www.eudora.com/email/features/content_concentrator.html>
First, it hides excessive quoted text in an effort to help you
focus on just the new text in a single message. I find this useful
in mailboxes where I keep the preview pane relatively small, since
I can still get an idea for what's in the message without opening
its window.
Second, if you use Eudora's Option-click shortcut to select
multiple messages by sender or subject (a feature of unparalleled
utility and all-around goodness that I use constantly), the
Content Concentrator displays all the selected messages (hiding
quoted text as appropriate) in the preview pane. It's great for
reading mailing list threads quickly.
The Content Concentrator takes a little getting used to. I often
use Eudora's type-to-select feature followed by the Option-click
shortcut to select messages so I can find a specific one, and the
Content Concentrator can get in the way a bit at that point. Also,
if you read a mailing list thread in the preview pane using the
Content Concentrator, Eudora doesn't currently mark those messages
as read, nor does it differentiate in any way between concentrated
messages that were read versus those that weren't.
Of course, remember that the Content Concentrator is just hiding
headers and quoted text temporarily; if you open a message in
its own window, everything appears as it should. If you don't
like the Content Concentrator, or want to make it show more or
less information, or work only with single or multiple messages,
a new Content Concentrator settings panel provides the necessary
options.
**Look and Feel** -- People love to complain about how ugly Eudora
is, although by now, I suspect that its interface is a major part
of its charm for many long-time users. Qualcomm usually responds
with a few cosmetic changes in each release, and Eudora 6.0 brings
with it completely new toolbar and system icons. Also gone is the
tow truck icon that you could use to drag an open message to a
mailbox; now you drag an envelope icon in the title bar, much as
you can drag folder icons in Finder window title bars.
More significant for Mac OS X users is the addition of a drawer
to the right side of mailbox windows; you open and close it with
a little button in the upper right corner of each mailbox window.
The drawer essentially shows the contents of Eudora's Mailboxes
window, with a hierarchical list of all mailboxes inside. You can
click a mailbox to open it in the current window, double-click one
to open it in its own window, drag messages to them, and so on.
Mailboxes with unread messages appear with their names bold and
underlined. You cannot add or remove mailboxes or folders from it;
stick with the Mailboxes window for that.
I'm hesitant to recommend the mailboxes drawer. Eudora is designed
around multiple windows, and my different mailboxes display
differently. Some eschew the preview pane entirely, others display
it relatively small, and a few use it as the primary viewing area.
Using the mailboxes drawer to switch among mailboxes restricts me
to one setting for the preview pane.
I also find transferring messages by dragging them to mailboxes
much more difficult than using Eudora's Transfer menu (for which
you don't have to keep the mouse button down the entire time).
Finally, since many of my filters open mailboxes that receive new
mail, I often ended up confused about which mailboxes were open
and why. I turned off automatic mailbox opening to give the
single-window view a chance, but I'll be going back to the
multiple window approach as soon as I find the time to edit
my filters. It simply doesn't match the way I like to work
with email.
One last, and extremely welcome change: in Mac OS X, Eudora is now
a self-contained application package, making it a better Mac OS X
citizen. That also means you can turn plug-ins on and off via the
Get Info window in the Finder.
**What's Missing** -- In almost any major release, some people
will be disappointed, and those looking for an overhaul of
Eudora's increasingly creaky filtering system won't find any
major changes in Eudora 6.0. Eudora still doesn't use Apple's
Address Book, although the more I see other applications trying
to tie into Apple's Address Book, the more I'm unsure that
it's currently a good universal solution because different
applications have different requirements from a contact database.
Also unchanged is Eudora's HTML parser, which enables Eudora to
display HTML mail in a readable way most of the time, but not
much more. I hope Qualcomm will replace the internal parser with
Apple's recently released WebKit, which is the HTML rendering
engine at the heart of Safari.
That said, there are oodles of other minor tweaks, improvements,
and bug fixes in Eudora 6.0, and you can read all about them
in the release notes. There's also no question that Eudora
remains the most configurable email client on the planet, thanks
to the way it provides access to hundreds of internal settings
that are off-limits in other programs. I've updated the list of
x-eudora-settings that I maintain; get it by sending email to
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. Put ADD in the Subject line
if you'd like to receive future revisions automatically.
<http://www.eudora.com/download/eudora/mac/6.0/Release_Notes.txt>
**Upgrading & Versions** -- Eudora remains available in three
modes, switchable by choosing Payment & Registration from Eudora's
Help menu. Paid mode provides all of Eudora's features for
$50. Upgrades are free if you purchased a Paid mode subscription
within the last 12 months; they cost $40 if you have a Paid mode
registration code from Eudora 4.3 or later; and you must buy a
new copy for $50 if you're a new user or have a registration code
for a version of Eudora older than 4.3.
<http://www.eudora.com/email/upgrade/>
Sponsored mode is also free, and lets you use Eudora's entire
feature set except for SpamWatch in return for showing you an
ad window with rotating ads and using up to three toolbar buttons
to link to advertisers. Personally, I couldn't survive without
something like SpamWatch, but if you don't receive much spam and
don't mind the ads, Sponsored mode works fine.
Light mode eliminates all the ads, but also reduces the feature
set significantly, making it a fine option for someone who needs a
basic email program without all the bells and whistles for free.
Eudora 6.0 is a 4.4 MB download for Mac OS 9 users, and a 4.2 MB
download for Mac OS X users.
<http://www.eudora.com/download/>
PayBITS: Did Adam's insights into Eudora help you tame
your email? Consider sending him a few bucks via PayBITS!
Amazon: <http://www.amazon.com/paypage/P3AQT7G7WC4EUK>
PayPal: <https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=ace%40tidbits.com>
Read more about PayBITS: <http://www.tidbits.com/paybits/>
Talkin' About My Gyration
-------------------------
by Keith Kaiser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
I'm easily the most relaxed Mac user anywhere.
Let me explain: My reclining chair is surrounded by my technology,
made up of four or five remotes, cordless phones and cell phones,
remote light switches, and of course a laptop table with my
AirPort-enabled iBook. When friends come over it's not uncommon
to find me browsing the Web while listening to iTunes or my
iPod, surfing for the latest Mac software, and watching CNN
on television in the background, all at the same time. However,
all that work on the iBook's trackpad was starting to take its
toll. My wrist and hand were becoming numb, and often my ring
and pinkie fingers were cramped beyond use. On top of that,
my forearm was always tired from being held at an unusual angle,
because the laptop table was higher than the arm of the chair.
Clearly this situation had to change.
The solution turned out to be the Gyration Ultra Cordless Mouse.
Unlike other wireless mice, the Ultra uses radio waves to
communicate with the computer, and to my knowledge is the first to
employ small gyroscopes to determine its relative position. This
means it can be used on a hard surface like a normal three-button
optical mouse, or you can operate it in the air (on no surface).
The device itself is shaped unlike any other mouse. You grab it
like a fishing pole or a hand shake. An activation trigger, which
you use when you want to use the Ultra off the table, falls right
under your index finger, leaving your thumb free to use either the
right or left button and the scroll wheel.
<http://www.gyration.com/ultra.htm>
The Ultra uses non-replaceable, rechargeable, NiMH batteries,
which are recharged using an included mouse cradle and charger.
A separate receiver plugs into your Mac's USB port.
To outfit my computer "loungestation," I used a piece of Velcro to
secure the receiver to the bottom of my laptop table, conveniently
hiding it and storing it out of harm's way at the same time. The
mouse sits in the included charger/cradle next to the iBook,
taking up no more room than a normal mouse, which makes it easy
to pick up when I need it.
Gyration claims that the mouse has a range of about 25 feet (7.6
m). Another model with 100-foot (30.5 m) range is also available,
but only the largest of presentation halls would require it. The
Ultra's control of the Mac's pointer is rock solid on the screen,
and actually easier to position than with the trackpad. Once the
pointer is placed over a spot, it remains there, letting you
repeatedly click the same spot without worry that it has drifted.
As for taking mousing into the third dimension, it took all of
30 seconds to get used to using the Ultra without a tabletop.
The gyroscopes in the device track the relative horizontal and
vertical movements you make in the air (it does not track depth,
as some 3-D controllers do; the Ultra mainly frees the mouse from
gravity's pull on a desktop). Very little wrist action is needed
to move the Ultra, less than a conventional mouse, and it works
with both the tracking speed and double-click speed settings in
the Mouse preferences pane. You can easily hold the Ultra in your
hand and, without moving your arm, emulate the actions of a
conventional mouse without keeping it in the same plane, such
as on a mouse pad. The movements needed to position the pointer
actually seem to help my wrist, as opposed to hurting it as
before. No more carpal tunnel or repetitive stress injuries for
this guy! Weighing in at just over five ounces, the mouse is a
little heavy, but I think that adds to my ability to stabilize
the pointer.
Although the user guide warns that the right mouse button does
not work on a Mac, I found that it works on everything you
would expect it to, in both Mac OS X and Mac OS 9. You can add
additional button-mapping functionality by using the shareware
USB Overdrive X; the device includes only Windows software.
Gyration's promotional material says the mouse sends tracking
data at 80 Hz, much faster than other cordless mice, and from
my experience this feels true; for example, it makes scrolling
with the wheel very smooth.
<http://www.usboverdrive.com/>
Using the Gyration mouse has been a pleasure. It was easy to set
up, and with a price less than $80, it's a good value. I highly
recommend it for anyone who needs a wireless solution that will
work both in the air or on the desktop, or if you just need relief
from the stress on your hand, wrist, and arm.
[Keith Kaiser is a Senior Programmer Analyst for Worldspan in
Kansas City, Missouri. On the side he operates HyperMac Software,
a Mac support service, and spends most of his free time as a
volunteer for the North Star District, Boy Scouts of America.]
<http://kaiserklan.com/>
Hot Topics in TidBITS Talk/08-Sep-03
------------------------------------
by TidBITS Staff <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
**Hog Bay Notebook comments** -- Readers weigh in on what they
like and dislike about Hog Bay Notebook in comparison to other
snippet keepers. (4 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2051>
**Internet vulnerabilities** -- So is the Internet more or less
vulnerable than Chuck Goolsbee described in his interview? And
does the Internet make for a good target for terrorists anyway?
(14 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2053>
**Concerns with Google** -- After our announcement of the
experiment with Google AdSense, a reader wrote in with some
concerns based on the Google Watch Web site. That then prompted
some fascinating responses about the Google Watch Web site's
biases, including the fact that there's a Google Watch Watch
site. (4 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2054>
**DealBITS drawings comments** -- Discussions of how to handle
duplicate entries in DealBITS drawings. (5 messages)
<http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tlkthrd=2055>
$$
Non-profit, non-commercial publications may reprint articles if
full credit is given. Others please contact us. We don't guarantee
accuracy of articles. Caveat lector. Publication, product, and
company names may be registered trademarks of their companies.
This file is formatted as setext. For more information send email
to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. A file will be returned shortly.
For information: how to subscribe, where to find back issues,
and more, email <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. TidBITS ISSN 1090-7017.
Send comments and editorial submissions to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Back issues available at: <http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/>
And: <ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/issues/>
Full text searching available at: <http://www.tidbits.com/search/>
-------------------------------------------------------------------
