Rod Speed said:
Mostly, actually, you dont have the nuisance of the cable.
There is still a cable. I think you're focusing on the device end and
yet I have no nuisance with the cord at the mouse end by making sure
it doesn't snag or push against anything when the mouse is moved.
Sometimes it's just too hard to setup the desk so the cord is
unfettered so a cordless mouse is nicer *if* you're willing to
tradeoff for the heavier weight. Could be a justifiable tradeoff.
But we don't know if the OP has such a cluttered desk that there
really is a problem with the cord; if so, he might also have a problem
with the cord for the receiver. Where my desks are so cluttered that
cordless might justified, there is also so little room to move the
mouse that it wouldn't matter if it was corded or not. For those, I
use a trackball and it doesn't matter if it was corded or not since
the trackball never moves (so I go corded because it is cheaper to buy
and cheaper to replace).
Only real downside is that its easier to drop a wireless mouse.
I used to have a Kensington trackball so I didn't even have to pick up
the pointing device like you do with mice, except the kids kept taking
the ball to play with. I found a pool shop where snooker balls were
the same size so I bought half a dozen. If the ball is missing now, I
can usually find one laying around to put into the trackball base.
With a corded mouse, it doesn't wander off as easily as a cordless one
(and they've gone "walking off" at work, too).
Yes, tho thats a less important factor here since
I use Synergy to share the mouse and keyboard
and have separate monitors on the switching that.
Useful if you have the room for all those monitors to let Synergy move
the mouse between them. For a home user that has as many monitors as
they have hosts (assuming they have multiple hosts to qualify the need
for Synergy), that could be a lot of desktop real estate. At work
with hundreds of hosts in the lab, that many monitors would be an
impossibility. When I used the plural "hosts", I meant many of them,
not just 2. "Synergy lets you easily share a single mouse and
keyboard between multiple computers ..., each with its own display".
While I might tolerate having multiple boxes around running one or
multiple operating systems at the same time via VMware or Xen, I
wouldn't want to require vast desktop or shelf space for all those
monitors. My real point was that THE mouse is a deliberate shared
resource so cordless means users can use it right- or left-handed as
they pleased (provided you actually get an *ambidexterous* cordless
mouse) regardless whether or not the mouse was shared amongst
monitors, through KVMs, for hosts at a test station, or whatever. The
device is shared by dozens of users so cordless made sense in that
case.
I run it around on an old A4 book cover on my lap, sometime
run it around on my chest when doing something simple mouse
wise for a moment with the keyboard on my lap.
Ah ha ha ha. Now that's a bad picture of a guy rolling a cordless
mouse around on his hairy chest. Okay, yeah, I know, you're wearing a
shirt but the image that popped up was funny. At that point, if
you're doing most of your computing from a recliner, I would think one
of those g-force mice or G-gloves that figures out how to move the
cursor by you waving it around in mid-air might be a better choice so
you don't need to contrive a surface for the mouse. Yeah, pricier,
but then economy doesn't seem crucial to your arguments (because
you're only considering one host or workstation along with unlimited
funds).
I dont do that, I use it in the same place as the smaller monitor
used to be.
So you are still within the same range as a non-Bluetooth cordless
mouse. Blows the reason for bringing Bluetooth into the arguments.
Yes, but it does blow that silly claim you made about range
completely
out of the water, and fixes the multiple channel problem completely
too.
And so does using a corded mouse regarding [the lack of] interferrence
between mouse and keyboard users because there no such problem to have
to deal with in the first place. If Bluetooth was so great, why did
it fail in the marketplace? You see Bluetooth engulfing the entire RF
device market? Logitech currently has but a single Bluetooth cordless
mouse (for use with a Bluetooth notebook or Apple Powerbook) which all
of only doubled the 15-foot range to 30 feet (but then who uses their
cordless mouse more than a couple feet from their monitor excluding,
of course, the tiny minority of recliner-based users, like yourself?).
If it was the quintessential RF technology, why didn't it supplant all
other remote control RF technologies in the over 5 years since it's
been around? Another use of Bluetooth is creating a 'piconet' (1
master + 7 slaves) ad-hoc network. There can be 255 slaves but only 7
can be active at at time which pretty much kills it for anything but a
"personal" network (since the hubs, routers, and other network devices
would get counted with the hosts in that 7-max active count). Even
with 7 active slaves, the master can only communicate with 1 host at a
time in a round-robin scheme. Other "interferrence" could be hacking.
Despite encryption, it was shown over a year ago that pairing between
Bluetooth devices could be forced to let a outside Bluetooth device
sneak into your network
(
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/06/08/bluetooth_mobo_attack/) and
now there's Bluesnarfing into Bluetooth phones
(
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/frank_fisher/2006/08/bluetooth.html).
I don't recall ever hearing or reading of anyone that was found
wardriving into corded mice or corded keyboards.
That Bluetooth has greater range but with the same distance between
cubicles or offices means greater chance of interference from other
Bluetooth devices (i.e., larger range with same density of users).
"Bluetooth technology’s adaptive frequency hopping (AFH) capability
was designed to reduce interference between wireless technologies
sharing the 2.4 GHz spectrum. AFH works within the spectrum to take
advantage of the available frequency. This is done by detecting other
devices in the spectrum and avoiding the frequencies they are using."
Since they are sharing the same unlicensed 2.4Ghz ISM band as other RF
devices, and because it uses some adaptive "hopping" around to find
some bandwidth, seems the "interferrence" could simply be in getting
choked out from finding any available bandwidth. It can hop amongst
79 frequencies, so in a high density populace of Bluetooth users, like
at some company enamored with the technology, it sure seems plausible
that its extended range for its sphere of connectivity could encompass
far more than just 79 different Bluetooth users. So the interferrence
problem is still an issue - but maybe not, as you mention, for the
home user (i.e., the OP). Because it is still RF technology, it is
still susceptible to EMF just like your cordless telephone. However,
we're on a tangent with Bluetooth since *NONE* of the gaming mice from
Logitech in which the user is or would be interested use Bluetooth.
And those limits dont exist with bluetooth mice and keyboards.
Bluetooth has its limits, too.
Yep. Bluetooth has been designed from scratch to
handle multiple bluetooth sessions in close proximity.
No point, its already been invented, its called bluetooth.
No, it's called EMF and it affects any RF device, including Bluetooth.
It isnt an icon, the led on the top of the mouse starts blinking
slowly.
Even you would notice it.
That's good (that it uses the flash LED on the mouse). A picture of
the Logitech G7 gaming mouse is shown at
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2464,CONTENTID=10716
(click the "Alternate Views" link). Just how are you going to see
that blinking LED through your hand that rests atop the mouse and
covers those LEDs? I'm assuming those red rectangles in the picture
are the LEDs to which you refer. While using non-game applications,
your mousing hand probably comes of the mouse often enough, like when
typing, so you would see the blinking LED. During gameplay, your hand
is on the mouse all the time. The MX1000 shown at
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2135,CONTENTID=9043
might have a better chance of some of the light leaking past your palm
so you might see its reflection on your desktop or mousepad ... maybe.
You dont need to. The indicator is so obvious
that even you wouldnt be able to miss it.
So are the LEDs on the keyboard but users miss those, too. "Why
doesn't my password work? Oh, the CapsLock, thanks." Now Windows will
even popup a prompt in case you type with the CapsLock on because
users still manage not to see the LED on the keyboard. The indicators
are NOT in line-of-sight of the monitor, and many users eventually
learn to actually type so they don't have to peck around on the
keyboard or even look at the mouse or keyboard to use them, so some
systems are setup to display the Caps-, Scroll-, and NumLock on the
screen but they don't display during games (so a tray icon or popup
dialog for battery voltage won't be and should not be visible).
Wrong again. You get the indication of low battery LONG before you
ever get any erratic behaviour with a properly designed wireless
mouse.
And my mouse usage is determined by my work which has priority, not
the other way around. I want to get my work done, not plan on when I
need to replace batteries or cradle the mouse during which I'm forced
to be idle - until, of course, I connect a corded mouse to continue
working. I really doubt the indicators are going to give me more than
a day's notice but then I'm using my mouse all day long (and some of
my days are very long). Rather than generalize, just how many hours
does the indicator give you a low battery warning? If it's 10 hours,
how could the battery be so low that a warning is issued and yet those
low batteries are still usable for another 10 hours (which presumably
is FULL and CONTINUAL use during those 10 hours)?
Wrong again. You cant miss the low battery
indication with a properly designed mouse.
Your hand is over those battery charge LEDs. Those LEDs are not in
line-of-sight. Maybe you play your games in the dark which would help
you see the reflection of that blinking LED but maybe not in a
well-lit room when using applications. Yes, you can miss the
indicators down on the mouse just like you can miss them on the
keyboard. I focus on what is displayed on the monitor, not what is
under my fingers. That's why I learned to type so I don't have to
look down at my fingers, and I never look down at the mouse. And when
in the heat of solving problems or writing them up, I'm not going to
bother with blinking LEDs anymore than I'll bother with non-critical
email alerts. I'm busy so get out of my way.
Pity you dont have to, it will run fine for the rest of the day when
its
showing a low battery indication.
It warns a day ahead that the battery is low? Then it really wasn't
low, was it?
Its JUST a reminder to put it on
the charger when you are finished with it in the evening,
Since Logitech says that battery life is 2 to 3 days for gaming mode
then what's the point of the reminder since you'll end up having to
cradle the mouse everyday in the first place? You certainly wouldn't
want to wait until the end of the 2nd day to cradle your mouse because
it might be dead by then. So it is supposed to cradled everyday. No
indicator needed for that.
You're ignoring the FACT that the low battery indication happens
A FULL DAY OF USE BEFORE IT NEEDS TO BE CHARGED.
Which means it is a useless warning because it isn't warning you when
the battery is actually low. A gas guage that reads low just after
you filled it or when it was still half full would get replaced. Of
course, when the mouse really was low, it gets low faster having to
light up those LEDs. An LED that is lit all day long about low
battery voltage is not an alert but simply another visual cue that
becomes less noticeable over the course of that day; i.e., it's been
on all day so its importance wanes. Does perhaps the blinking rate
change as the voltage gets lower so there is some real indication of
*remaining* battery life?
Just another of your silly little pig ignorant fantasys.
Oh, here we go again.
You're enamored with the LEDs and apparently are constantly watching
them. I never look at the mouse and keyboard because that would slow
down my fingers and mousing. Everything is hurried. I don't need to
glancing all around to check for indicators. I used to have an
answering machine which blinked an LED when there new messages (and it
was cordless, too, which meant I had to have a wired phone for when
there were power outages since the base was dead for the cordless
telephone). With all the other blinking indicators, some of which
represent a "good" state, for all the equipment in my cubicle and on
my desk, I never saw that I had new messages. I replaced it with one
that would blink an LED *and* would beep once a minute so I got an
audible alert since obviously I wasn't going to glare at my telephone
nor do I want to be bothered having to repeatedly glance over at it.
I don't need my focus drawn away from my work, or from my game.
Dont need to with a properly designed low battery indicator.
Properly designed this. Properly designed that. Boring. Unless the
LED is in my face, I'm not going to see it. That's not where is my
focus. Distraction wastes time. My car radio's display could be
flashing swear words but I'd never know since I'm watching the road
unlike the idiot prattling into a cell phone, playing with his radio,
while eating their lunch and using their knees to steer. I don't
multitask in my car. I do multitask my sight at work and home but
ONLY with what is on the monitor, not with what is under my fingers.
Even you'd notice, even tho you have clearly wanked yourself blind.
And you are way too easily distracted from your work or game, and
probably are sitting in an overly dark room while tiring your eyes
from the dilator muscle constantly opening the iris but which lets you
perhaps more easily see one particular reflection of a blinking LED
under your hand. If an active indicator (visual or audible) doesn't
require attention now, it gets ignored. Urgency of alerts wanes if
they are continuous or extended. I have better things to do at the
time, like doing my work or playing that engrossing game.
Because all wired mice have an adequate polling rate.
Well, 200 Hz is usually good enough but then your arguments, so far,
have been against just "good enough". If 200 Hz (5 ms) was all that
was needed, why do the "gaming" mice go up to 1000 Hz (for a 1ms poll
interval), corded or cordless? The first tweak I do for the mouse is
to max its polling rate. 200 Hz (5 ms) is fast but not fast enough
for some gamers. Higher polling rates mean less reliance on
interpolation for very fast mouse movement. While some users don't
have the room to zoom their mouse all the way across their desk in a
second to represent fast movement over a long distance as can be done
by smacking a freely moving trackball, they still may need to make
extremely quick jerks in movement. A higher polling rate means a more
accurate representation of the actual movement of the pointing device.
Your problem. So you clearly arent in any position to say
anything useful about how suitable they are for gaming,
or anything else at all about them either. You clearly dont
actually have a clue about the basics with a low battery
indicator with a properly designed wireless mouse either.
Yep, back to the "properly designed" claim. Yep, what I prefer after
actually trialing several is of no consequence in my decision as to
what I will use. You like heavy mice, so by the same argument, that
must also mean that you are in no position to say anything useful
about non-wireless mice or keyboards and that you clearly don't
actually have a clue about the basics of ergonomics, economics, and of
being focused on your work or game. Yep, just as dumb an insult as
was yours.
So do I, and I bet its more than you do too.
I work from 8AM to 6PM. And I do mean work and not taking breaks
because my mouse battery got low. Then I go home and program,
discuss, play games, or VPN back to work, and that's on the weekends,
too, all the while trying to be Dad and spouse, too. Personally I'd
love to get away from the computer but in software QA there are too
many technologies that get incorporated into enterprise products to
keep up with with the limited manpower available.
Wrong again. I get no stress and no fatigue with my wireless
mouse, even tho its is certainly heavier than the corded mice,
and I dont just run it around on the tabletop either.
It's heavier but doesn't require more effort than moving a lighter
mouse. It's heavier but it doesn't incur more strain than moving a
lighter mouse. Yeah, really believable arguments those ... not.
You must be extremely puny if you cant manage a wireless mouse.
I dont mind when I use it for 20+ hours thanks.
And I can go without eating for several days. And I can go without
sleep for 84 hours. That's not important because those are not repeat
events since if they were I'd die from starvation while halucinating.
It's repeated use that causes strain. Anyone can do small feats of
strength or endurance for short periods or for one-time occurrences.
Big deal. And don't give us some lame claim that you only sleep 1
hour per night since 20+ hours is MORE than 20 hours, you still have
to drive from home from work, you still have to drive from work to
home, you still have to eat, you still have to shit (although that
could be multitasked with eating, shaving, and brushing your teeth, I
suppose), so after all those hours you would have maybe an hour to
sleep. Yeah, right, you're Superman, sure.
Some of us have enough of a clue to assemble quiet systems.
Yeah, right, YOU assembled all those main- and mid-frames, those
Solaris Sparc boxes, those HP and AIX machines, those blade servers,
all that air conditioning, yeah, right, sure. Geez, you think
building little Wintel boxes equates to a $7M test lab and a $80M
computer room? You just admitted that you have NEVER worked in a
computer room. A closet or cubicle with half a dozen PCs, or a test
station with a dozen Wintel and Linux hosts, does not a computer room
make.
Mindlessly silly. Even the most expensive wireless mice cost
peanuts per year for the 7 years they are warranted for.
And we should all appreciate paying higher gasoline prices because,
well, it's only dollars more per year over the few years of the car's
warranty (as if the warranty somehow ever came into play regarding ROI
or depreciation). 4GB of memory is only a few pennies more over the
decades that it will last but it still represents more money as a
chunk that has to paid out-of-pocket for your home PC all at once and
up front to actually get that memory. Why bother pricing out computer
systems since, well, even a $500 difference in price is just a quarter
per day over 5 years (some other nebulously derived term of life).
Sales people love to hide cost by pointing out how little it is over
some arbitrary term.
Even a desperate pov like you should be able to manage that.
Yeah, and of course every desparate pov never bothers with free e-mail
services (hmm, guess you must be a desparate pov since you use Gmail),
or use free NNTP servers, or install free software, or get free
whatever. And, of course, every desparate pov always wants to blow
wads of money on computer gear without regard to impact on reserves
for when something really critical pops up. Oh yeah, you're talking
just about a mouse but your rationale applies to everything since all
those extra expenses are just pennies a day. Since your money means
so little to you, how about sending a wad of it to the OP? After all,
it's just pennies to you. Yeah, I remember being young and stupid
when money used to burn a hole through my pockets. Then I got married
and had children so my priorities changed from being a self-centered
egotistic money-wasting unplanning idiot. Of course no one thinks of
economics when buying their computers. Uh huh.
In spades when you consider the cost of the rest of the gaming
hardware.
You dont know that.
But you should know yet you didn't even bother to look and mention it.
The "gaming" mouse has a 500 Hz polling rate, or higher. The standard
PS/2 mouse can go up to 200 Hz. Since Logitech doesn't label their
MX1000 as a "gaming mouse" then it is something with LESS performance.
They sell their G7 model as something MORE appropriate to gaming than
their MX1000 model. So the MX100 is under 500 Hz and maybe more than
200 Hz. You could look, really you can. Use Device Management
(devmgmt.msc) to check what is the polling rate for your mouse device.
Then you could illuminate the rest of us as to what is the maximum
polling rate configurable for the MX1000. Otherwise, you're just
guessing, too, but at least I had some info to back up my guess.
You dont know that its any worse than that.
The typical polling rate is 125 Hz for a USB mouse. That is what
Windows sets the for the device as the default polling rate. "The
MX1000 equals a USB mouse." The default polling rate is 125 Hz. Not
much of a leap there as to what the default polling rate is for the
MX1000. Sure you could probably up the polling rate, but you can do
that for the wired mouse, too. So the MX1000 doesn't have a polling
rate any higher - unless you show otherwise - than a wired mouse ...
and even a non-gaming wired mouse can be set to 200 Hz. So with the
MX1000 you've spent more only to get the same performance.
Peanuts per year over 3 years its warranted for when the cost
of the rest of the gaming hardware per year is considered.
And buying a Lexus is just a few more dollars per day over a 7-year
loan than a more typical commuter car. But, hey, we're all rich and
can afford more for everything, right? A little more per-day cost for
gasoline. A little more per-day for food price hikes, especially
during droughts. A little more per-day for higher heating costs. A
little more per-day for higher tuition costs. A little more per-day
for a nicer lunch everyday. A little more per-day ... and on and on.
Really nice to have an unlimited budget, or maybe living with the
parents where they pay all the utilities and phone and they buy all
your food and give you a car to use along with paying the insurance so
you don't have all those expenses and can instead accumulate readily
expendable cash because someone else is carrying you. Really nice to
live alone in a self-centered lifestyle where you don't have kids or
other dependents, like aging parents with medical problems, so you can
spend all your money just on yourself. Some of us have lives and
responsibilities beyond our computers and other toys. Some of us
actually have limited incomes (i.e., we're not in the Hilton or Gates
families). Some of us don't want to blow money on unneeded or little
needed features and economics do come into play when we choose where
to spend our money.
So if buying a high-priced gaming mouse is so inconsequential to the
economics of building or upgrading a computer, just why are you
freeloading off of Google Gmail, huh? Why are you buying cheap NNTP
service ($12/yr) from individual.net when you could get a bigger
newsgroup provider that has all those binary groups and has far longer
retention times? You should be getting bigger and better because cost
is irrelevant (to you) and can be rationalized as pennies over some
long term versus the immediate out-of-pocket and up-front expense.
You should be using a real and paid e-mail service since it's just
pennies a day. If you're concerned about spam harvesting, you could
pay for Sneakemail (and not use their free service) or SpamEx because,
well, they're just pennies a day. You should be paying for a SpamCop
account since it's just pennies a day. You should be using the most
expensive NNTP service around because, hey, it's just more pennies a
day. Starting to get the gist that "just pennies a day" is a stupid
argument?
