Mousey Satisfaction

Today I'm writing about mice, the sort that you control your computer from.  It's a solidly geeky post, so if you don't want to read about mouse, here's a story about cats.

For many years, I used a Logitech G5 mouse.  The best mouse I ever used, it was hard wearing, a pleasure to use, accurate, looked reasonably cool (cooler than a standard office mouse yet not over the top with millions of buttons like some gaming mice)

The Logitech G5 mouse, beloved.  Image attribution: Cncplyr at English Wikipedia [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

I think I got the G5 originally at a LAN party years back, and it didn't disappoint.  But sadly, eventually after many years of use (and I mean many - it lasted a lot longer than the Logitech G15 keyboard I bought around the same time, for three times the money!), it became less responsive and a replacement was in order.  I turned to a Microsoft Wheel Mouse.

Microsoft mice aren't something you'd immediately think of as a gaming mouse, but they're decent quality, reliable mice.  I did work experience for a few months at Hull College as a student, and at the time a Microsoft IntelliMouse was a good piece of kit to get your hands on.  Having an optical sensor rather than a ball made the mouse more accurate, not prone to jamming up with dirt, and couldn't be sabotaged by one of your college mates taking the ball out.

I had a Microsoft mouse in my box of computer bits, so it was put to work, and again was fine to work with for a while, until it too started to play up.

Then, like a fool, I thought "Hey, that Logitech G5 was amazing, another Logitech must be great!"

Not this one.

The Logitech M100.  It's evil, it clicks, and it's nasty.

Now before you think all Logitech mice are rubbish, this is one of their cheapest (if not the cheapest) one that Logitech offers.  Having a quick look at their shop, I see some REALLY nice mice.  But this isn't one - it's light, it's a little too small, it scrapes over the desk, and the scroll mouse making a really noisy clicking sound when in use, like a row of cockroaches being stood on.

I'm now using a Cyborg RAT 5 mouse which I got with my current computer, I wasn't overwhelmed by the shape of it when I first saw one of these (at another LAN party) but now I'm using one I have to admit it's pretty nice, it's solid and comfortable, and even has a nice little shelf to rest your thumb on in between clicks.  I'm finding it occasionally a little unresponsive but I'm not sure if that's down to the mouse or something computer-related.

One day, however, I will buy myself a really good Logitech mouse again.  One day.

Now then, Cortana!

I was informed today that Cortana, the Windows 10 personal assistant, is available for me to use.  The grey search box that I use to find various programs and things on my PC now says "I'm Cortana. Ask me anything."

Now, many Windows 10 users will have to trying out Cortana for months now, but I've just received access to it, I think because I'm in the UK and we have a different language set to the US (no problem there, I have been and continue to be surprised by the differences between British English and American English).  I'm vaguely aware of Cortana being something that you can ask questions of, ask it to do things, all kinds of usefulness, a bit like Siri on the iPhone, I assume.




I will say that I came with a certain amount of scepticism as my past experience of speech recognition generally ends up with me yelling at the computer "DEAR - MISTER - SMITH.   NO, DELETE SCYTHE, I DON'T WANT TO WRITE SCYTHE. OH GOD, DELETE "I DON'T WANT TO WRITE SCYTHE OH GOD". SMITH. DELETE SMURF. WHY WOULD I WRITE A LETTER TO MISTER SMURF? STOP IT! CANCEL STOP ARGH" and so forth.  That said, I have been pleasantly surprised by the performance of speech recognition on my phone, and so held out greater hopes for Cortana.

It didn't go too well when, attempting to configure my headset, Windows informed me that the microphone on my headset wasn't good enough and although I could still try configuring it, hinted that really I've just not been buying good enough gear to speak to the high and mighty Cortana.

After that hiccup, however, I actually found Cortana quite good fun.

Here's some of the things I asked Cortana, and her responses.

"Hey Cortana, what do you look like?" - a seamless string of binary numbers.

"Hey Cortana, tell me a joke." - What has one horn and gives milk? A milk truck.

"Hey Cortana, do you like me?" - I do.

"Hey Cortana, will you marry me?" - I'm not one to throw a spanner in the works but as an AI I can't do that yet.

"Hey Cortana, do you like cheese?" - It really ties a pizza together.

"Hey Cortana, how are you?" I am tip top today.  How are you?

"Hey Cortana, do you believe in Santa?" - I do. I'll be keeping an eye out for him.

You can also play rock paper scissors with Cortana, she'll sing for you, and do "impressions" which for me was a Buzz Lightyear impression so bad it made me laugh. So far Cortana's pretty good fun.

Windows (in more sense than one)

 Me and my son were playing this morning with a small brown truck of his.  When I say truck it's probably more of a four by four car variant, by which I mean one of those things that look tough but probably aren't actually as good off road as a forty year old Land Rover, but nevertheless everyone wants for the school run.

 I asked my son, "How many wheels are there?"
 He considered this for a moment, and then declared "Four!"
 Full marks for that one.  I decided to push the boundary a little.
 "Do you know where the windows are?" I asked.
 He looked at me confused for a moment, as if to say what on Earth does that have to do with the topic at hand father, before pointing at the house window.
 Not the answer I was looking for but right nonetheless.

 I'm going to make a rash declaration now.
 I think Microsoft Windows won't be here in ten years time.
 Possibly five.
 The reason for this is that the way we use technology is changing.  Instead of having "The PC" we can now surf the internet on the TV, on our games console, we can write emails on our phones or tablets, all of which are ready to use faster than the traditional PC, crash less often, are simpler to use, and in the case of the last two mobile.
 People are going to start looking at why we tie ourselves to an expensive operating system which appears to take ages to load, crashes regularly and isn't always that easy to fix.
 Of course, the advantage Windows held was that anyone could write a program to run on it.  But the new mobile systems offered by Apple and Linux are better for the vast majority of users, in that programs are rated by users so poor programs are discarded, leaving the cream of the crop easily visible and installable.
 I've started not to write documents on my PC any more - instead I write them using Google Docs. Why not?  I don't have to worry about hard disc failure trashing my work, and I can access them from anywhere.  So the case for paying for an expensive Office suite also goes out the window, especially when alternatives such as OpenOffice can be used for free.
 I'm not a Microsoft-basher at all, I grew up using Microsoft systems.  I remember the first time I used Windows and how wonderful it was to use (yes really).  I remember making programs with Microsoft Visual Basic.  I use it on a daily basis at work, and I'm writing this using a PC running Windows 7 right now.
 But from what I hear Windows 8 isn't fantastic, and that could be the first nail in the coffin for Microsoft.
 The new mobile internet world, of which names like Google, Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter are king, is one which Microsoft hasn't got a handle on.  And it's a real shame - who hasn't got an old Hotmail (okay Windows Live Mail) account floating around from way back?
 I really hope Microsoft can work out what it needs to do to transform itself into an organisation fit for the current and future technological age.  I guess we'll see.