First Impressions : Logitech Cordless Desktop S530 Laser for Mac

I wanted to change to a cordless keyboard because of my home setup, where I more than often get my feet tangled in the keyboard cord. I already had a Logitech MX700 mouse and was really happy with it. I never got used to the Apple mouse.

First impressions. To start, I'm typing this article with the Logitech keyboard on my lap. It feels really nice, and the keys feel a lot like the keybord you find on laptops.

To start, I unpacked everything, unplugged my MX700 receiver, plugged in the S530 receiver (at the back of my iMac G4), took the AA rechargeables from the MX700 and installed them in the S530 Laser mouse. Right away the mouse functionned. Then, I installed the AAA in the keyboard, unplugged the Apple keyboard. Perfect the keyboard worked right away too. I put the AAA rechargeables in the charger ...

So, in less than 5 minutes I was working with the new setup.

Then, configuration, with all those buttons ...

I had already upgraded to the Logitech Control Center to version 1.6.2 back in February when it was released. So it immediately recognized my new keyboard and mouse. For the mouse, the default configuration doesn't need to be modified (for me anyway). For the keyboard, I changed the following :


- The Letter icon to open Mail
- The House icon to connect to my blog
- Set the Cruise arrows (bottom left of the keyboard) to medium speed
- The Magnifier icon to the right sequence to launch Spotlight

and that's it, I'm set.

The Keyboard.

The keyboard is lighter and thinner than the Apple keyboard, 2cm wider and 7.5cm deeper because of the palm rest and the side controls, but fits perfectly on my lap.

Typing away is as easy as any other keyboard, and the keys feel like other professionnal keyboards. Actually, I prefer the feel compared to the Apple keyboard. The arrow pad and the Home/End/PageUp/PageDn/Del keypad need a bit of getting used to but in a day or two it'll be like if I had this keyboard for months.

On good point, the Power button is recessed in the frame so that you can't accidentally depress it. Users with bigger fingers than normal might have problems pressing it.

On the minus side, the Play/Pause, Start and End buttons on top the the iTunes button are only linked to iTunes. Even if you have QuickTime running, they will start iTunes. And they are not customizable. They are not even linked to the iTunes button, I set the iTunes button to start QuickTime, but even then theses 3 buttons absolutely wanted to start iTunes.

UPDATE 2: There is no CAPS LOCK indicator on the keyboard, we'll see if it becomes a problem.

My suggestions to Logitech. Either link these buttons to the iTunes button, or let them affect the current running application if that application understands these buttons (iTunes, QuickTime, VLC, MPlayer, etc... just to name a few).

The Mouse.


What is there more to say than "It's a Logitech". It's my fourth Logitech mouse, and I always was satisfied with them. This one too will, I'm sure, give me great satisfaction. Compared to the MX700, it's a bit ligther and a bit shorter, works great like the previous Logitech's I had, AND since it's a laser mouse, it works a lot better on my black reflecting table. No need for a mouse pad at all. The MX700 was confused by the reflection on the table and I needed a mouse pad to solve the problem.

The mouse wheel is almost silent, compared to the MX700 it's an improvement. I'm not yet accustomed to the side scrolling, but it'll be usefull I'm sure.

The volume buttons fall right under the index when needed.

One small minus point, I will miss the scrolling buttons that were around the scroll wheel. With the MX700, I mostly used the down scrolling button (its logo has completely vanished !!!)

Energy.



Since, I just got it today, I can't say much on that point, but they advertise (on the box) that the alcalines supplied can last more than 6 months. It's a big improvement on the week or two I was getting with the MX700 and NiMH 1500 setup. I put the same 1500mA NiMH in the S530 mouse and we'll see what we get ! Furthermore, if I manage not to forget to turn off the mouse (yes, you can turn off the mouse by maintaining the connect button depressed for a while), I should get at least a month of mouse activity. For the keyboard, I have a set of AAA 900mA NiMH charging. I'll put them in tomorrow.

Looks.

Well, the silver palm rest and mouse buttons look perfect. The two side function button pads are set in a brilliant plastic frame. The rest of the keyboard is set in a mat plastic frame. Well assembled, no defects at all. Hopefully the black Logitech logos won't wear off too fast !

Conclusion.

Great keyboard
Great mouse
Great look

Must buy, specially for those buying a Mac Mini !!

I paid 79 € at CLG Informatique in France.

UPDATE 1:

4 hours after installation, I just realized that it would have been nice to have an iCal button and an Address Book button. There is enough space between the Letter icon and the House icon for them !!!

On the usability side, the volume up/down button come in real handy when watching videos/movies.

25th of December

I hate that date.

It is believe that this date is the date of birth of Jesus, while it is written in the bible that he was born in March.

To me the 25th of December is now the WTO's holiday, the day for which lots of money are spent on gifts that are often forced on people. What I mean is that we are sometimes forced to buy these gifts even though we would never want to give the person a gift in the first place !! I won't even talk about the difference between the gifts we give and the gifts we receive.

What really happened on this date ?

December 25th is the pagan holiday of "sol invectus" which means the day that the days are starting to grow again.

Through transmutation, the catholic religion decided to substitute the birth of Jesus with "sol invectus", so that the people could continue worship a god on this day !

The WTO is doing the same thing about 1700 years later. Even non-christians give gifts on this date. The WTO has transmuted this day into the biggest commercial event in the whole year. A new religion is born !!!!

What are it's holidays ?

- Valentine's day
- Mother's day
- Father's day
- Coca-Cola day (December 25th, since Santa Claus was born in 1930 through Coca-Cola)

Then there is also, in some countries, a "Grand-Mother's day".

Please people, wake up and smell the roses, give gifts to people you like/love when you feel like it and forget all these O-BLI-GA-TIONS

iTablet & PowerTablet

What I wish Apple would come out with !

A couple of Tablet products, a 12" iTablet, a 12" PowerTablet, and maybe a 14" iTablet an a 15" PowerTablet.

All of these would be derived from the current lines of iBooks and PowerBooks.

Remove the keyboard and ScratchPads and replaced them with a TouchScreen, remove the CD/DVD and replace it with a multi-card reader, keep the Airport and the Bluetooth modules, put in a trap to easily upgrade the memory and another trap to change the battery.

Their should be a button to swap the orientation between Portrait and Lanscape. You'll also want a Stylus (I recommend the Palm Tungsten type of stylus).

Also, in the back, their should be rubber groved spaces where one could put in the end of his fingers to hold the tablet with one hand while either reading or working.

It should come with a black leather flexible case, no keyboard and no mouse.

Last thing, it should have the full Mac OS X environment and iLife suite + a special notebook application + the Address Book and iCal should be able to synchronize with your other Mac.

Design & Products

You know what I love the most ?

Well, I guess not, but I'll let you in on it.

Design & Function.

Yep, a great product for me, is something superbly designed hat still keeps its functionality. Some products that meet these criterias :

- Bang & Olufsen
- Apple Computers and iPods
- The newly created Waterman Sérénité pen
- Nikon F5
- Leica M6

Of course, we pay a big premium for these products, but then again they sort of have a soul of their own. Of course, you can write the same text with a Bic ballpoint, but it really doesn't fell the same as Waterman's Sérénité. Go to a store and hold it for a while, you'll see what I mean, it really doesn't feel the same.

Same thing goes for an iPod, a Bang & Olufsen BeoCom 2 etc etc. Some people will always say, "Yeah, right, but it doesn't change a thing". Well, I don't have the same opinion, there's a distinctive "plus" in using a product specially crafted, I can't tell what it is, it's just a feeling.

Another product, a Nikon F5, it's just not the same, solid feeling. Again another one, a Leica M6, light and silent yet solid !

What happened to this world where no-one wants to buy these specially crafted products except a few people who value design and quality !

The world is going to the pits, we buy cheap and we change often. I'd rather buy something solid and well constructed and not have to change it for a very long time. I don't have the time to buy the same over and over again every 5 years. That's why I bought an iMac G4, it'll probably last more than 5 years. But in IT, things are evolving a lot faster than in other areas. Hopefully, I'll replace it only in 5 years, but a pen, it should last a lifetime, so why not buy something you really like !

Open Source Bugs, Firefox Alerts !!!!

It's been a while, but I'd like to think that I only write when there is really something to write about or bothering me.

I've seen many articles warning us to be carefull about using Firefox or open source software. Most of them are bull...t.

First, let just say that there are bugs in ALL software pieces, security wholes or just plain bugs. What makes the big difference between open source and payware closed source is the time it takes to correct them.

When you live on money generated by your piece of software, the less you do the more money you make. You'd rather work on new versions and integrate corrections at the same time, then only correct problems. You also only direct a small amount of your ressources to *just* correcting problems since that doesn't generate any money.

On the other hand, on the open source side your reputation is made on the quality of the software. Most people developing open source don't count the time they put in and don't necessarily get paid to develop these. They do it more as a hobby and because they think that their pieces of software are better than the competion that you have to pay for. On the count of Firefox, it has been downloaded more than 44 million times and counting, which means that there are a lot of people that agree with the developers. Now that you have momentum and a lot of people counting on you, you will go out of your way to solve problems the fastest as possible, while developing the next version.

In short, in payware when there is a small bug, it gets put in the list and sometime you'll have to wait a long time to get a fix for it. In the open source freeware, since your reputation is made on the quality of your software, you'll try to solve it as soon as possible.

Today, there are still some security bugs that have not been solved in IE and M$ knows it, some on the security bugs take 6 months to solve !!!! WORSE, some have not yet been solved (and I'm pretty sure some have not yet been attended to !!!) In Firefox, the security bugs that have been found have been solved or are being solved (the latest one being with javascript) and it didn't take 6 months for people to decide to put some ressources on the problems.

There will always be bugs in software, these programs have probably more lines of code than a big book, so they can't be perfect.

In closing, next time you hear that there is a bug, or even a security bug in Firefox, just take the time to search on the net the number of security bugs NOT YET SOLVED in M$ IE, and relax ...

IE 7, follow up OR Why it won't be enough

At the beginning of the week, I read an article giving a bit more details about the future IE 7. Well, it doesn't look good. M$ specifically said that they wont support CSS Level 2 fully.

What a shame, it was time for them to bring full support of CSS Level 2.1 and support of the Draft CSS Level 3.

So for me, this browser isn't worth getting you're hopes up. Go on, use other browsers that support CSS fully and forget about IE.

The vatican & The Da Vinci Code ... Smoke & Fire

Hi all,

Ever heard the saying : Where there's smoke, there's fire (or something like that) ??

Well, I give you the smoke : The vatican and the fire The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown.

Granted, it is a story, fictional that is. BUT, it is based on facts. Now the vatican and the christian sects are starting to see their house of cards being slowly blown away, so much that they had to say something. They really think that in this day an age people would take all there words for cash. Please ! Give us at least a bit of credit.

For those who still believe in Jesus and the story, please go and buy the following book :

The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ by Lynn Picknett, Clive Prince

(there is a french version too !)

Make up your mind and tell me after that you still believe. In my case, it's been about 15 years I stopped believing in all this and now I think all religions are sects.

On another subject, a lot more fun, you can read here the different methods you could try to destroy the planet, and those that won't work. Don't think this is a bit on the terrorist side, not at all. You'd be suprised how much harder it is to destroy the planet Earth than you think. It's quite instructive of physics be way.

Improved IE 7, Yes and ... NO !!!

Well, we've heard this week that Bill has announced that M$ will be releasing version 7 beta of IE (Internet Explorer) this summer to solve most of its security problems.

Now, that answers the Improved IE 7 (Yes part). But that's only the tip of IE's problems. It's a must to fix the security problems, but what about the other problems ? IE doesn't not follow all the standards correctly. Also, it doesn't support the latest standards.

It's been 4 years since the last development was done in IE. So, it doens't support CSS Level 2 and the new Draft CSS Level 3. It doesn't support XForms (there already is a beta extension for Firefox, that was released last week). And more.

M$ should really trash IE and restart from a clean sheet, just follow the standards and not try to add stuff before that stuff has been standardized and MAYBE, just maybe the internet community would use it !!!

I've been using NetScape, Mozilla and Firefox (since version 0.8) for many years, and since IE is so insecure I go out of my way not to use IE. At home, I have a Mac, so I never user IE (I trashed it the first day I got my Mac). At the office, I think I used IE a bit before I got Firefox since Netscape could not work with some of our applications. But since Firefox, I've never used it anymore ....

Life without IE on the web is great.