The PhoneBoy Blog » miscellaneous

Adesso Optical Trackball

PhoneBoy — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 05:45:02 +0000

I have always been a huge fan of trackballs. In fact, on my first Mac back in the 1980s, I had a Kensington Expert Mouse with an 8-ball as the actual trackball. No, you couldn’t buy them that way, but yes, the trackballs were big enough you could put an actual billiard ball in my trackball. And I loved it.

When Adesso’s PR firm asked me if I wanted to review their new Optical Trackball, I jumped on it. Yes, it has been some time since I’ve owned a trackball. 15 years or so. Not quite sure why I never picked one up in the years since. Mostly inertia, I guess, as I never found one I liked quite as much as my old one.

The trackball I was back in the late 1980s, well before mice and trackballs went digital. They had analog rollers that needed cleaning often. The trackball was also pretty big, meaning it took up a lot of room.

By comparison, Adesso’s Optical Trackball is smaller and lighter in many respects. It’s also digital, which means very tiny rollers that don’t require constant cleaning. The ball itself is much smaller than my old Expert Mouse, and it’s really light and easy to move around. It’s also much more accurate–800dpi to be exact. Never quite sure what impact that actually has on my day to day use, but I did have to lower the mouse tracking speed settings on my MacBook Pro or it’d be too easy to overshoot things.

The challenge with any new trackball is learning where the optimal spot is for your hand. The left and right mouse buttons are a little higher up than I would have liked, at least at first. It didn’t take long for my hand to find the sweet spot where those buttons are easily reachable. The scroll wheel is in a good location for my thumb, allowing me to scroll pages up and down easily.

I am finding this trackball delightful to use. At $30 from Adesso (or less if you shop around), it’s also a pretty fair price! Certainly cheaper than my old Expert Mouse. Compatible with pretty much anything that supports a USB mouse (i.e. Mac, Windows and likely Linux). No drivers to install, either. It just works.

This work originally came from The PhoneBoy Blog and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Fingerprint: e37ac627f3d973694c212ff9430d215a

And… We’re Back

PhoneBoy — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 08:41:52 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

You probably didn’t notice because I’ve done these things so many times, I can almost do it in my sleep. I switched webhosts. Really, it’s not the kind of thing you need to tell people about usually, if you do it right.

However, one of my friends on Twitter was telling me about a hosting deal that was too good to be true on Dreamhost. Two years worth of hosting for $21.48! I, of course, signed up right away before the deal expired yesterday. While the experience was a little rocky–their signup page was getting pummeled–I got in. They have a slightly LESS good deal going today (only 20% off instead of 90%), but it may still be worth checking out.

As I write this, I am in DNS purgatory, waiting for the nameserver records to change over. However, I was able to get my two WordPress sites moved over without too much issue. I have a couple of custom sites I will need to spend some time on to get them moved over, but I suspect that won’t take a lot of time, either.

I can’t assume this moved completely without incident, so if you see anything funny on my site, let me know!

Lights Out, Mother’s!

PhoneBoy — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:22:01 +0000

Ok, this really isn’t a gadget. It’s a shirt. But it has meaning to anyone who grew up on the West Coast of the U.S. over the last several decades.

While trying to figure out why the hell gas has dropped to below $2 in my neck of the woods–not that I’m complaining, mind you–I discovered yet another victim of the global economic implosion: Mother’s Cookies.

I know that over the years, I’ve eaten my share of these little animal cookies covered in frosting and sprinkles. They weren’t something I had all the time, being a treat and all, but damn, they were good. They were part of growing up.

Unfortunately, Mother’s Cookies had to shut their doors in October of 2008 thanks to the rising costs of fuel, flour, butter and sugar. Oh, and of course, the ability to find credit.

Meanwhile, you can commemorate these tasty little cookies by purchasing this shirt from Cloth Moth for $25.

Can We Stop Daylight Saving Time Already?

PhoneBoy — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 07:42:03 +0000

I have never understood why one needs to change the clock twice a year to “save daylight.” You have the same amount of daylight, you’re just timeshifting it. You’re not saving it.

I was lucky enough to live in Hawaii for a few years. One of the benefits of living there, besides the fact my allergies were a non-issue, was that there was no Daylight Saving Time. I didn’t have to change the clocks twice a year. Time just was.

And that’s the way it should be. Especially since we can’t agree on when to do it. Since I’ve been alive, the Daylight Saving rules have changed twice, and yes I was old enough to be conscious of both changes

Different countries have different rules, of course. Some sensible countries like Japan and China don’t bother with this Daylight Saving rubbish. Let’s just enact permanent Daylight Saving Time and get on with it!

Comments

3 November 2008, cribbagegeek writes: I disagree - the LAST thing I want to see is permanent DST. I want them to leave well enough alone and do away with DST and leave us on NORMAL TIME!!! DST is just wrong.

The ATM Piggy Bank

PhoneBoy — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 08:42:34 +0000

The one piggy bank I actually remember having as a kid was a safe. It was a little yellow thing with a slot on the top to put coins or folded up bills. I was bad about saving money in that thing.

Meanwhile, piggy banks have gotten more fancy. Take this ATM Piggy Bank for instance. It takes coins, bills, and is protected by a personal PIN code. Oh yeah, and it even sounds like an ATM, too.

Counting the money in your piggy bank is kind of fun,. This gadget takes the fun out of it by showing you exactly how much is in there. Come to think of it, an automatic counter might be a good thing.

Using AdSense For A Personal Vendetta

PhoneBoy — Fri, 16 May 2008 07:51:57 +0000

When I was in Gmail the other day, I was a bit surprised to see the following ad:

Yes, the link was to a web site giving all kinds of reasons why one should not do business with this person. I am not going to link to the site at all, but a quick Google search should bring it up if you’re interested.

I am not going to comment on whether or not this person is or is not a “deadbeat” because, for all I know, this person isn’t and this is just a libel lawsuit waiting to happen. Even so, it’s really interesting that a person (or a group of persons) would use AdSense as a way to get back at someone that did them wrong.

Comments

16 May 2008, Luca writes: On a Fourm: "Warning this person is a CON artist with bounced checks and false financial statements"
17 November 2008, Thomas SG writes: The same things happens on ebay and several forums. Who knows if it's true or not...But you just have to be careful nowadays...

Getting Closer To IPv6?

PhoneBoy — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 08:51:22 +0000

With the recent news that 6 of the 11 root DNS servers now have a native IPv6 address, there’s a feeling amongst some that we might finally be going down the road towards migrating to IPv6. It’s been talked about for years. I’ve been hearing doomsday predictions about the scarcity of the IPv4 address space for at least 15 years now. IPv4 has roughly a 4 billion IP address space–not excluding various blocks not usable by hosts– versus IPv6′s roughly 3.4*10³⁸ IP address space.

The Domain Name System, otherwise known as DNS, is a very important function on the Internet. Without it, people could not translate, say, phoneboy.com, into a usable IP address for a number of different services. If you were on an IPv6 network, you could still resolve DNS names, but packets would have to be sent out over an IPv4 network. Native IPv6 support means that DNS can now operate entirely over IPv6.

Aside from increased address space, IPv6 would essentially eliminate the need for address translation–within the IPv6 network anyway. Some sort of translation might be necessary to reach hosts still on IPv4 only–or for IPv4 hosts to reach IPv6 hosts. However, that would be the exception rather than the norm. Also, IPv6 supports proper point-to-point encryption as part of the standard.

While us geeks are looking forward to IPv6, there’s a lot of infrastructure still on IPv4, and likely will be for the foreseeable future. The process will likely take another decade or more. By then, most of our computers, routers, and networking equipment should be IPv6 ready. I hope.

Comments

8 February 2008, spg writes: IPv6 will eliminate a lot of headaches with protocols like SIP getting around NAT firewalls, etc. but lets hope that as the ISPs, cell carriers(who will likely be one of the main pipes into the net in 10 years) and the backbone operators do not put no obstacles in place as they upgrade. without net neutrality IPv6 could actually be more of a problem and a help in that the backbone operators and ISP will be able to identify far more about what is connected to you IP connection and throttle as they see fit.
8 February 2008, PhoneBoy writes: @spg NAT makes stuff worse, but then again, protocol designers are stupid for not taking the reality of NAT into account. Then again, with IPSec as part of the standard, "filtering" content might be a lot harder.
10 February 2008, Derek Morr writes: There are far, far more than 11 DNS root servers. There are closer to 130. ICANN has a nice write up it - http://blog.icann.org/?p=235 I agree that having IPv6 in the DNS root is very important. However, organizations have been deploying IPv6 for years before this announcement.
10 February 2008, PhoneBoy writes: @derek wouldn't deployment of a major Internet service like DNS indicate progress on IPv6 adoption?
10 February 2008, Derek Morr writes: Yes, having IPv6 in the DNS root is a very important step forward for IPv6 deployment. I just wanted to point out that it doesn't preclude organizations from deploying IPv6 themselves, and running IPv6 on their own authoritative name servers.
10 February 2008, PhoneBoy writes: @derek of course it doesn't preclude it, but it makes it a little bit easier to jump on the bandwagon now. :)
19 February 2008, My Ip Address writes: In the IPv4 world, RIPv2 [RFC2453], the integrated IS-IS [RFC1195], and OSPFv2 [RFC2328] are commonly deployed unicast routing protocols in networks of small to middle scale such as enterprise environments, while BGP-4 [RFC4271] is the common routing protocol deployed among large organizations such as Internet Service Providers (ISPs). In general, since the routing concept is identical between IPv4 and IPv6, these routing protocols have been naturally extended to support IPv6. Even though the packet formats may have changed, the principles remain largely the same. But there are IPv6 specific issues. In particular, most IPv6 routing protocols rely heavily on link-local addresses since communication using these addresses is stable in terms of routing, thanks to their limited scope. On the other hand, the ambiguity of link-local addresses requires special care in implementing these protocols. It is therefore important to understand the details of the protocols and how they should be implemented even for those who are familiar with IPv4 routing protocols.

Nice Rack!

PhoneBoy — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:01:19 +0000

This is what I spent my Monday night building. I purchased this rack through Rack Solutions. I purchased the optional front and back cover as well as the handles and heavy-duty casters. The unit arrived by UPS Ground in 3 separate boxes and took me about an hour to get assembled. Getting the equipment in the rack took a bit longer.

My only complaint about the rack was that there wasn’t enough cage nuts provided. Otherwise, it was fairly straightforward to get this rack assembled. It did take me longer than the estimated 15 minutes, but not an inordinate amount of time.

You might wonder why I have a rack at home. As you probably know, I work for Nokia. My job involves supporting our Network Security products, which now come out of the Security division under the Software and Services business unit. These servers typically go into machines rooms and are rack-mounted.

While they fit nicely on my floor–which is what they’ve done for the past several months–the machines “slide around” and probably don’t get adequate airflow. The last racks I had were slanted, which was nice because they fit under my desk. The machines were a pain to mount due to the slant, the rack could not be fully utilized due to the slant, and the screws frequently got caught in the screw holes–they didn’t use cage nuts for some reason. I threw those racks away before I moved.

So far, I’m happy with the new rack, but it’s only been a few days.

Comments

17 January 2008, Blog » Blog Archive » Nice Rack! writes: [...] PhoneBoy wrote an interesting post today on Nice Rack!Here’s a quick excerptRelated Posts. Nice Rack! Simplified Computing; New and improved Blog; Next Stop: WordPress! How Does Numbr Make Money? Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative … [...]
17 June 2008, nice rack 14 | VIRGILIO Ricerca | Web writes: [...] of Munich ...www.slate.com/id/2153774�-�lingua: en �-�altri risultati nel dominio �-�copia cacheNice Rack!17 gen 2008 ... PhoneBoy wrote an interesting post today on Nice Rack!Here�s a quick excerptRelated [...]

Christmas Wishes From PhoneBoy

PhoneBoy — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 09:13:51 +0000

Santa visited this evening and left some presents under the tree for the kids. Hope you’re all having a good Christmas, or if it’s not your holiday, having a good day.

Comments

25 December 2007, Christmas News Aggregator » Christmas Wishes From PhoneBoy writes: [...] Original post here [...]
26 December 2007, luca writes: A new bike, like that I received from my wife this year! As soon as I saw it I was like a kid... :-)

RIP Marc Orchant

PhoneBoy — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 08:01:56 +0000

I, like so many in this great circle of friends in the blogosphere, am saddened by the passing of Marc Orchant, as reported by his friend Oliver Starr. Clearly, he touched oh-so-many lives and will be missed by his family, friends, and colleagues all over the world.

Like Dan York, I did not know Marc all that well. I was certainly familiar with his work in the blogosphere. I did have a conversation with him once on a VoIP call. I think it was about the Nokia N800 Internet Tablet. It was a while ago, and I thought I would get a chance to converse with him more and learn from this great man. Unfortunately, his time was up.

I send my thoughts to the Orchant family, whom must be going through unimaginable grief right now. However, I think Stefan Constaninescu put it best: “Remember him today and live your life tomorrow with the thought in the back of your mind that everyday is beautiful. Because it really is.”

Indeed.

Comments

11 December 2007, DVD » Blog Archive » RIP Marc Orchant writes: [...] RIP Marc OrchantBy PhoneBoyI, like so many in this great circle of friends in the blogosphere, am saddened by the passing of Marc Orchant, as reported by his friend Oliver Starr. Clearly, he touched oh-so-many lives and will be missed by his family, friends, …The PhoneBoy Blog - http://www.phoneboy.com [...]

Marc Orchant Suffers Massive Coronary

PhoneBoy — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 08:01:49 +0000

Usually when I say the words massive coronary, I am exaggerating. This time, I’m afraid I’m not.

Marc Orchant, one of the stronger voices in the tech blogosphere, suffered from a massive coronary on Sunday morning. Oliver Starr broke the news on Blognation on Monday morning and there has been a massive outpouring of support since then.

While I’ve only spoken to Marc once and I am not a praying man, but you can bet Marc, Sue, and the Orchant family will be in my thoughts. All of us are hoping for a speedy and complete recovery!

Comments

12 December 2007, blognation USA » Blog Archive » Marc Orchant Suffers Massive Coronary writes: [...] Marc Orchant Suffers Massive Coronary Says: December 4th, 2007 at 9:01 am [...]

Seriously Old Scotch

PhoneBoy — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 08:01:30 +0000

When I can get it–and it’s not often these days–I love to get my hands on a single malt scotch. The good stuff is a bit pricey–and it’s certainly not for the faint of heart–but it is something I like to enjoy. And yes, my favorite single malt happens to be Macallan, the older the better.

This bottle of Macallan spent 60 years aging in an oak barrel before it was bottled in 1986. It was recently auctioned by Christies in New York for a whopping $54,000 USD!

I doubt if I had that kind of money, I’d spend it on alcohol. Of course, if you can afford a $54,000 bottle of scotch, you probably wouldn’t miss it. The money, I mean. The scotch would surely be missed when it’s gone. That is, if it ever gets consumed.

Via Born Rich

Disconnected

The PhoneBoy Blog » miscellaneous

Adesso Optical Trackball

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Nice Rack!

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