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Smart Mouse with E-Mail and IM Alerts
lilrock writes "CoolTechZone.com takes a look at the world's first smart mouse from Logitech, the MX610, that has e-mail and IM alert buttons. It also has auto turn on/off functionality as well. According to the article, 'All these standard features aside, what has us impressed are the e-mail and IM notification buttons. Though the idea behind them is simple, it's interesting how Logitech comes up with such exclusive features. Basically, you will have to configure the indicators to alert you when you receive an e-mail and/or an IM message from the person of your choice. The buttons will alert you by lighting up, and lead you directly to the message once you press them.' " Because I for one am constantly staring at my mouse when I have a gigantic monitor right in front of me. Cough.
Perhaps some people use screen-savers, but would still like to have a visible indicator of when e-mail arrives?
Because I for one am constantly staring at my mouse when I have a gigantic monitor right in front of me.
As long as it has a long enough range, it could be useful to just take your mouse with you when you go away from the computer - to work on some paper based thing, prehaps.
OK, I'll bite to be the first: "But does it work in Linux?" :)
It does sound like a great idea, especially if the LED is very bright. Right now, I wrote some scripts to play sounds at intervals when important Email messages come in. But sometimes it can be much more annoying than a nice LED.
Every time you think the mouse is a dead deal, somehow Logitech does come up with something new and useful. And I will admit that I was one of those "what the hell is with this scroll wheel crap" people. And after a few months of using it, you would have to rip it from my cold, dying, RSI hands to get it away from me!
It now features a vibration instead of a light altert.
In other news, female use of computers up 500%.
Basically, you will have to configure the indicators to alert you when you receive an e-mail and/or an IM message from the person of your choice.
:)
And the $100 question is: will Logitech give out the API of this new feature freely, or will it be only usable with their "special" drivers in the latest Windows version du jour? Probably only with Outlook Express and MSN too.
I have yet to see Logitech software that doesn't suck, and I never ever bought another mouse than a Logitech one. Good hardware, godawful software. Kinda like the stuff from MS come to think of it
Now that would be innovative.
perhaps a vibrator functionality is near? anyway, i dont see the point because i never stay up at night staring for that annoying little blue square in the corner. sometimes, a mouse should just be a mouse
Why is someone spamming from CoolTechZone.com and gets accepted?
/. to drive ad revenue, apart from the editors of course.
The last two stories from CTZ were probably posted by the same user under different names, but what is common in both users is that they both specified http://slashdot.org/ as url (when clicking on their nicks). I don't think it's too far fetched to assume that someone is spamming with the intention to post inflammatory/poorly written stories to
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Who cares about the people who still use screen savers? They probably still have those prnters where the paper has the holes on the side and the actual "floppy" disc drives too.
Someone save me from this sanity.
Although the article makes fun of the output LEDs/buttons, that isn't such a bad thing; if you could make them do what you want, it would be really neat. Especially for someone who does system administration, who needs to somehow prioritize various distractions.
However, I went to logitech's site and discovered the following:
They don't provide (at least I can't find it) details on how to talk to the mouse to use the buttons/LEDs for input/output. You have to use their "SetPoint" software, which only works under Windows. And maybe it doesn't work the way you want it to.
So the mouse can't be used for other systems, and you can't program the mouse to work the way that you want it to work. Which is too bad.
Even if Logitech provided "open source" software, that wouldn't help folks who want to really use the hardware for neat things -- they need the technical specs that the "SetPoint" authors used to make the software work in the first place.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
At the office it took some convincing but I finally managed to talk some people into setting their email poll to once every 30-60 minutes to give them time to finish one task before another task started up. They all report being much happier.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
Because you can NEVER have enough blinking lights :P
Seriously though, I doubt the software requires that much overhead, and the extra feedback could be usefull to some people. Personally I won't be buying one, but I can imagine that some people might find it handy.
How about RSS?
are some volume buttons and a treo style keyboard on the top of the mouse, and we can ditch the traditional keyboard altogether.
Jerry
http://www.cyvin.org/
"Unless the performance is truly horrendous on this mouse, which we doubt, this could very well be another successful product from Logitech"
so...did they even test one? have they ever even seen one other than a picture? from the sound of things no. how do you review something you've never even used? oh wait...i know...logitech sent them a check.
My mouse could be neon green with 60 flashing lights on it and I would never notice it. I just went to the AT&T natural voice site and created a few female voice messages with the text I typed in to alert me of mail from certain people or business. Since she has an English accent it is different from my regular computer voice. I am using OS X so I just create a mail rule that will color the background of the message and then play the sound file for that person. Since I leave mail running in the background most of the day I will always know when I get an email from a person that I know, even if I am not looking at the computer.
Hey, Logitech! I'm a big guy with big paws. How about making a wired optical mouse with two buttons and one wheel that's about 50% larger than every mouse you currently make? These little buttons all over the sides and top just get in the way. I have the MX310 and it would be great if it was bigger and had 3 less buttons. You could make two or three sizes of the same thing and sell more mice that way. You know, instead of tacking on more garb... er um... features.
Also, opaque plastic please. The old optical mice with the translucent plastic were annoying. Loud colors are wasted on me too.
Why the fuck would you want you fucking mouse to do this ? A mouse is there for interactivity in a GUI, or more generally to represent the analogy between hand movements and virtual movements.
Why should the mouse ever check for email ? I have a programamble computer to do things like that.
This is the worst case of slashvertisement ever ! I'm sad I'm not a subscriber so I could ask my money back !
who looks down at their mouse anyway? In the past, my mail server used to sit beneath my stereo anyway, so I just ran one of the keyboard LED programs you can easily find with a little bit of searching to see how many messages I had in my inbox when I got home. The server, of course, was headless. What I did was rip the logic board out of an old keyboard, drill some holes in a front drive bay panel, plug the 'keyboard' into the back of the computer using another hole drilled in the back, and voila..instant status lights on a budget. I used the other two for network traffic (the mail server happened to also be my firewall).
r ojects&Go.x=0&Go.y=0
http://freshmeat.net/search/?q=mail+led§ion=p
So you know vital details, like you got spam when your screen has blacked out.
Am I the only who dosen't want email or IM alerts?
I picked up a MX610 to replace a mouse that just didn't meet my needs. Specifically, I wanted a mouse with plenty of programmable buttons that didn't require me to move my hand position.
I'm surprised at how well the blinking catches my attention. When I'm using my laptop in class, a meeting, or the library, audio indicators are out of the question. On-screen indicators are great, but unless they're persistent, I often miss them. The MX610 does a decent job of letting me know I recieved an IM or an e-mail.
The drawback? It's currently exclusive to M$ applications with no mention of further support. I have to use MSN messenger to talk to some of my friends, but I can't stand Outlook. >:(
Until they make available ones for LEFTIES.
We make up approx 10% of the population.
How do they expect us to use the buttons on the side?
Pah!
Oh wait, I don't care. Because both the email (Mail) and IM program (Adium) I use have nicely unobtrusive but conspicuous alerts in the Dock when a new message comes in. Adium also uses Growl notifications, if you want them.
I'm a big fan of Logitech devices, but this sounds like a really bad idea. Between the fact that most people generally cover most of the mouse with their hand, and the simple fact that a mouse is not there to be looked at, I seriously think Logitech engineers may have been smoking something leafy when they came up with this one... lights man...
You and I both know that this is yet another attempt to get around M$'s single screen interface. Because M$ has yet to make virtual desktops work, most people don't have it and suffer desktop congestion. A brave few have ventured into the expensive world of dual monitors, but they are still limited to the screen space and that's not enough for them. Others, such as Nvidia, have done the right thing and made virtual desktops but the last time I saw one it was slow and crash prone as you can expect anything M$ wants to be "first" with. This goofy mouse is just another attempt to gain useful space. On any system using X and a decent window manager, you can get a popup for your IM and email and it works. On Winblows, the pop up might not rise to the top and could be lost in the congestion if it did. That's the reason they made this thing.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Because I for one am constantly staring at my mouse when I have a gigantic monitor right in front of me.
Most people don't stare at their mouse constantly, BUT a flashing LED on your mouse will be quite visible in your pheripheral vision. Actually it will probably be more visible then a small icon or text flashing in one of the corners of the screen. Our pheripheral vision is quite good at recognizing movement, bright colors and flashing light, all of which were very useful to our cavemen anscenstors and as still useful to us today.
I think its a good idea, but some people might find this feature annoying after a while (e.g. teenagers who send messages per hour than speak sentences during the day).
I do find Logitech's idea quite interesting, but the parent raised a good point: small flashing lights on a mouse wouldn't be too useful because most people don't spend too much time staring at their mice.
Still, it looks like a nice novelty item, and I wouldn't mind if Santa brings me one this year.
http://chickenmafia.com/ Chickens of the world, unite!
Cool!
Stop the world; I need to get off.
I would not really apreaceate my mouse blinking (or vibrating for that matter) while I'm playing a game. And if I accidentally touched the IM button and it were to tab out of the game (which often crashes certain games btw) I would be really annoyed.
Some say he is made with ascii, others that he is eyeballed daily by millions. All we know is, he is known as the Sig
Well, if a company finds out that it will be expensive to support Linux, a Linux driver will still emerge somehow, given that the company is cooperating (by providing specifications) with third party developers who want to create open drivers.
If they don't provide specifications, then the hardware will be ignored, unless there is a high demand among developers to have support for XXXX hardware. An example of this is the broadcom wireless drivers, which started out as a reverse engineering project.
Dvorak on Doomtech
Hey! guy with big paws!
I have big paws too, and I have no problem with tiny mice.
You just need to rest the lower palm on the desktop, and move the mouse with your thumb and pinky. I find I can use the mouse at a 1400x1050 resolution easily, without actually moving my hand. That way, you make a movement similar to typing , where you don't need to move your arms. Maybe, just maybe, big hands and tiny mice can get along well.
"You laugh, but I have a friend that recently bought a new cellphone because the new one "vibrates harder then my last one""
m l
http://www.homemade-sex-toys.com/cellphone/faq.ht
"# Can I use my cell phone vibrator in public?
If you're discreet, and you think you can manage holding your phone in your crotch or stuffing it in your panties with no one noticing, go for it. However, most cell phones aren't totally silent when they vibrate, especially the ones that have more powerful motors. Unless you're on a noisy, jostling subway or a busy street, a persistent buzzing from below the belt might attract a few stares."
--
The "are you a script" word for today is gushes.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/08/003425 2&tid=126&tid=99This was reported on /. over three months ago. Nothing to see here... move along..
Seriously though, it would be nice if they would go back to the mouse style they had about 3 years ago. It was comfortable, and now they are some sort of weird ergo design that well, isn't... 2 buttons and a nice feeling scroll wheel is all I really need or want, other than a bluetooth model that is reasonably priced and works with a laptop built in b/t module.
I can't count... September was two months ago. No wonder I keep getting in trouble with the IRS :|
If you run Linux, you can forget this.
Logitech refuse to support using Linux with their products - just ask anyone with a DiNovo mediapad keyboard. All they have to do is tell us the protocol, which won't cost them a penny, but they won't. Asshats.
Yeah, the extra buttons on those common-as-dirt Compaq USB keyboards sure are useful when plugged into an OS X box. And now your hand will be between you and the lights most of the time. Oh yeah, and this will be real useful for left-handed mouse users.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
When I worked at HP (the part that became Agilent) we had HP PCs with keyboards that included an email LED (next to the Caps, Scroll and Num lock LEDs). It also had some quicklaunch buttons but they aren't so interesting.
It was really useful to not have to unlock the computer just to check if you had been sent that email yet.
I went to a tournament, and I had to play him, and I got beat bad. I was the best in my neighborhood, no one could touch me. When he crushed me, I cried, in front of my girlfriend too...
... Walk-a-dog-Mouse.
Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?
"They don't provide (at least I can't find it) details on how to talk to the mouse to use the buttons/LEDs for input/output. You have to use their "SetPoint" software, which only works under Windows. And maybe it doesn't work the way you want it to."
Wow! Those mice must be pretty hard to reverse-engineer.
--
The "are you a script" word for today is legally.
I, for one, welcome our new smart mouse overlords.
My mouse just failed so I went out and bought a Hyper Super Tech X40d2mfgv2 Extra III. It's the most amazing mouse ever. It has 104 programmable keys and three fantastic lights.
Am I the only one that thinks mice are becoming a little over complicated? Three buttons and a scroll wheel should be enough to anyone :o)
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Logitech already did vibrating mice with their iFeel range (now discontinued). Only problem was software had to include support for it to be any use, the Unreal Tournament series of games is probably the only that still does.
Turn your head the other way.
Cough again.
Why in the world would a person want their MOUSE to notify them when they get an Email? The monitor? OK. Speakers? Sure. Mouse!? Come on. What would it do? Jiggle slightly?
Why the hell not build a mouse right into your blackberry (I don't have one, I hate that product.) Then you'll have the mouse YOU ever wanted, but count me out.
You can't handle the truth.
number of females deleting their spam filters increased with 1000%.
Already been done by logitech http://www.dansdata.com/ifeel.htm
I have mine set up to let me know when Commisioner Gordon is emailing. My blinking red phone stopped working and now we have an excuse to enter the 21st century. --Batman
The previous two post had to do with genetics/biology, so I guess I was a bit pre-conditioned ...
... cool, they've genetically engineered a mouse to able to use email and IM ... neat trick, I get the IM, but the email asynchronous communication does require fairly high abstract thinking ability ... oh, wait.
Smart mouse with e-mail and IM alerts
Seriously, for a moment I was alright with a mouse messaging with other mouses and reseachers.
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers - Pablo Picasso
One thing I have never understood is why wireless mice do not seem to have battery on/off switches. Although they go to a low power mode after a while, some of them get retriggered when moving around in a briefcase, and the battery life is shorter than it needs to be. Is a physical switch really that difficult?
Pining for the fjords
I was mouse shopping Friday and I saw this mouse. I almost bought it, but I passed it up because of the subconcious 70's-esque appearance. It just didn't strike me as interesting to have the lights either.
short list, random order and no idea if any of this is out there already, I'm still using throw away 2 buck corded jobbies..when I don't use thriftstore 50 cent mices..man am I cheap...
built in biometrics-you already place your fingerprint on the thing, might as well make it function for security. You step away from the machine, take your mouse with you,slip it in your pocket, the computer locks down hard then, no other access until you get back close enough for the mouse to get detected again.
A built in flashdrive-people use flashdrives for a variety of purposes, and they are super tiny now in some configs, so perhaps a drive that stored your personal OS 'roaming user" profile or data recovery tools or doubled carrying it around as a smallish mp3 player, whatever you want to stick on there.
might need some thought on the way for data transfer though...hmmm
HAHAHAH-OK, convergence-it's your cellphone as well! Add a bluetooth headset to it. The view screen could be on the bottom on the unused part of the plastic that normally you aren't looking at, just flip it over to view and to access the number keypad.
Microsoft's best product is their mice. Simple is beautiful.
Do you maybe have an ebay link where i can buy a mouse for $300 ?
My ADHD can't handle one more flashing device telling me something has happened on the internets.
Please, give me a mouse that emits white noise, and laserbeams anyone who is trying to approach and distract me.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
Kensiko has had an "email mouse" for at least a couple years now (I bought one some time ago - it was the cheapest mouse in the store at the time) and it too was only for outlook or other MAPI clients, but the scroll-wheel lit up solid when powered, and flashed when a message was detected. No extra action when clicking on it though, and no IM.
I could see this as useful for a home user who could glance across the room to see if they needed to sit down at the computer. Especially if it's a stay-at-home parent with a home-based business.
It doesn't fit my needs, but that doesn't mean it's not useful to enough people to make it worth developing and selling.
Having said that, it would make more sense for IM programs to add this functionality.
Gaim has support for "buddy pounces" which allow you to set an action (such as a notification which can be anything from a pop-up window, IM box, and sent message to just a simple sound) for any event (an IM, change in state, even typing) a person on your buddylist triggers. They can also be set to repeat. They can even be used to piss people off by having it send a message to them whenever they start or stop typing. That can get really annoying, believe me.
I bought this mouse when it was first posted on /.
Biggest waste of money ever. The software they shipped it to me with didn't even have support for all the things it was suppost to have, and the version of the software on Logitech.com was even older. I called tech support and they told me they had never used or seen one, and to call back in a few days. After a few days of using this very inaccurate mouse I called back and they told me they still didn't know anything, and that they could upgrade it to another model. I ended up shelling out more money which brought my grand total well over 100 dollars to get the G7, because of it's sensitivity changing option. As soon as I held the mouse I realized the problem with it: the sensitivity buttons are directly below the scroll wheel, vertically. this means you have to bend your fingertip almost all the way to your palm before you can get the small buttons. I called back, said it sucked, they said I can't return it. My advice to impart to you? Don't ever buy a logitech mouse unless you've used it before.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/08/003425 2&tid=126&tid=99
Old news...
First off I'll second all the objections to this ridiculous product: It's unnecessarily limited, proprietary, non-compatible, and probably-- anyone know for sure?-- absurdly patented. That said, there are two underlying concepts embodied here which I think are worthwhile as we look towards future interface design.
One: More I/O is almost always good. The human brain is in large part a pattern recognizing machine; put meaningful information anywhere in someone's environment and they'll adapt to make use of it. If this product was aimed at slashdotters, the ad copy could have read: "Mouse that displays two bits of information!" It's not much, but it's more than your mouse used to be telling you.
Two: Input and output work well in connected loops. It's much more intuitive that if somewhere lights up to tell you about something that needs your attention, you respond by touching there. If properly implemented, this kind of integrity to a mini I/O situation could help us in making meaningful connections and associations. For instance, if there is a button somewhere that lights up when we get an IM from a particular person, and brings up an IM window to that person when pressed (whether it's lit or not), then that button represents that person on multiple levels.
We are primed and ready to make emotional connections with the things around us. One might have thought that having a light that shows HD or network activity would be silly-- in fact it's often practical-- but more than practical, it's often reassuring. For decades now, when a computer looks like it might be hung, I look to the HD light to reassure me that it really is doing something. That light has an emotional meaning for me.
So, yes, this particular product is a ridiculous implementation, but the ideas which are being ridiculously implemented are themselves worthwhile. There's something missing in all of the vibrating mice and email buttons they've come up with so far, but that doesn't mean that we should never explore I/O that goes beyond 101 keys and one big glowing square.
<3
If you were my sig, you'd be reading yourself right now.
I hate the fact that it's impossible to buy a keyboard without loads of useless extra keys. Now the mice designers are at it too. Excuse me while I rush off to stockpile sensible mice...
(Yes I am typing this on an IBM Model M keyboard)
In soviet russia stale jokes recycle you!
Logitech have recently become the number 1 vendor in the mouse market (when measured by volume).
In celebrations, the company announced it is developing a new generation of "smart mouse". This new type of mouse would be something similar to a laptop on castor wheels. The user would have around 100 buttons, and an integrated, full colour, high resolution display which would be used by the mouse to alert the user to various events. Company officials declined to elaborate on a likely price for the new mouse.
Also known as ADDM - Attention Deficit Disored Mouse.
Simpy
Because I for one am...
This is the most common grammar mistake made on the Internet, I swear.
Because I, for one, am...
>it's interesting how Logitech comes up with such exclusive features
No, it's not interesting, because they don't. My Trust mouse from about two years ago (since replaced by a Diamondback) would flash the additional LED under the scroll wheel when an email was received. As somebody already said, some HP keyboards have additional LEDs (and buttons) for mail/IM.
In any case, Trillian has a plugin which flashes the standard (Caps|Scroll|Num) indicators when a message is received. Very useful when playing games, and no extra hardware required.
And all I want for Christmas is a decent wireless keyboard that a) works reliably and b) doesn't have the f-lock abomination that Microsoft and Logitech appear to have decided everyone needs.
Because I for one am constantly staring at my mouse when I have a gigantic monitor right in front of me. Cough.
This doesn't make any sense. You acknowledge the stupidity of the product and post the article (Slashvertisement) anyway?
rooooar
The suggested retail price of the MX610 laser cordless mouse $59.99.
Does anyone remember luxury mice costing no more than 30$? Is it just me or am I wrong about this? This one costs something like 50 IIRC and that's like 2 the price I used to pay for top-of-the-line mice. Can anyone from germany or any other Euro country confirm this?
Or am I just not remebering prices for stuff like this correctly?
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I can't even get the buttons on my keyboard for email, search, connect, etc. to work. If I could, I wouldn't use them either.
Also, I already have 7 buttons and a scroll wheel on my mouse and I use all of them. Adding 2 more that only work for IM/email would seem to add more junk to the mouse than it does functionality.
Think about it, you only have to click roughly 3 times to open your IM or email client.
And of course, it doesn't work in Linux until you write your own driver for it.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
HA! I get it! Mouse. Peripheral. Man, that's funny stuff.
/me needs sleep
I remember once seeing a ad for a mouse that vibrated when you got a email/IM/whatever you set if for.
This is true. Microsoft should quit the software market for peripherals.
Simon's Rock College
I 2002 I bought a Yahoo! branded mouse (grey color, USB) with a light at the back for email notification. It should work with the provided driver, but never tried it since the mouse worked without external drivers, both in Windows and Linux (but without the back light)
DNA in your Linux: DNALinux
Cough.
I think everyone at Slashdot need to get checked for bronchitis.
Seems to be alot of **coughing** going around.
Help me take back Slashdot. When did 'News for Nerds' become 'FUD and Conspiracy Theories for Extremist Nutjobs'?
What somebody needs to do, is replace the light with a couple of contact points where you rest your fingers / hand to shock you when you get a message, because we all know were not screwed up enough abstaining from society, staying up all night and consuming large amounts of stimulants.
This is definitely not the "world's first" smart mouse... Mickey and Jerry aside, scientists created a smart mouse at Princeton six years ago - check it out. Luckily you can catch these suckers with a smart mouse trap.
Yes. But is this mouse FEARLESS?
Intercepting USB data isn't hard, it just requires know-how.
maybe running SetPoint under VMWare, and intercepting the data between VMWare and the hardware? Or, on a sufficiently fast machine, use something like bochs. If, of course, bochs supports libusb. There's a Linux Journal article on snooping libusb traffic.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
I reviewed this thing a month ago, and while the battery life and ergonomics are great, the wireless is problematic and the IM/Email notificiations while useful for telecommuters or people AFK only works with Outlook/MSN, not my cup of tea.
BTW how is this news if it was covered on Slashdot already?
Possible Extensions??
1) Keyboard
2) Monitor
3) Hardrive
4) CD-ROM (we already have the laser)
5) Auto-Pr0n Button
5a) Easy wipes to clean the monitor (for those embarrising situations)
6) Heck - It might as well assist in those situations.
Proof by very large bribes. QED.
sure it may be with a goat, but trans species marriage should be coming annnny time now
"Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything" -- Josef Stalin
The worse is BBC "breaking news" text flashing under the anchors on the BBC news videos. They flash the damn thing every 2 seconds for up to 10 minutes when one of their drinking/football champions dies. I have to turn off the channel or I get physically sick.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
A blackberry mouse would be really easy... for a Mac.
All you need is a hot glue gun and one of their no-button mice.
Then let's talk about all the Xbox360 stories posted in the last week. Microsoft has paid a lot of money to ensure that they get headlines everywhere. All news is good news, as long as the name is spelt right. /. has obliged by posting between 3-6 stories per day about the Xbox360.
/. view. They keep shoving the stories in the Xbox 1 category!
Unlike Jon Katz, there is no nice option to say that I don't want MS's spamvertisements on my
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I had this mouse for about 4 hours. Problems are as follows:
1. NO IMAP SUPPORT. It will work ONLY with Outlook or Outlook Express, using POP3. I think most folk that read Slashdot probably dont use Outlook (Express), and hopefully use IMAP4, making this feature useless.
2. IM Support sucks.. It will only work with yahoo messenger, MSN messenger, or AIM. It wont work with trillian, gaim, etc. I personally dont want to have 4-5 messengers running, with their extra features I never use, using a nice 150meg of ram.
If you buy it for the IM and Email Lights/buttons, you'll be disappointed bigtime. If you just want a regular laser mouse, and dont care about the buttons, you can save $20 and get a regular 3 button laser mouse.
OMG... I have a sig?
My mouse is larger than my monitor you insensitive clod!
If Logitech open sources the drivers I'll buy it. Think of all the cool things you could do with this mouse, e.g. communicating with your PC from another room or even chatting through an IM using morse code. Or simply using the buttons to remotely execute certain programs.
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
For the record.. these buttons are useful because, as a wireless device (i'm pretty sure), you can take the mouse in the next room, and still be notified if you have new mail. Please continue talking...
I have one of these and its a great mouse but buyer beware there is no GAIM support for the IM notifications. When you get an email in Outlook the blue button starts to light up and pulse breifly before going solid and it turns out looking classy and non obtrusive. I love the mouse!
A better product would be a pepper pot that gives an alert, but then that would interrupt your dinner.
in summation: you are at your desk, you don't need it.
you are at your desk, you might not want it.
making the pepper pot *look* like a pager is one thing too. Just a single small device that forwards alerts from PC to you.
Sounds like this would sell to the heathen masses of PC world buyers who go 'ooooooh look at that mouse....does it make my games run faster?'
0.o
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
dumb == good
every frickin time. As soon as you see something labelled "smart", nuke it. It's bound to contain stuff which will screw yr life *every* time.
This advice brought to you by the letters Foo and Bar
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious