Bloggin' it up! Finally something slightly interesting to write about.

I recently came to purchase a Microsoft Wireless Notebook Optical Mouse as an open-box item from a local Target for the low-low-discount price of $8.97.

Needless to say I was stoked to get a fairly high quality mouse at such a good price. After using some of the off brand RF mice at my inlaws, and using their wireless Intellimouse, I'm glad I didn't spring for a super cheap no-name RF mouse just so I wouldn't be paying a full $35-45 for one. I usually get my hardware at discounts or sales or used prices. The few things I've bought new would be the iBook (student discount), iPod, a DL DVD burner & a 160GB HDD (both on holiday sale at Microcenter). Probably less than 5% of my equipment was bought new & full retail. If/when I buy a Mac mini, it'll be the first desktop I'll buy new in my way over a decade of buying my own equipment.

As for the mouse, it work just peachy. After several days of use I've had to replace the single AA cell that powers the remote unit. The original purchaser had left it in the mouse and failed to put the reciever unit into the storage space under the mouse when it was returned. Putting the reciever away like that pushes a microswitch that turns off the mouse. I dunno how long the mouse will run on a single cell and not be turned off. MS claims you can get up to 3 months of use from one cell. We'll see how long this fresh cell lasts; I've been removing the reciever and storing it in the mouse over night because I never know if I'm going to use the iBook or iMac for the next day's surfing. Today I'm on the iMac while my wife uses the iBook on WiFi (to the iMac and it's 56k dialup to NetZero...) to do her thing on neopets.com. Of course when I take the iBook out somewhere, the mouse has gone/is going with me.

As for NZ, anyone else using it? Anyone on Linux? I've ordered the www.ubuntulinux.org CDs, and am considering seting up a PC to act as dial-out router instead of the iMac. I've even got a USB 56k modem that I scored for $4.98 from a thriftstore... if it'll work under a Debian/Ubuntu setup.