Archive for September, 2009

Logitech Trackman Marble Mouse Device Reset

Posted by Rob in Computers on Thu Sep 10, 2009

I am a fan of the Logitech “marble” mice. The latest generation is the Trackman Marble Mouse (preceded by the “Optical Marble Mouse” and the “Marble Mouse”, all of which I’ve used and have loved).

The ergonomics are great:

  • The trackball form factor means a fixed footprint. This is important for keyboard tray users, since “footprint space” is more limited.
  • The “marble” design means manipulation with many fingers or the whole hand, and clicking with a more natural “grasping” motion with the biggest, strongest finger: the thumb. This is better than other so-called trackballs with smaller balls designed to be manipulated with just the thumb or one finger (and with buttons that require the traditional clicking motion).
  • The symmetric design means rightie or lefty use. “Lefty” use is especially important for users of traditional keyboards with numeric keypads to the right.
  • The smaller buttons are programmable. I program them as “PgUp” and “PgDn” keys, which provides equivalent functionality to, and faster use than, the small “scroll wheel” buttons found on many mice (which are also very ergonomically bad).

The only bad thing about these trackball mice is that they are bad for gaming (which I no longer do).

I had a problem with mine a few days ago (plugged into a MacBookPro) where the mouse cursor would just freeze at seemingly random times, with recovery requiring an unplug/replug of the mouse, or sometimes even a reboot of the whole computer.

With a coworker, we quickly narrowed the problem down to the mouse itself (we swapped mice and the problem moved with the mouse). Furthermore, the coworker discovered that recovery was much more conveniently achievable by simply popping out the “marble” and putting it back in.

This was almost acceptable, but I went ahead and called Logitech Phone Support to see about getting a replacement, just to see what would happen. The support representative told me he hadn’t heard of my problem before, but he gave me some “device reset” instructions:

  1. Unplug the mouse from the computer.
  2. Hold down both buttons for 90 seconds.
  3. Release both buttons.
  4. Plug the mouse back into the computer.

Voila! I haven’t had any more mysterious problem since! The tech support experience was great:

  • After navigating a phone tree to enter my mouse model and operating system, I was speaking to a representative within 15 seconds.
  • I did not get the standard script of rebooting the computer, unplugging/replugging the mouse, etc.

My only gripe is that the device-reset instructions should be available on the product support page; it would have saved all of us a phone call.

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The Hostage

Posted by Rob in Reading on Sun Sep 6, 2009

The Hostage

This book fails to live up to the gun-porn action suggested by the two balaclava-clad machine-gun-toting troopers on the yellow-on-red book cover. As one might guess from the cover, a hostage is taken, and violence ensues. I won’t go into the “plot” because this book is over three years old (2006); “plot” summaries can be easily found elsewhere on the web.

The viewer of this cover might reasonably expect to read lots of text like, oh I don’t know,

The three 9mm rounds fired in rapid succession lifted his body upwards and backwards into the wall; he fell and settled, sitting, like a life-sized Kevlar-wearing rag doll.

(Yes, I wrote that myself, on the spot.)

The failed promise is that out of 750 pages, the reader (me, with the protagonist) encounters only three pages’ worth of shots fired in anger, none fired by the protagonist, and none fired at the protagonist.

My (other) gripes about this book:

  • The Hostage, at 750 pages, is too inconveniently unwieldy to carry in my commuter bag for my ride to work.
  • The garish primary yellow-on-red color scheme draws attention to me. But let’s just say that the ladies don’t walk up to me asking what I’m reading.

After finally completing this book, I did some research and found that Griffin’s style is to highlight the behind-the-scenes bureaucratic and logistical gymnastics that must precede the expected Kevlar-wearing-rag-doll-yielding operations. Instead of gun-porn, we get pages and pages of West Wing-style dialogue and bureaucratic shenanigans, which people apparently pay good money to read.

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