Lee Bialecki’s Weblog

Who remembers Pogs? Pogs were great! I had a huge clear out of my cupboard because it was such a mess of all my old toys you couldn’t find anything, and if you did find anything then you would have to take everything out to reach it. So I cleared everything out and threw loads away, I found a few little treasures though. I found my Pokémon cards, knuckleheads, Beyblades and all my Pogs! So yes, Pogs.

This was how the game went:

1. First each player placed a set amount of Pogs in a pile face down.
2. Each player throws their slammer (a heavier Pog) on top of the stack of Pogs created at the start of the game.
3. Any Pog which lands face up is given to the person who threw the slammer. All of the other Pogs are then collected and put back into the pile, it is then the next players turn.
4. This continues until there are no Pogs in the pile. If the players were ‘playing for keeps’ then the players keep what they won, but if not the Pogs are redistributed to the original owners.

I loved all these little fads we had in our youth, they were all great and pointless. Today brought back some good memories of the good days.

Okay, so finally my graphics tablet has arrived. My very lovely Wacom bamboo tablet, for the great price of £54 (plus p&p.) It’s about time aswell because I ordered it on Sunday. But I am not too bothered because I am very happy with it, so happy that I am writing this post with it. There is nothing at all wrong with this tablet at all, all the buttons are customisable and responsive, I just cannot flaw it at all.

It is not only functional but it looks great, perfectly sized in every way, width length and depth, most things I have to say about anything is negative, but there is nothing negative tot talk about, so I am finding it difficult to say a lot about it. One issue, which isn’t an issue because it goes away after the first day of use, but you need to get used to using it. The problem is that the active area is a scale model of your monitor, so when the pen is in the bottom left corner of the tablet, it is in the same place on the screen. This is a problem for a while because you find yourself using the pen as you used a mouse, but after you get used to it it is much better than a mouse.

I will be using it mainly a mouse replacement, but also for Flash and the occasional photo editing. One thing that was annoying me before buying this tablet is that I could not find a detailed description of how to use it, so I will give you one now. As soon as you plug your device in and have the pen near the tablet you will notice that the curser will move. To move the cursor move the pen just above the surface of the tablet, when contact is made this is the right click. There are two buttons on the pen which are customisable to anything really, including launches of programmes or files, to keystrokes. The buttons on the pen only work when close enough to the tablet for the curser to move, you can change the settings for these buttons to only work when contact is made. The buttons on the tablet itself are just liekt he ones on the pen and the touch wheel is for scrolling and zooming.

So to clear up what was confusing me when I bought it, hover to move curser and make contact to click, simple as that. Great device which is a great introduction to the world of graphics tablets, certainly when I buy a really decent computer setup I will have a decent graphics tablet with it.

(buttons on the tablet are normally backlit)

So, my keyboard arrived today, and packaged loads better than the time before when the box was too big and was to be packed with some foam. So good packaging and good keyboard which works perfectly. They keys are more or less full sized and I can type perfectly on it, the only problem is that they keys need some time to loosen up and the Fn key is right at the edge instead of the Ctrl button so i find myself pressing the wrong key. Other than that it is fine, I recommend it to anybody trying to free up desk space or just wanting a small keyboard for whatever reason. Also the joystick is very useful indeed, I use it for light mouse use like web browsing or just anything general, but I always have my mouse at hand in case I need to use it for Flash or anything.

Okay, so I thought I would just clear up mistake I’m made today. I just walked into the hanging rooms and Peter exploded with the question “Macs can’t right click can they?” I assume there was an augment already going on, but whatever. I must apologise, but I gave the wrong answer, I don’t know how because I knew the right on, but I did give the wrong one so sorry Peter. So when I got home I did a bit of research to make sure I had the right answer, it turns out that it is a common misconception, so let me clear this up:

There is a right click in the

Mac OS!

Most people see the mighty mouse and see there is just one complete shell, no visible buttons, so people thing it only has one click. I do not know much about the mice because I have not used one over a long time. The most recent mighty mice are touch sensitive (the clicks uses to be sensed by a button on the bottom of the mouse) so there are no physical buttons, so most people have thought it only has one clicking button and even that there is no right click in Mac (I think by default the right click is ctrl+click) but there are two buttons. Left click is done normally and however you want, but with the right click you must only have one finger in contact with the mouse, this has been said to be annoying but also as a much better method. So there is a right click by default, and a better one by changing a few settings, but another misconception is that there is no right click or scroll on the macbooks.

There is one big button and a track pad on the macbook, there is no visible right click or scroll, but they are there, and the scroll is better than anything I have seen on windows. The right click is just a click on the left side of the button, pretty obvious, but also you can tap the trackpad with 2 fingers and that will also right click. The scroll is similar, use two fingers and move around the trackpad to scroll, and hold ‘ctrl+two finger movement’ to zoom in and out. So there is most definitely a secondary click with wither the mighty mouse or a macbook track pad, and also any windows mouse will work with mac and a right click is just the same as in windows.

Another thing worth mentioning to explain to people what an easter egg is (not the chocolate type). One of the previous versions of the mighty mouse (with the laser) when you lifted the mouse and looked at the laser on a surface, there was a projection of a mouse face. This is what they call an easter egg, little humorous things found in things. I cant think of many more examples than with our school printers every so often the display reads “please insert coin”.

So anybody who says there is no right click in mac, they are lying or have just been taken into this anti-mac myth.