Today's Great Thought

Essayist E. B. White wrote in the foreword to his collection of essays:

The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest. … Only a person who is congenitally self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays.

("Essays of E. B. White," p vii, Harper & Row, 1977.)

Bloggers, take note! The Internet wasn't in general existence in 1977 and blogging didn't happen until the 1990's, but substitute "blogger" for "essayist", please.

I number myself in those who must take note, of course. Thanks to Canon Quirk for drawing my attention to this quote.

Arc Touch Mouse Review

I have been having difficulties with my elderly mouse. The scroll wheel has gotten a bit dirty and I had difficulty in cleaning it. The mouse itself looked grotty and I would have spent a lot of time cleaning that, too. It is a rechargeable mouse, but the connection between the mouse and the charging station has gotten a bit chancy and I had to wiggle it around to get a charge going. So it was time to get a new mouse.

Microsoft's ventures into hardware have been chancy, except for input devices. So I looked around, and heard a lot of good things about their newest offering, the Microsoft Arc Touch mouse. So I used my Amazon gift certificates to get one. Here's my review.

The box is so small that it easily fits into a small brown padded mailing envelope. I was expecting a large box. It was 4"x6-5/8"x1-1/4".

After unboxing it, I looked on the back and there was the dongle. It's really tiny (as they tend to be these days) and it was magnetically attached to the back.

The two AAA batteries supplied with the unit go into the compartment to the right of the dongle area. So I slipped the dongle into a USB port on my computer. Before I could get back to the mouse and put the batteries in the dongle and software were installed and ready to use.

Turn the mouse over and you can see the front (well, top really) of the mouse. The left-hand side is textured and contoured for easy grip. The front has two buttons, and a metal strip which serves as a scroll wheel.

This mouse lies flat while it's switched off; that's how it was shipped to me and why the box is so relatively small. To turn the mouse on, simply bend the left-hand end downward and it's on. The LED on the bottom glows blue when the mouse is ready to use, and the small area to the left of the scroll wheel on top of the mouse is a pilot light that glows green for a few moments when the mouse is switched on.

The mouse lies easy in the hand. I have it configured for left-hand use at the moment but I'm certain that right-hand use is just as easy. The two feet on the bottom of the mouse slide well and do not seem to pick up dust and dirt the way that the four rubber feet on my old mouse did. There is a certain amount of wear on the mouse foot to the right of the LED already, but we will see how well it holds up. It may just be scratches which do not affect the operation of the mouse.

The buttons are VERY firm to the touch. I am a bit worried about this, as long term use might affect my fingers a bit. Again, that remains to be seen and I will have to revisit the question in a few months or a year.

The scroll wheel is actually called a touch strip, so I'll refer to it in that way. When you rub your finger up or down this strip, it scrolls slowly through a document. Flicking your finger up or down scrolls quickly to the top or bottom of a document. Tapping at the top or bottom of the touch strip pages through a document one screen at a time. When scrolling the mouse gives audible and tactile feedback so that you can tell that you are scrolling. A soft "click" and a bit of a vibration in your finger provide the feedback. It's quite useful.

There is a depression at the middle of the touch strip that corresponds to Microsoft's "middle button". The manual has a whole lot to say about using that area for various operations. I don't use them, so I haven't paid much attention to them. They are configurable through Microsoft's Mouse icon in the Control Panel.

I have several Apple Mighty Mouse mice, both wireless and wired. The scroll ball is small and fiddly. The wired version has a wire so short it's not useful unless your keyboard or USB port is on your desk. The scroll ball is a good idea but it gets dirty really easily and is difficult to clean.

At this point I really like the Arc Touch mouse. I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a new-style mouse to replace some of the old clunky models that were being sold 5 or 10 years ago.