test please delete

[DS23]

closing in on 55. will there be a rush for it tonight?

[TheFaQQer]

and then a s, s & s.

BJ

[NickFitz]

well i bought me a macbook

Fed up of using a mouse with two, possibly three, buttons?

Ah, the old music hall jokes always come out at this time of year... I haven't known anybody use a Mac with a one-button mouse in over ten years now, but still they trot it out

great screen. not sure about the mouse pad. no doubt i can tune it to make it a bit faster.

I can't remember what the default settings for the trackpad are, but just in case, you might want to adjust the tracking rate, and check that the following are enabled (Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Mouse and Keyboard in the "Hardware" area, second from top):

Trackpad Gestures:

Use two fingers to scroll
Clicking

Dragging

Tap trackpad using two fingers for secondary click

It might take you a few minutes to get used to them, but once you do get used to them you'll find using a normal laptop mousepad absolutely infuriating. The ability to scroll by just sliding two fingers on the pad comes even more naturally than using a scroll wheel mouse, IMHO.

Try the "allow horizontal scrolling" thing and see if it works for you; I have it on, but I believe some people don't like it. It probably depends on whether you use things with horizontal scrollbars a lot, like zoomed images in graphics packages and so on.

The "secondary click" thing, in case you're wondering, means that tapping with two fingers held together (as used for scrolling) will produce the context menu, as in a right-click (but more intuitive ).

The "Drag Lock" option is, for me, best left unset; YMMV of course, but I found it too likely to activate itself. If you have arthritic fingers, I understand, it is very helpful.

FWIW, I have often found myself sitting at a MacBook with a (multi-button, scroll wheel) mouse plugged in and just using the trackpad, forgetting the mouse was there - and I do a lot of stuff which consists of dragging and dropping stuff around. So give those settings a go and see if they work for you.

Sorry if I'm being helpful in TPD

[NickFitz]

Anyway, now the voluntary tech support session is over, Greetings denizens

I am now back home, having survived yet another Christmas. Best of all, I am now finally convinced of exactly what it is I loathe so much about Christmas: it's having to spend so long at a stretch putting up with my sister.

The funny thing is, she is in so many ways a wonderful person: she does voluntary work of various kinds (she was a Samaritan for nearly twenty years, and for all I know still is now she lives in the States), she gives generously to charities, she would never ever act in a deliberately malicious way, and if she accidentally did harm to another she would be utterly wracked with guilt and would do anything in her power to make amends.

Yet despite all this she is, when with her immediate family, so utterly self-centered, bossy, and patronising that you want to throttle her within fifteen minutes.

Our mother, who bore her and brought her up, who struggled to give her everything she needed for a happy life, and who even now would willingly die for her, summed it up rather well when the two of us were discussing the matter earlier: "Of course when she moves back from the States she'll only be up the road, and Lord knows how we're going to cope with it then - she'll be on our backs all the time, fussing around and bossing us about."

Family, eh. Don't you just love 'em

[NickFitz]

Actually a freshly roasted crown

Very regal

Apparently Cecil Beaton used to get on the Queen's nerves somewhat when he was due to photograph her, as he would fuss and fret about the preparations for weeks in advance.

On one occasion he was due to take a formal portrait of her wearing a crown. When he turned up, she handed him a cardboard box full of crowns, inviting him to choose the one he thought would suit her best

[NickFitz]

I meant the noobie posts... unless that includes one of your ids...

AHEM

Anything you'd like to share with the group, FaQQer?

[NickFitz]

I was robbed.

There was only 25% off the Xmas crackers in Woolies... it was 50% last year...

Perhaps they had already been much reduced before Xmas? What with people going to christmas-crackers.amazon.com and all that.

[NickFitz]

Very true; a white coat & a clipboard will get you anywhere.

A hi-vis jacket works well these days. Despite the name, people in hi-vis clothing just blend into the landscape, insofar as anybody asking where they're going or what they're doing is concerned.

[NickFitz]

A while ago I read an article about a photographer's exhibition of pictures of people working in hi-vis clothing - very good, they were.

He got the idea after realising that when he went around taking photos in public places people would hassle him, the police would question him, and so forth - but then one day, when he wore a hi-vis jacket, he wandered around photographing anything he wanted and nobody appeared to even notice that he was there.

[DS23]

Ah, the old music hall jokes always come out at this time of year... I haven't known anybody use a Mac with a one-button mouse in over ten years now, but still they trot it out



I can't remember what the default settings for the trackpad are, but just in case, you might want to adjust the tracking rate, and check that the following are enabled (Apple menu -> System Preferences -> Mouse and Keyboard in the "Hardware" area, second from top):

Trackpad Gestures:

Use two fingers to scroll
Clicking

Dragging

Tap trackpad using two fingers for secondary click

It might take you a few minutes to get used to them, but once you do get used to them you'll find using a normal laptop mousepad absolutely infuriating. The ability to scroll by just sliding two fingers on the pad comes even more naturally than using a scroll wheel mouse, IMHO.

Try the "allow horizontal scrolling" thing and see if it works for you; I have it on, but I believe some people don't like it. It probably depends on whether you use things with horizontal scrollbars a lot, like zoomed images in graphics packages and so on.

The "secondary click" thing, in case you're wondering, means that tapping with two fingers held together (as used for scrolling) will produce the context menu, as in a right-click (but more intuitive ).

The "Drag Lock" option is, for me, best left unset; YMMV of course, but I found it too likely to activate itself. If you have arthritic fingers, I understand, it is very helpful.

FWIW, I have often found myself sitting at a MacBook with a (multi-button, scroll wheel) mouse plugged in and just using the trackpad, forgetting the mouse was there - and I do a lot of stuff which consists of dragging and dropping stuff around. So give those settings a go and see if they work for you.

Sorry if I'm being helpful in TPD

thanks fitzy. i've just added a microsoft mouse but tbh i prefer not using one. i much prefer the laptop mouspad. i'll follow your tips and let you know how i get on.