Multitouch, in case you’re not familiar with the term, refers to gesture-based controls primarily used on touchscreen devices, usually where two or more fingers are used to do things like scroll, and zoom in and out. CrunchGear got the lowdown on not one, but five distinctly different and unique types of multitouch mice that are under development by the brainy types at Microsoft, and you can see their intriguing capabilities in this video.

The real question, though, is whether or not the mouse has enough life left in it to justify adding multitouch. Touchscreen devices are quickly becoming the wave of the future. If the mouse is on its way out of fashion, can it survive consumers’ wants and needs long enough to take advantage of multitouch technology?

As CrunchGear rightly points out, making a solid mouse is an area that Microsoft truly excels in, while every mouse Apple has ever made has kinda sucked. Seriously, has Apple ever had a successful mouse? The Mighty Mouse ain’t bad, but it ain’t great, either, and still leaves a lot to be desired from many users.

What do you think? Would you buy a multitouch mouse from Microsoft based on the innovative ideas on display in the video above?

Post from: EveryJoe

Microsoft’s prototype mice

The Sentinel Advance is powered with a 5600 DPI twin laser hardware, it has the ability for rapid fire mode, has an internal Sentinel-X memory, and includes their patented “Storm Guard” security. The Sentinel Advance has one mission and purpose and that is to “search and destroy”. This gadget could help you overpower your enemies with speed and precision beyond ones’ imagination.

The main features of Sentinel are as follows:

Superior Gaming Grade Precision – the twin laser engine would provide users with extreme stability and ultra precise tracking performance.

Onboard Sentinel-X 64Kb – This is the coolest feature wherein it is able to store up to 5 different game profiles to ensure you always get your own mouse game settings. I however do not know if this is useful if you are the only user on that mouse.

Octoshade™ LED Tech – this helps you to quickly recognize your active profile, through personalization using mouse lighting with spectrum of colors and effects.

OLED Profile Management – Allows gamers to switch DPI and profiles on the fly with instant visual feedbacks.

Tag Your Own Gaming Clan Logo – You can upload your own clan logo and display it in all its glory on the OLED profile management screen.

Weight Adjustment System – Whoah, not only can you have different game profiles but you can also use your own weight settings through the available mouse weight variations.

StormGuard™ Security – CM Storms patented security system for safeguarding your gaming peripherals.

For a powerful mouse as this, the company ensure you enjoy it for the longest time by providing 2 years warranty.

When I get my hands on a new desktop gaming PC, I would consider this mouse. What gaming mouse are you using?

Image from CM Storm.

Post from: EveryJoe

Sentinel Advance for Superior Gaming Experience

The GM-8000 gaming mouse features the AVAG0 6090 laser sensor which has adjustable sensitivity from 400 dpi to 4000 dpi. This mouse also has Gigabyte’s HOST Engine which features 8KB of onboard memory, the GHOST software suite, and 16-bit wide data path. The mouse also has five independently programmable buttons, four level DPI adjustments and a USB report rate tuning.

This mouse is impressive, for a full feature set go to – Gigabyte mouse.

Image source from Gigabyte.

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GM-8000 Gaming Mouse Series

If you’re more interested in what can really be done with a case modification, check out this computer desk which really IS a "computer desk".

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The PedMouse Case Mod

So here are my thoughts about “teaching computers” .

Know What They Want
They may not want to write programs, tweak with the internals to improve PC performance, or even try out new applications. They might not even be interested in what the operating system and the hardware parts are capable of and they don’t need to know more than their names about them. My guess is that they would want to play media, browse the web, and connect with you through mail or chat as a start. It is good to ask and find out exactly what it is that they want.

Windows Games
The input devices are what one needs to learn well to move any further. The older generations are usually more adept in using the keyboard; they know typewriters better than you. But the mouse is an entirely novel idea unless they played arcade games in their childhood. I think the Windows Games like Solitaire or Minesweeper will come in handy in mastering the clicks. See if they might like one of these games and let them play awhile. Forget the middle-click and concentrate on the double-click because it can be especially troublesome and is essential.

Basic Operations
How to start and shutdown a computer; how to maximize, minimize, resize and close windows; how to create a new document or folder; how to open documents or media files or applications; how to navigate through the Windows Start and open various applications. Let your pupil perform these repetitively in various sequences. It helps if you can organize your program files beforehand to avoid any unintended uninstallations and use a separate folder for all the exercises while learning the copy, cut, paste, move, save operations. Discourage using cut and delete operations for the time being.

Explore One Application
Pick one application of their choice: word processor, paint brush, or media player, e.g. Help them explore all the features in it while making use of the tool tips more than your direct assistance. The basic menu structure and menu items within them largely overalp among most applications and this familiarity will make them more prepared when they ever encounter another application. Try moving to a second application to see how quickly they can correlate between the two.

Getting Help
Get them into the habit of trying various options in the Help menu, trying F1, browsing through the contents, index and searching for a string. That will help them with the next big thing as well.

The Internet
The first thing you might want them to learn about the Internet is Google, through which most of what they want can be gotten to. After learning to open the browser, that is. It is also a good idea to have shortcuts to various frequently visited websites, in case bookmarks seem tedious and the address bar is definitely more complicated. Create any account that they might need for the time being and show them how to use them: how to sign in, check mail, compose and send mail, sign out. Beginners might find it easier to sign into a chat client and open mail through the notifications. Let them search their own beginner websites through Google (or any other search engine) apart from using it for general browsing purposes.

Make sure you have a good anti-virus and firewall in place. And back up all your important files. Just in case.

Despite all your initial assurances, they are going to panic after every tiny mistake, afraid that accidentally dragging and dropping an icon into another might have caused something irrevocably faulty. Oftentimes, this clams them up bringing the course to a screeching halt or even a retrograde. I can’t advise you how, but you must make sure they understand that Windows is already goofy enough and no goof-up is big enough to screw it any further. They don’t know “format c:” yet, do they?

Have you taught anybody before? What have I missed? What would you do?

Post from: EveryJoe

Teach Your Grandma Computers

Computer mouse, the pointing device, celebrated its 40th birthday sometime during the last week. I wish it many many happy returns of the day.

In 1968, Doug Engelbart and his team at the Stanford Research Institute first created a carved wooden block mounted on wheels, with a long cable trailing out the back. Xerox developed the mouse during the 70’s and released the first commercial product in 1981. Apple acquired a license for the mouse and sold it along with the Apple Macintosh in 1984. Since then, mouse has been a default input method.

However, computers continued to be sold without mice even in the 90’s. I remember learning computers in school and they didn’t have mice. That was the time when Pac-man and Prince of Persia had been hot, but that is another story.

Mechanical mice ruled the roost until the late 90’s when Optical mice suddenly became household for being very durable though costlier. There have also been Intertia mice, 3D mice and Tactile mice but I’ve never seen any of these. Though not a different technology in handling sensitivity, Wireless mice are now slowly gaining popularity what with portability becoming essential.

While the popularity of touch-screen technology is rising like a storm, I think the mouse will continue to live longer.

Image Source: Marcin Wichary.

Post from: EveryJoe

Belated Birthday Greetings to the Computer Mouse