Keyboard and Mouse

Sunday, May 18, 2008 ~ 4 comments so far

I should’ve waited before replacing my old PC with another one. If I had I wouldn’t have my current dilemma as I’d be typing this post on an iMac, with a nice wireless keyboard, thin of form, full of factor.

But I’m not so here are my requirements and, dear reader, I’d like your thoughts and suggestions please.

My current keyboard is almost ideal. It has two USB ports on the back which I use for thumb drives (and occasionally to plug in a USB mouse when the batteries need charging on my main mouse), I’d be lost without the multimedia buttons (the silver ones in the photo), although I don’t use the ‘internet’ ones at all. It’s small, well constructed and my only complaint is that it’s quite noisy. The keys are a bit “clicky” which isn’t ideal for me as I work late at night quite often.

I’ve previously tried slimmer, laptop style keyboards which I do like using, but alas the only one I found that had a nice feel to it didn’t have multimedia buttons. I’m very keyboard orientated and I really missed being able to skip tracks without my hands leaving the keyboard (yes I know I can Alt+Tab to iTunes and then use keyboard shortcuts but that’s still 4 or 5 keystrokes as opposed to 1).

Suggestions of a suitable keyboard are welcomed, I’d be very interested in hearing about any experiences with a wireless keyboard too, but it must meet my requirements:

• Quiet keys
• Ability to control iTunes – volume, play, pause, next at minimum
• Must be small (the Microsoft keyboards are stupidly large)
• USB ports on keyboard are a bonus

Mouse wise I have been using a Logitech wireless mouse for some time now and the only gripe is the flipping docking station which takes several goes (as in 10-15 sometimes) to get the charging nodes lined up. That aside it’s nothing flash but does the job.

I’m not completely set on a wireless keyboard, but I couldn’t go back to a wired mouse. I use one at work and it’s forever ‘dragged’ when the cable gets caught under a piece of paper or whatnot, most annoying.

So, suggestions for a keyboard that meets my needs? And if it’s a combo of keyboard and mouse, which one??

Life ahoy!

Saturday, May 17, 2008 ~ 2 comments so far

Right on cue, the star of the show wanders into the living room, damp from the drizzle outside, he rubs himself dry on my trouser leg. And now he’s lying on my foot, dozing off… purring like a contented cat should.

Actually I wasn’t going to talk about him but as he’s made an appearance it’s probably worth well letting all his fans know that he’s still as playful, friendly and inquisitive as ever. If he’s awake then he’s always at your feet, checking what you are doing. So helpful. We do have a bit of an issue in that, during the day, he tends to sleep on my office chair so if I’m at home and on the computer he tends to hover around me, occasionally nibbling my feet, reminding me in that way only a cat can to HURRY UP AND GET OFF MY CHAIR!

Again, right on cue (I’m typing this on the laptop whilst the TV is on in the background), the O2 broadband advert has come on. It’s telling because I’m considering switching to them for both our broadband and my mobile phone.

iPhone thoughts aside, I’m fed up with Orange and desperate to get a better handset, one which syncs with my Outlook calendar (or Google Calendar) and so I’ll be heading back to Windows Mobile land again (HTC Touch Diamond anyone?) or if the new iPhone is worth it I might go down that route.

As for broadband, it’s not that I’m unhappy with Virgin Media it’s just that the O2 deal is better. I’ll need to get a full idea of price as I’ll need to factor in getting a BT line reconnected and how much I save if I’ve already switch my mobile to O2… anyone with any thoughts on this, please chip in. Most of the forum posts I’ve found about O2 are all positive, and having had an O2 SIM card (PAYG) the signal is much better in our house than the one I get with Orange.

And lastly, me. I’m now popping 5 pills a morning and I’m back to the doctor in a fortnight. By then my blood pressure should (better!!) be hovering around normal. If not, well I’ve no idea what is next but we’ll cross that bridge etc etc.

Aside from that, not much else to report. Life, as ever, keeps on keeping on.

Dumbarton from the air

Thursday, May 15, 2008 ~ 6 comments so far

Yesterday morning I cashed in a Christmas present and took the air in a hellychopper. It was quite noisy, but very smooth, and I have to admit the little boy in me loved every minute (whilst the adult in me fretted about carbon footprints and so on).

We weren’t in the air very long, a quick zip up and down the River Clyde from Inchinnan down to about Helensburgh and back, but we did pass my hometown on the way.

We didn’t go much above about 1500ft, but kicked it up to about 160mph. It was fun hearing, through the headsets, air traffic control at Glasgow Airport warn us that there was an incoming Boeing… summat or other, approaching and our pilot glibly respond with “sure thing, we’ll keep an eye for it”.

Enough about my day though, what did YOU do?

Animals on the Underground

Tuesday, May 13, 2008 ~ 2 comments so far

This is one of those silly things that seem to grab my attention from time to time. I’m a bit smitten with this, but not entirely sure why…

Back in 1998, Paul Middlewick was staring at the tube map during his daily journey home from work when he discovered an elephant hidden in the shape of the tube lines, stations and junctions of the London Underground map.

Since then, the elephant has been joined by many other animals from bats to bottlenose whales. What fun!

Found via It’s Nice That.

Weekender

Monday, May 12, 2008 ~ Comments Off

Ironman kicked off Friday night, and I have to say it’s a darn good blockbuster with Robert Downey Jnr. on twinklingly good form as the rock’n'roll engineer and hero of the story. Jeff Bridges was pretty good too although we are convinced he had platform boots on or something because he suddenly seemed very tall. Gwyneth Paltrow is in it too but as the token tight-skirt wearing personal assistant she had little do (but what she did do, she did well).

Saturday was an odd day. I felt a little light-headed for most of it, still not sure why although I’m wondering if it was upping my blood pressure pills (ACE inhibitors, now on 7.5mg a day… will be 10mg next week). Spent most of day pottering really, finally finishing the kitchen floor and a few other little jobs.

And yesterday was BBQ and footie day. Prepared the food in the morning, watched Manchester United win the title, Fulham stay up (somehow!) and ultimately won 2 of the 2 fantasy football leagues I’m in! Then off out to cook enough food to feed about 20 people, despite the fact it was just us, my parents and my sister. Still it did mean we got to have some rather delicious Hungarian wine. Yum yum yum.

Aside from that, not much else going on. Well there is a LOT going on but it’s all work focussed at the moment, and that is a very good thing.

An open letter to Journalists

Friday, May 9, 2008 ~ 9 comments so far

Dear Journalist,

I understand that at times it can be hard to find a good article, that deadlines must be met, and that you are under a lot pressure to deliver.

I also understand that the internet is chockful of content, a lot of it of good quality, and that blogs in particularly lend themselves nicely to the provision of the “human side” of the story. I understand that, really I do.

Unfortunately there seems to be a bit of an issue at the moment, with a few journalists pillaging blogs for content and the underlying view seems to be, “well, they are just blogs”. Now, I know (and I’m guilty of this in the past myself) that bloggers have always been the most forthcoming with credit when re-using your content but I think we are getting better at that and remember, just about all of us are amateurs.

That said, there really is no excuse for this sort of thing* which really doesn’t cast your profession in the best light and, even to the hobbyist blogger, spanks of shoddy work.

Like I say, I know that it’s only a few of you that are falling into this bad habit, and I guess that if you weren’t misquoting and badly researching your articles around blog stories, you’d be doing it on some other topic, but here’s the kicker.

We bloggers read each others blogs. We know them well, like old friends. We know the history, we know the personality behind the blog, so we know when all you’ve done is do a few quick searches and cobbled together a twisted view of reality.

And, really, we’d all kinda like you to stop doing that. Feel free to contact us, ask us questions, learn about who we are and why we blog, and most times we’ll be so accomodating you won’t believe it. Honest, most of us are pretty decent people just like most of you.

I hope that’s cleared things up a little,

Sincerely,

The Hobbyist Blogger

* In this case, the editor has been contacted and the article has been reported to the Press Complaints Commission. I’d encourage you all to spread the word about this, it’s not the first time and unfortunately I doubt it’ll be the last, so the more coverage this gets (hopefully) the lower the chance of it happening to you or I.

Back to reality

Thursday, May 8, 2008 ~ 3 comments so far

As Budapest fades into rose-tinted memory the mundane returns.

Well it’s not mundane really, it’s quite exciting you know, getting up at 1am to save a little mouse from the clutches of our cat and then again at 4.30am to remove a dead mouse from the kitchen floor (different mouse, he’s getting good at this!).

Elsewhere, there are still a few small jobs to do in the kitchen to finish it off, including a rather bizarre problem with the new light I fitted. We are using LED bulbs (like a halogen bulb but with 8 LEDs crammed into the same space), and when you turn them off they … well they aren’t on full but they are still on. It’s only really noticeable at night. I’m wondering if there is a short somewhere but… wouldn’t that have blown the light? Back to O Grade Physics for me, for despite getting an “A” I can’t remember a damn thing…

And, of course, as we currently have the bright shiny thing in the sky the next two weeks are officially Summer. So, out to the garden we go to do some weeding and general tidying up, ignoring the fact that my office still needs some order restored as it is holding the remnants of the kitchen upheaval.

Ohh and on that, still no response to our complaint letter. If there isn’t a letter waiting at home this evening then tomorrow morning they’ll be getting a stern phone call.

So, aside from mucking about with Joomla with half a mind on resurrecting Scottish Blogs, popping pills and generally trying to be healthy so my next check up at the doctor will reveal a lowered blood pressure, and considering buying Wii Fit, it’s pretty much life as usual.

Which is, you know, quite a good thing.