A rare original post on Slashdot is from a computer user who just swapped his mouse for a trackball and is happy with the experience so far:

After ordering [a large Kensington trackball for $90] online and using it for a few days now, I don’t know how I ever lived with a mouse. The trackball has better precision, less wrist movement, and even gaming is pretty cool/easy with it (can spin it to whip around real quick, etc). All that said, it seems like trackballs have all but vanished except in medical fields (sonograms, etc) and perhaps graphic arts. I’m left insanely curious why trackballs haven’t resurfaced now that optical technologies have fixed the main problems of old trackballs (and mice).

I’m not all that thrilled with the design of the two trackballs on Kensington’s website. On my main desktop machine, I’ve been using a Microsoft Trackball Optical for a couple years and absolutely love it. (A pair of commenters in the original thread are also Microsoft Trackball fans, although they’re talking about a slightly different device than the one shown here.) My right palm rests on the end opposite the mouse cord, positioning the thumb perfectly for moving the ball.

Sadly, Microsoft no longer makes this device, and I’m not sure what I would do if this trackball gave up the ghost. I’ve got a couple of Bluetooth mice here and could swap one of them into full-time service . Or I might switch to a Logitech. Or maybe I should pick up a spare right now. It’s for sale here along with a bunch of others. Although the idea of spending $66 for something I might never use is pretty wasteful.

Any other trackball fans out there?

The latest Nvidia ForceWare drivers are out, along with 10 full pages of known issues. The show-stopper for me is a bug that causes the display to remain black after resuming from sleep. I read about this one back in February and it still hasn’t been fixed, nearly six months later.

Over the weekend, I yanked the Nvidia cards from two different systems, and the result was like a breath of fresh air. My Vista Media Center machine is now using an ATI X1300 Pro and is running perfectly. On my second desktop system, which I use for testing software, I’ve reverted to the onboard Intel GMA950 graphics. Guess what? Sleep works now.

I’ve got more details in this piece I just published at ZDNet:

Hasta la Vista, Nvidia

For the past few months, I’ve been running into an annoying problem on several systems running Windows Vista. Even with 2GB or 4GB of RAM, I was running into odd problems when I had a large number of windows open (and I do mean a large number, typically 30 browser tabs plus five or more full-size productivity apps). Even though Performance Monitor and Task Manager said I had plenty of physical memory left, I was getting odd errors when I tried to open a new browser tab. I was also seeing strange symptoms such as windows that opened without menus, or dialog boxes that didn’t display the usual text and buttons.

As it turns out, the problem is more than a decade old, and the fix is a simple registry edit. I have the details, including a screen shot, over at ZDNet:

Vista Hands On #17: Solving a pesky resource problem

If you’re looking at a video card upgrade, decoding the model numbers for various graphics chips can be hopelessly confusing. A good resource to help cut through the clutter is this pair of tables put together by Gabriel Torres at Hardware Secrets:

ATI Chips Comparison

NVIDIA Chips Comparison

You’ll need to have some basic knowledge of clock speeds, memory interfaces, and other such technical topics, but the charts make it easy to see the difference in different product families.

Update: No more e-mails, please. The lucky recipient is an elementary school where a longtime reader and commenter works.

My last attempt to pass along a usable piece of hardware worked so well, I figure I’ll do it again.

For the past three years, I’ve had a Dell PowerEdge 600SC server running various builds of Windows 2003 Server here. It’s been a real workhorse, but it’s outlived its useful life for me. Which means it’s time to pass it along.

It’s got a 2.4GHz Pentium 4, plus 4GB of ECC RAM and a single 1600GB 160GB hard drive. (I will gladly toss in another 80 or 160GB drive or two – I have plenty of IDE drives hanging around.)

Now, this system was designed as a server, so it’s got a few design characteristics that make it unsuitable for use as a desktop. Like really limited onboard video, funky 5V PCI slots that don’t accept many standard cards, etc. In short, it’s not a hobbyist’s machine (unless your hobby is configuring servers).

Anyway, if you’re interested, send me a note and let’s talk. I could probably sell this on eBay for $200-300 but prefer to see it go to a good home, so extra points (and an extra discount) if you want to put it into service for a nonprofit or a school.

Would you pay your antivirus software company $29.95 a year over and above your existing subscription fee for “an extra layer of protection against Web robot attacks”?

Me neither.

Isn’t this what Norton AntiVirus is supposed to do?

I was going to go off on a rant, but Ryan Naraine already said it better than I could have:

It has to be the biggest con job in IT to convince consumers that they should pay a separate subscription for each of the above “protection” products.  So you pay for virus protection, then pay a bit more for spyware protection, and if those don’t work, buy an anti-rootkit package and if your PC still falls into a botnet, here’s your $29.95 anti-botnet tool.

Every time I think these guys can’t get any more shameless, they surprise me.

(Updated to add: I wish I could find a transcript of the wonderful “tootsie-frootsie ice cream” sketch from the Marx Bros film, A Day at the Races. This whole racket is reminiscent of the way Chico keeps selling Groucho extra tipsheets and code books when he learns that the ones he already bought aren’t quite complete.)

I’m trying to keep track of download locations for Vista-compatible drivers for common hardware types in a single location. To that end, I’ve set up the Vista Master Driver List page. The rules are as follows:

1. Only primary download locations (official sites run by hardware maker) are allowed. I don’t trust or recommend third-party sites that allow direct downloads of drivers.

2. Whenever possible, I’m linking to the information page or the search page rather than the driver file itself. Linking to the file runs the risk that you’ll grab the wrong driver, miss an update or a readme file, or bypass other important information that might be on the info page.

Suggestions and comments welcome. If you’re searching for a particular driver, let me know and I’ll track it down and add it to the list.

Robert McLaws says:

This may be news to Jessica Mintz of the Associated Press, but not every Vista user has been griping. … I haven’t had too many issues since RTM. I’m running with UAC on, and I don’t run into UAC prompts all that often. I’ve rarely had driver issues (except for the first few weeks when Acer didn’t update their US support site), and all three machines in my house are running it. Overall, I love Windows Vista, and I can’t stand touching Windows XP. Heck, my mom and kid sister use it every day too, and they’ve hardly ever called me about tech-support issues.

Good reading.

Way back in January, I saw a demo of Yahoo Messenger for Windows Vista at CES. Around that time, the Yahoo Messenger Blog said: “Windows Vista will be available starting January 30, 2007 and we expect to have Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista available in beta a few months later.”

That was more than six months ago. So where is it? The Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista page still says it’s “coming soon”… I guess it all depends on your definition of “soon.” As of June 27, that target was still off in the distance:

… we’re working harder than ever on Yahoo! Messenger for Windows Vista.

You will be able to download a Beta version in the coming months. I wish I could be more specific with a release date at this point because I know how much anticipation our users have had for the entirely new Vista-powered interface.

It actually does look like a pretty cool project. So why is it taking so long?