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MX700 Cordless Optical Mouse w/Charger
dkgamez writes ""To make a long story
short, here I am, with my dream - a cordless-optical-rechargeable mouse. You can't imagine how good I feel right now.""
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[Microsoft][ODBC Microsoft Access Driver] Too many client tasks.
Sounds like the webserver needs recharging...
Invoicing, Time Tracking, Reporting
The link has also been slashdotted which makes the above story even more cryptic. BTW, why does it say;
... instead of something sensible??? WTF is error '80040e4d' - MicroSoft's special error code for a good reaming from theAlison
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." - Albert Einstein
...Here's the article in its entirety...
Introduction
I guess you may call me a "mouse freak", and I suppose that I am one indeed. With lots of high-tech mice, including the Logitech Cordless MouseMan, TrackMan FX and Microsoft's IntelliMouse Optical, floating around my desktop, I still wasn't satisfied - well, until I got the MX700. My "mouse dream" has been finally fulfilled by Logitech.
You will soon see why.
The story goes back to the year 2000, when I had to choose between two top-of-the-line mice - the then just-released Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer with optical technology and the Logitech Cordless MouseMan. It was a hard decision: optical or cordless. I remember wishing there were a mouse that combined both of these desirable characteristics - that were both optical and cordless. Eventually, I decided to go for Logitech's Cordless MouseMan, preferring to have "cordless freedom" at the expense of optical technology. The Cordless MouseMan remained my trusty mouse for about a year.
However, nothing lasts forever, and one day, while shopping at Best Buy, I unexpectedly came upon the Logitech Cordless TrackMan FX. Even though it was a trackball, the fact that it was cordless and had a built-in optical sensor deeply attracted me. I immediately decided to buy it and that may have been the biggest mistake I had ever made. The AA battery needed to be changed every once in a while, and it took me a lot of practice to get used to the trackball. Believe it or not, learning how to use the TrackMan FX is actually harder than learning to drive a car. So, my advice to all of you reading this article is, do not buy any trackballs unless you are a "mouse freak" like me or have some kind of problem with your wrist. I mean, it is a freaking marble! Also consider that I had bad quality rechargeable Ni-Cd batteries and was forced to change them almost everyday. In fact, I didn't even have the battery compartment cover set in place. I then wished that there were a mouse with a built-in charger of some sort, using which I wouldn't have to change the batteries all the time.
To make a long story short, here I am, with my dream - a cordless-optical-rechargeable mouse. You can't imagine how good I feel right now.
The Package
All right, now let's get back to the review. The box that Logitech MX700 comes in is larger than those of most other mice on the market (the size of the box seems to be directly proportional to the price and functionality of the product).
Inside the package are an MX700 mouse, a Rapid Charge Base Station, a USB to PS2 converter, an AC adapter, 2x 1700mAh AA size Ni-MH batteries, a Quick Start Guide, and a driver CD. (After the first day of using the MX700, I found that the quality of the batteries that came with the mouse was rather bad. I strongly recommend that you replace them with a pair of good Ni-MH batteries.)
The AC adapter provides the power needed to charge the mouse on the base station. One interesting detail is that the power jack connects to the USB plug but not the back of the base station. That eliminates one extra cord on my already messy desktop.
The Rapid Charge Base Station looks rather weird. It doubles as the charger and the signal receiver. When you want to recharge your mouse, all you have to do is place it on the base station, just like you would place a PDA in its cradle. It takes less than two hours to fully recharge the 2 AA Ni-MH batteries inside the mouse. You can recharge the batteries whenever you want to, due to the fact that the Ni-MH batteries do not have a "memory effect". The base station is one of the most wonderful things a cordless mouse can come with. Imagine a cordless phone that cannot be recharged on a base station. What a hassle it would be to take out the batteries and put them into a battery charger! The release of the MX700, I believe, marks the beginning of a new trend in cordless mouse technology that will prevail in the future. There's no way for me to go back to using my non-rechargeable cordless mice anymore.
The Technology
The Fast RF Cordless technology used in the MX700 has been improved by Logitech to match the speed of a USB connection, allowing you to use the mouse within a six foot radius of the receiver. Unlike the older cordless mice which could only transmit signals at a rate of 40hz, equivalent to the speed of a PS2 port, the new Fast RF technology can transmit signals at 140hz, which is actually faster than what the USB port can handle (125hz). You won't miss out on a bit of the optical performance or accuracy because you will not be limited by the speed of the radio signal. Logitech uses a 27Mhz frequency to transmit the signal as opposed to the 900Mhz used in some other cordless devices. This helps avoid signal interference between the mouse and some cordless telephones used by many people.
By now, you should already know about the advantages optical technology has over the traditional mechanical technology. Optical mice do not trap dust, are more precise than the traditional ones, and work well on almost any surface except glass. It is true, however, that there are several downsides to the optical technology used in the first generation of optical mice like the Microsoft IntelliMouse Explorer version 1.0. When you move your mouse very quickly the mouse pointer might skip or jump around the screen because the 2500 pictures per second taken by the optical sensor are not enough for the mouse to process moves that exceed a maximum speed of 14 inches per second. In other words, the optical sensor cannot keep up with the speed at which you are moving the mouse, which results in a "loss" of the pointer on the screen. Even though Microsoft has upgraded the optical sensors in its optical mice product line to take 6000 pictures per second, which translates into a maximum speed of 30 to 37 inches per second at 400 dpi, they still are not as good as the MX sensor used by Logitech's MX series mice. The Logitech MX Optical Engine takes an astounding 8000 pictures per second at 800 dpi and is capable of handling mouse movements made at a speed of 40 inches per second. The sensor captures images at the rate of 4.7 megapixels per second, providing users with the greatest degree of accuracy and the smoothest mouse movement ever. You won't have to worry about the "pointer skipping" even in fast paced games like Counter-Strike and Unreal Tournament 2003.
The Mouse
Like other Logitech mice, the MX700 feels solid and "in-one-piece". I personally own a Microsoft IntelliMouse Optical, and its quality is not nearly as good as that of the Logitech mice. When squeezed, the IntelliMouse Optical makes a crackling noise, and when shaken, it seems that the plastic parts are not firmly held together. The MX700 is not too large, just about the right size for most people's hands. When you place your hand on the MX700, it feels like something that has been integrated into the palm of your hand. The scroll wheel does not feel loose like the ones on the Microsoft mice, and it doesn't make a loud scrolling noise either. I got accustomed to the shape of MX700 in a very short amount of time.
There are eight customizable buttons and one scroll wheel which doubles as a clickable button on the MX700. That should certainly make all the "button lovers" happy. The left and right click buttons are installed in a very interesting fashion, which adds a "hype" factor to the mouse. They are actually part of the silver body of the mouse. The buttons do not feel like those on the Apple Pro Mouse, which requires you to press on the whole mouse body to make a click, and they feel like regular mouse buttons. There are three little round buttons between the left and right click buttons. Two of them, located at the two ends of the scroll wheel, comprise the "Cruise Control Scrolling System", which allows you to scroll up and down through a long webpage or document at a constant speed. Logitech designed the cruise control buttons for high speed scrolling and the scroll wheel for line-by-line scrolling. Therefore, they made the default scroll speed for the wheel to be 1 line, which I'm still not very used to. Fortunately, you can customize all the buttons using MouseWare. Fixing the the scrolling problem is easy: just set the scrolling speed to "screen". I believe this is a MouseWare problem, and that it will be resolved in future versions of MouseWare. The third button in the "scroll island" is called the "Quick Switch Program Selector". It helps you switch between different application windows with a touch of a button. However, I found the app switch button to be placed too low, in an area that is darn hard to reach for my index finger. I would rather stick with the "Alt-Tab" app switch method. Just below the app switch button, there is a little LED indicator that shows you the current status of the battery. The LED becomes green and flashes while the mouse is being recharged on the base station. When the battery is fully charged the light stops blinking and turns off after five minutes. The LED turns red and blinks when the battery is low and should be recharged, and, of course, you can recharge it whenever you want. The LED battery indicator is really useful considering that the battery status application that comes with the MouseWare driver doesn't always show the correct information. There are two browse buttons on top of the thumb rest that can help you move backward and forward if you are in a web browser or file explorer. I found these buttons to be well placed and pretty useful for surfing the web.
The latest version of MouseWare (v9.73) available at the Logitech website does not work with the MX700, and I was forced to use version 9.70 included on the driver CD instead.
Although I miss the cool glowing Logitech logo found on the older Optical MouseMan, the new silver brushed metal logo isn't that bad at all. I suppose the people at Logitech took the illuminated logo out to conserve battery life.
Turn the mouse over and you will see the optical LED. Unfortunately, it is still the boring red, but that is fine with me because I couldn't find any optical mice on the market that didn't not have a red LED. I wonder, wouldn't a blue LED look so much cooler? Okay, here we go again. I think I just found another good "dream thought" - blue LED! I guess the designers might have had technical difficulties with using wavelengths of different colors, but I've no doubt that these problems will eventually be resolved as further advances are made in the field of optical technology. Another concern is that the optical LED does not turn off when your computer is shut down. You have to place the mouse on the base station in order to make the light go away. We might have an answer to this problem when we get more information from Logitech.
I have tried using the mouse while playing several fast-paced action games, including Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament 2003 demo, Battlefield 1942, and No One Lives Forever 2 demo. Amazingly, it worked great in all of them. I was unable to detect any skipping even when moving the mouse really quickly in some of the games. The MX700 is quite heavy because there are 2 AA batteries inside of it. This makes it hard to lift it up, and sometimes slows down mouse movement in some of the newer first person shooters. Hardcore gamers might want to choose the corded MX500 or MX300 instead.
Conclusion
Logitech's MX700 is a cordless-optical-rechargeable mouse with all the buttons you've ever wanted. Its ergonomic and comfortable design makes it an enjoyable tool to use. Super fast RF cordless technology and the MX optical engine make this mouse perfect for desktop applications as well as games.
Pros:
Rapid charge base station
Ergonomic design
MX Optical Engine
Fast RF Cordless technology
Battery status indicator light
Lots of buttons
Cons:
MouseWare needs improvement
Heavy
Awkward application switch button placement
Bad quality stock batteries
- Larry
Update: the scrolling lag is caused by the MouseWare. Until a newer version of MouseWare comes out, you can temporarily use the mouse without the MouseWare or with Microsoft IntelliPoint, which works perfectly with the MX700; the only drawback is that you will not be able to use the app switch button.
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Best idea ever in lamest article ever!
graspee