Sad Geekery
Oct. 20th, 2003 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drploktaI finally got a new laptop at work -- I'd had the old one for over 2½ years, and it was getting very old and clapped out. The new one is a Dell Latitude D400, with 512MB RAM and built in Bluetooth (it talks to my phone) and Wi-Fi (it talks to my wireless network at home, and indeed I'm sitting on the sofa using it now). It has a touch-pad and a nipple, although my laptop pointing devide of choice was always the trackball, which has completely disappeared.
The screen is a bit small, by choice (I'm the one who decides what spec of laptop we'll buy for whom), but apart from that it's approaching being as nice as the PowerBook that I bought for myself a little under a year ago. Not as nice as the new PowerBooks, though.
There turns out to be an unprotected wireless network in range of our office, and a new one in range of my living room. Perhaps I can drop my own ADSL connection and just sponge off somebody else.
The screen is a bit small, by choice (I'm the one who decides what spec of laptop we'll buy for whom), but apart from that it's approaching being as nice as the PowerBook that I bought for myself a little under a year ago. Not as nice as the new PowerBooks, though.
There turns out to be an unprotected wireless network in range of our office, and a new one in range of my living room. Perhaps I can drop my own ADSL connection and just sponge off somebody else.
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-20 11:16 am (UTC)Now, you, get on chat a min, we need to discuss hotel rooms... :¬)
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Date: 2003-10-20 11:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-20 11:26 am (UTC)A while back, I was trying to figure out how the ideal laptop pointing device might work. At first I thought some sort of touch screen, but they fall into either traditional touch-screens which don't have the sensitivity, or tablet-type screens, which require a special pen, which is fine in tablet mode, but a pain if you're trying to use the keyboard. However, interacting with the screen in some way makes sense. The idea I came up was a system where you wave your hand over the screen and the moise pointer follows it. If you move your hand quickly the mouse will fly across the screen, but if you move slowly, it slows to a pixel at a time. Tapping your finger in mid-air would activate the virtual mouse button. Ideally, tapping your second finger would operate the right button, and rolling your thumb would simulate a mouse-wheel, though I haven't figured out how the things would detect this.
Haven't quite got around to building the prototype yet...
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-20 11:37 am (UTC)Nowadays, there are all-optical trackballs which could work, but modern notebooks are too thin to accept them.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-20 11:45 am (UTC)Ooh, nice acronym.
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Date: 2003-10-20 12:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-20 01:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-20 01:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-20 03:19 pm (UTC)But I try to avoid laptops anyway, as I hate their keyboards. And their screens.
<grumble>