Episode 032 - Magic Mouse, Sharing an Internet Connection and Minimize to Application Icon
11/10/09 15:49 Filed in: Mouse | internet sharing | OSX 10.6 | tips & tricks | Cafepress | Microphone
Episode 0032 - Magic Mouse, Sharing an Internet Connection and Minimize to Application Icon
A new look and feel:
New sound equipment - Heil PR-20
http://www.flickr.com/photos/baldingnerd/sets/72157622603013035/
New Icons:
Website is revamped - http://www.thestealthmac.com
Swag store - http://www.cafepress.com/TheStealthMac
iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=290517037
Magic Mouse:
When Apple updated their store on October 20th, they quietly released updates to their iMac and Macbook lines and released new mice and remotes. After watching the new iMac video with Johnny Ives demonstrating the new mouse I couldn’t resist clicking on the purchase button from the Apple online store.
The mouse arrived Friday October 30th and I’ve been using it ever since. So lets give you a little history first before we talk about Apple’s new mouse.
The previous mouse I had was the Apple Bluetooth mighty mouse. The mouse was white, shiny and reminded me of an elongated puck. The mouse had four touch sensitive buttons – these were left, right, center and the sides (think squeeze here) – they could be programmed for anything in the OSX System preferences pane but for me they were left and right click, center was Dashboard and squeeze was to invoke Expose. The mouse also had a ball in the top forward center that was used for scrolling. This ball was the crowning point and at the same time the downfall for this mouse. The ball allowed for 360 degree scrolling – up/down and left/right for those long spreadsheets that you may have to deal with. Or my favorite scrubbing the timeline in Final Cut.
The problem with the ball though is the same problem every other mouse that ever had a ball in it ever had. Eventually dirt and debris would collect on the motion detector rollers and cause the little scroll ball to cease functioning. A little aggressive cleaning upside down on a lint free cloth sometimes helped, but over time the ball would just become less and less responsive.
The downfall here is that there is no way to get the ball out to clean the detectors, so once it’s jammed full there is no way to get it clean unless you break the mouse apart to get at the ball and rollers to clean it. Now this isn’t too hard to do – in fact I did this to my first Mighty Mouse (Now called “Apple Mouse.”) After I put it back together though it just never worked well again – so I ended up purchasing another.
So there’s the problem – now for the solution. The new Apple “Magic Mouse” – yes, Apple changed the name due to a recent court awarding the “Mighty Mouse” trademark to another company that Apple did not have a previous agreement with so Apple had to rename it’s mouse.
The Magic Mouse is the same length as the mighty mouse was, but about half the height. And honestly reminds me of the Dove soap bars in size and shape.
The bottom is the brushed aluminum that Apple has recently grown fond with. There is a switch to turn the power on and off, and speaking of power the mouse uses two AA batteries that are included with the purchase. The tracking engine has been improved over the previous model and from what I have seen, it is much more precise at tracking movements than the previous Mighty Mouse was.
There are no buttons on the mouse – it’s surface is a smooth plastic surface. You can left and right click like a traditional mouse. to scroll just use your finger to “brush” on top of the mouse in the direction you want to scroll. It even uses the inertial technique that the iPhone has where if you flick your finger quickly it will quickly scroll down the page. The scrolling is smooth, and much better than anything the Mighty Mouse had to offer.
You can also use two fingers to swipe to go forward or backward through web pages, or photos in iPhoto or Aperture. I have some issues with this because there is no real easy way for me to hold the mouse still and flick it. I have big hands and long fingers, and if I follow what’s shown in the video on the preference pane, using my palm to hold it, my fingers extend several inches past the top of the mouse.
While I find this gesture nice to have, I think it rather fails on actual usability.
Also – when right clicking, you must do it with only one finger resting on the top of the unit. If you say use one finger to left click and another to right click while leaving the opposite finger resting on the top of the mouse, the click will not register.
Installation:
When you turn on the mouse, it appears in the bluetooth preference pane, you choose it and that’s it – the mouse works. To enable the scrolling gestures, however, you need to run system update and download the mouse drivers from apple. The drivers just automagically show up in the system updates after the mouse is detected in the bluetooth pane. The mouse driver install requires a reboot, so be prepared.
As for losing the two extra buttons – I’m not heartbroken about the dashboard button – I rarely use the dashboard. But I am saddened over the loss of a button to invoke Expose – now there is a feature I use frequently. To get around this I have created the bottom left corner as a hot corner to invoke Expose and it works quite well.
Overall the mouse is what you’d expect from Apple – yes this statement is worded this way on purpose. I have found that within Mac users there are two camps – ones that LOVE the apple mouses and the others that HATE it. Well if you HATE it – you’ll probably hate this one too and would be happier with your MX revolution or whatever alternative you’ve found. But for those who actually liked to use the Mighty Mouse you’ll find the Magic mouse really is a step up in the mouse. It feels better in the hand, scrolling and tracking are much more accurate – while the loss of the two extra buttons is a pain, there are rumors that maybe Apple will have something up their sleeve in the 10.6.2 update.
Apple Store link: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB829LL/A
Pictures of my Magic Mouse unboxing:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/baldingnerd/sets72157622572830365/
Sharing an Internet Connection:
click on system preferences, then click on the sharing preference pane. Choose ethernet from the "Share your connection from:" dropdown menu. Now check "Airport" in the "To computers using:" panel.
Click on the airport options button. Create a name, leave channel as automatic. Check the require password box, and enter a good password. Choose 128 bit wep. Click OK when done. Note the password for 128 bit must me 13 characters long.
now check the box that says internet sharing in the service panel. After you check the box you will get the above warning. Click start. Congratulations – you are now a wireless router!
Minimize Window to the Application Icon
Apple made many user interface changes with the release of OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard, here is one of my favorite changes.
under system preferences, choose Dock. Check the box that says "Minimize windows into application icon"
Now that the windows minimize to the application icon how do you know what windows are open. There are two ways. The first is to choose the application icon in the dock and click and hold on the icon.
By pressing F9 on the keyboard, using an assigned hot-corner or mouse button you can invoke the OSX Expose feature, the windows on the bottom half of the screen are the minimized windows.
email me at: feedback@thestealthmac.com
or find me on twitter: bldngnerd
A new look and feel:
New sound equipment - Heil PR-20
http://www.flickr.com/photos/baldingnerd/sets/72157622603013035/
New Icons:
Website is revamped - http://www.thestealthmac.com
Swag store - http://www.cafepress.com/TheStealthMac
iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=290517037
Magic Mouse:
When Apple updated their store on October 20th, they quietly released updates to their iMac and Macbook lines and released new mice and remotes. After watching the new iMac video with Johnny Ives demonstrating the new mouse I couldn’t resist clicking on the purchase button from the Apple online store.
The mouse arrived Friday October 30th and I’ve been using it ever since. So lets give you a little history first before we talk about Apple’s new mouse.
The previous mouse I had was the Apple Bluetooth mighty mouse. The mouse was white, shiny and reminded me of an elongated puck. The mouse had four touch sensitive buttons – these were left, right, center and the sides (think squeeze here) – they could be programmed for anything in the OSX System preferences pane but for me they were left and right click, center was Dashboard and squeeze was to invoke Expose. The mouse also had a ball in the top forward center that was used for scrolling. This ball was the crowning point and at the same time the downfall for this mouse. The ball allowed for 360 degree scrolling – up/down and left/right for those long spreadsheets that you may have to deal with. Or my favorite scrubbing the timeline in Final Cut.
The problem with the ball though is the same problem every other mouse that ever had a ball in it ever had. Eventually dirt and debris would collect on the motion detector rollers and cause the little scroll ball to cease functioning. A little aggressive cleaning upside down on a lint free cloth sometimes helped, but over time the ball would just become less and less responsive.
The downfall here is that there is no way to get the ball out to clean the detectors, so once it’s jammed full there is no way to get it clean unless you break the mouse apart to get at the ball and rollers to clean it. Now this isn’t too hard to do – in fact I did this to my first Mighty Mouse (Now called “Apple Mouse.”) After I put it back together though it just never worked well again – so I ended up purchasing another.
So there’s the problem – now for the solution. The new Apple “Magic Mouse” – yes, Apple changed the name due to a recent court awarding the “Mighty Mouse” trademark to another company that Apple did not have a previous agreement with so Apple had to rename it’s mouse.
The Magic Mouse is the same length as the mighty mouse was, but about half the height. And honestly reminds me of the Dove soap bars in size and shape.
The bottom is the brushed aluminum that Apple has recently grown fond with. There is a switch to turn the power on and off, and speaking of power the mouse uses two AA batteries that are included with the purchase. The tracking engine has been improved over the previous model and from what I have seen, it is much more precise at tracking movements than the previous Mighty Mouse was.
There are no buttons on the mouse – it’s surface is a smooth plastic surface. You can left and right click like a traditional mouse. to scroll just use your finger to “brush” on top of the mouse in the direction you want to scroll. It even uses the inertial technique that the iPhone has where if you flick your finger quickly it will quickly scroll down the page. The scrolling is smooth, and much better than anything the Mighty Mouse had to offer.
You can also use two fingers to swipe to go forward or backward through web pages, or photos in iPhoto or Aperture. I have some issues with this because there is no real easy way for me to hold the mouse still and flick it. I have big hands and long fingers, and if I follow what’s shown in the video on the preference pane, using my palm to hold it, my fingers extend several inches past the top of the mouse.
While I find this gesture nice to have, I think it rather fails on actual usability.
Also – when right clicking, you must do it with only one finger resting on the top of the unit. If you say use one finger to left click and another to right click while leaving the opposite finger resting on the top of the mouse, the click will not register.
Installation:
When you turn on the mouse, it appears in the bluetooth preference pane, you choose it and that’s it – the mouse works. To enable the scrolling gestures, however, you need to run system update and download the mouse drivers from apple. The drivers just automagically show up in the system updates after the mouse is detected in the bluetooth pane. The mouse driver install requires a reboot, so be prepared.
As for losing the two extra buttons – I’m not heartbroken about the dashboard button – I rarely use the dashboard. But I am saddened over the loss of a button to invoke Expose – now there is a feature I use frequently. To get around this I have created the bottom left corner as a hot corner to invoke Expose and it works quite well.
Overall the mouse is what you’d expect from Apple – yes this statement is worded this way on purpose. I have found that within Mac users there are two camps – ones that LOVE the apple mouses and the others that HATE it. Well if you HATE it – you’ll probably hate this one too and would be happier with your MX revolution or whatever alternative you’ve found. But for those who actually liked to use the Mighty Mouse you’ll find the Magic mouse really is a step up in the mouse. It feels better in the hand, scrolling and tracking are much more accurate – while the loss of the two extra buttons is a pain, there are rumors that maybe Apple will have something up their sleeve in the 10.6.2 update.
Apple Store link: http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB829LL/A
Pictures of my Magic Mouse unboxing:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/baldingnerd/sets72157622572830365/
Sharing an Internet Connection:
click on system preferences, then click on the sharing preference pane. Choose ethernet from the "Share your connection from:" dropdown menu. Now check "Airport" in the "To computers using:" panel.
Click on the airport options button. Create a name, leave channel as automatic. Check the require password box, and enter a good password. Choose 128 bit wep. Click OK when done. Note the password for 128 bit must me 13 characters long.
now check the box that says internet sharing in the service panel. After you check the box you will get the above warning. Click start. Congratulations – you are now a wireless router!
Minimize Window to the Application Icon
Apple made many user interface changes with the release of OSX 10.6 Snow Leopard, here is one of my favorite changes.
under system preferences, choose Dock. Check the box that says "Minimize windows into application icon"
Now that the windows minimize to the application icon how do you know what windows are open. There are two ways. The first is to choose the application icon in the dock and click and hold on the icon.
By pressing F9 on the keyboard, using an assigned hot-corner or mouse button you can invoke the OSX Expose feature, the windows on the bottom half of the screen are the minimized windows.
email me at: feedback@thestealthmac.com
or find me on twitter: bldngnerd