JayMcCormack.com

Those who know me know that I have to have a new toy to play with most of the time, and right now it’s my new Microsoft mouse.

I bought this mouse 2 weeks ago and have now had the opportunity to have a good play with it.  First off, I love the fact that it is Bluetooth.  I’m really starting to rely on this more and more now as a connection medium for devices and get annoyed when it doesn’t work (which is rare).  I have Bluetooth built into my dell notebook computer and so this mouse is great, no wires, no plug in USB adapters, you just turn it on and start using it. I exclusively hook my phone into my notebook using Bluetooth also.

The second thing I like about this is oddly enough the power switch.  I have had a Microsoft wireless notebook mouse in the past and it’s power switch was controlled by the USB adapter that you fitted in underneath it.  The problem though is that the little switch that the adapter pushes in gets worn out and for the last 3 months or so have been going through batteries with that old mouse as it was typically always on, regardless of the power saving device.  This new one however has as actual power switch on the bottom, nice.

I think the other major feature I like about this mouse is the size.  I’ve grown to really like small mice, I have a Logitech mouse on my desk at home also but my hand gets tired due to the size of the mouse.

This new mouse has a couple of extra buttons which I will probably never really use, however it does a have a cool ‘presenter’ mode.  What this does is disable the left and right mouse buttons and allows you to turn the mouse over and use the buttons on the underside.   There is a forward and back button, an increase and decrease volume button and a button to blank out the screen.  These all work well in PowerPoint as you would expect.  I exclusively use PowerPoint for presentation work so no problems there.

Finally it also has a laser pointer.  I actually bought the mouse the expectation that I would never actually use the laser pointer, it’s a little 1983 isn’t it?  However last week at a technical meeting I used the pointer to highlight different parts of an architecture diagram, so you never know it might just come in handy.

All in all, happy.  Plus I bought it in July and at the time they had a cash back offer of $30.  It’s a little pricey for a mouse, but I probably only buy one about every 2 years or so, so it’s worth the investment for something you’ll like.

Currently Listenning To: Mika - Life In Cartoon Motion by PoLiNi_46 - 10 - Happy Ending

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There seems to be a great debate right now on the sphere around whether the iPhone will be a business phone or not.  I have an iMate JasJam, it runs Windows Mobile 5 and has all my contacts and calendars as well as an thin exchange client.

I don’t see these sort of applications on the iPhone, in fact this article and video report to show some of the business capabilities of the phone, but i struggle to recall the last time i had to zoom into a photo or see the cover art to a sinatra album during a business meeting.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great device and I want one.  But not for work!

On my current phone I can schedule a meeting with a colleague or organise emails into different folders and then synch that back up with outlook on my desktop (and subsequently exchange).

The piece I might be missing is the equivalent business tools offered on the Mac environment.  Do they exist?  Is there an exchange style server for the Mac?

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I was by chance looking at the foxtel website recently in an effort to see what movies were on on the weekend, and found that they have a new flash based tv guide.

I was actually amazed to be honest.  The guide is fast, easy to use, can be filtered, and has all the detail of the programming in one window.  It has an ajax style interface although relies exclusively on flash to deliver the result.

Right now it seems to only have foxtel channels however it has an accomodation for free-to-air channels but nothing yet populated.

I will be using this from now on, definitely worth a look.

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Have been searching high and low for a new theme for quite some time and finally found what I was looking for.

This theme has sidebar widgets capability which is great plus i love the “content front and centre” approach.

While doing this addition I decided to add a plug to manage threaded comments, so check that out.  Finally am working on putting in LightBox or something similar for image management.

Your comments welcome.

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Just been to the qantas.com website to have a look at travel dates for April. Normally I would say ‘i have to travel on the exact date’ however in this case I looked at the ‘flexible with dates’ option.

The interface that was returned presented a matrix of the departure and return dates, with all the prices on one small table. Excellent! So i can look at the prices (all the same in this case) and then pick a combination of departure and return dates with one click.

Well done qantas.com

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