Pixelhum

There seems to be an increasing trend for media players (both hardware and software) to leave out the ‘stop’ button. They have a ‘play/pause’ button, ‘next’ and ‘previous’ track buttons, but no stop. iTunes, iPods, and my new iAudio5; none of them have a ‘stop’ button. I know the pause button does pretty much the same job, but it’s still different. It’s not quite as final ‘stop’ is it? It gives the impression that the music will start up again at some point in the future. What if I don’t like what’s playing? What if I just don’t want to listen any more?

So come on, stop leaving out the ‘stop’ button and put it back in it’s rightful place. Next to ‘play’.

So far, the one thing that has been bugging the hell out of me with OS X is the mouse control panel. On Windows I used to just switch the acceleration off altogether, as I’m firmly in the camp that believes the mouse pointer should follow the mouse 1:1. In fact, I even had a registry hack that disabled mouse acceleration completely, even when the ‘Enhance pointer precision’ option was checked. While we’re on that subject, who decided on the name of that option anyway?!?

Just a few notes in this one today. I’m still enjoying the Mac OS experience, but I have a few gripes to make. Mainly things that I’d like to see added, features I’ve got used to on other systems.

The Optimus Keyboard is a keyboard in which every key has it’s own little LCD display, which means that each key can show exactly which function it will invoke when pressed. It can show any keyboard layout - such as qwerty or Dvorak, Russian or French - or it can show tool shortcuts for Photoshop or key layout for a game. It also has a group of ten configurable buttons to the left of the main keys.

I think it’s a fantastic idea and would probably buy one in an instant.

(from Engadget)

I’ve been using my Powerbook for about 3 weeks now, and I’m enjoying it immensely. The OS is slick and quite intuative, although coming from Windows I’ve had quite a lot to get used to! The overall experience has so far been very positive.