SteerMouse 4.02 (via Apple Downloads)

I have been using a Mac Mini at work now for several months. I use a PC mouse and keyboard (for several reasons, namely i have big hands and fingers so using those tiny Apple keyboards is out of the question, and I like my multi-button mouse too much to give it up). If you are curious of the model, I use a Logitech Cordless Desktop LX710 Laser (keyboard/mouse combo).

As is expected, both the right and left mouse buttons work correctly “out of the box” on OS X, but the extra buttons and the horizontal scroll do not work! This has annoyed me for far too long and it was time I did something about it:

The Failed Attempt

First I tried searching Logitech’s website for drivers and/or software to fix the problem. I had done this before, but figured I’d give it another go. Nothing… So I tried Google… Oddly enough Google supplied me with a link to Logitech’s website — apparently they have a “Logitech Control Center” just for Mac’s.

I was excited that it could be so easy to fix, so I quickly downloaded the program, installed it, rebooted, and… LCC told me that no compatible mouse/keyboard found. I rebooted again… Same result… I did some more in-depth searching and discovered that this program is for the Mac versions of the Logitech devices only (which explains why when I registered my product the actual model I have was not to be found in the drop-down).

The Successful Attempt!

I decided I had enough and searched Apple’s download page under the “Drivers” section. I had read about a utility called “SteerMouse” when trying to troubleshoot the LCC (funny…in those searches it was SteerMouse people complained about as it apparently interfered with LCC — obviously not the case for me lol), so I thought I’d see if it still existed or if perhaps there were other options.

Sure enough, there was SteerMouse. I downloaded, installed, rebooted. Then I started up SteerMouse and was surprised to see that it did not detect a compatible mouse, however it knew enough to instruct me to remove the LCC as that was interfering! I uninstalled the LCC and rebooted.

I was pleasantly surprised to see SteerMouse now detected my mouse and allowed me to change settings for every feature. And the best part? Not only did it work flawlessly, but it already had my preferred settings set as default from the start!

You can download SteerMouse 4.0.2 here: http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/drivers/steermouse.html

You can download the Logitech Control Center here (wont work with PC models): http://www.logitech.com/en-us/494/3129

I did some research and it seems that Prototype and jQuery are two of the more popular frameworks.

After reading this and this, I think Prototype is going to fit my needs better, though they both look promising.

Collabtive

I came across an article about an open source collaborative webapp and decided to check it out. I have been looking into project management and collaboration tools for a few months now, but none of them seem to have the features I want/need for the price I can currently afford… I will be downloading this and giving it a test run very soon!

Collabtive via [lifehacker]

Collabtive Demo

Evernote Logo

OK I put together a new guide for running Evernote 3.1 in Ubuntu 9.10 with an added bonus of how to customize the program launcher icon…

Check it out here: http://alexsantidote.com/ubuntu/run-evernote-3-1-in-ubuntu/