Worst scroll wheel ever?

Apple Gazette has published a list of the five worst Apple products of all time. But maybe we should also have a list of the five worst product components of all time. Right at the top of the list I would propose the scroll wheel on Might Mouse.

Oh, it starts out fine. That little button feels just right under your forefinger, smoothing moving up and down, left and right. You can easily fall in love with it. Unfortunately the love affair is doomed, because eventually — the time seems to vary — that scroll wheel will stop working.

In my case it would scroll down but not up. I tried all the suggested fixes you can find around the Internet, including Apple’s own website. They work for awhile, then you’re back to fiddling around with it. This can be particularly annoying if you’re trying to get some work done.

So now I’m using a Kensington PocketMouse. The price is right and I enjoy being able to manipulate it with my fingertips. It’s nowhere near as sexy as Mighty Mouse, but it happily scrolls up and down without fail. That’s something I can easily fall in love with.

Posted Thursday, March 12, 2009 in

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Inspiration

After watching Barack Obama’s inauguration speech, I’m convinced that the United States has not only elected a good man as president, but a man who can inspire good things in both Americans and people around the world. That, I believe, will be his real power.

Posted Tuesday, January 20, 2009 in

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And Macworld goes out with a whimper

Some ho-hum upgrades to iLife and iWork, semi-controversial changes to the MacBook Pro, and DRM-free music on iTunes. (I wonder how many people know or care about DRM?) The Phil Schiller keynote that just wrapped up will go down in Apple history for one thing only — it was the last.

Posted Tuesday, January 6, 2009 in

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Congratulations

Congratulations, America, on having changed the world.

Posted Tuesday, November 4, 2008 in

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Tetris wars

It looks like The Tetris Company is up to its old tricks again. Two years ago, they made legal threats against Simon Härtel, the developer of Quinn. Now they’ve done the same to Noah Witherspoon’s freeware Tris, a simple version of Tetris for the iPhone. Macworld has the details, but interesting to note is that in some ways Tris is superior to the official $10 Tetris made by Electronic Arts. The bottom line is that Tris has been pulled from the iPhone apps store.

Back in 2006, Härtel was forced to suspend distribution of Quinn for a few months while he sought a way out of his legal predicament. In the end, it seems, all that was needed was a disclaimer — “Neither Quinn nor anything on this site is affiliated with or sponsored by The Tetris Company or part of their Tetris line of products” — at the bottom of his website. Who knows — he may have had to promise his first-born child as well. It would be great if Witherspoon could come up with a similar deal, but judging from his blog it doesn’t look like he’s up any battles.

Posted Tuesday, August 26, 2008 in

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