Jon Gallant's Blog

How To Configure Your Mouse So You Never Have To Double-Click Again

jongallant — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:24:55 +0400

My beloved Microsoft Trackball Explorer mouse died recently and I was amazed to find that the price increased from about $70 to $600 (new) and $190 (used). I like the mouse, but not enough to shell out that kind of dough.

So, after 10+ years of using the same mouse (my friends call it a relic) I had to find a replacement. I decided on the Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman mouse. While it is not as comfortable as the Microsoft Trackball Explorer it is close enough and only about $50.

Since I do the un-human thing and work at a computer all day I have to optimize the amount of clicking and typing I do. I also have a repetitive stress injury from playing too much bass in high school that flares up if I spend too much time clicking.

So, to limit the amount of clicks I do, I have configured one of the buttons on my mouse to execute a double-click command. It issues a double click to my computer, but I only have to click it once. It has saved me a ton of clicks over the years so I thought I’d share how I do that and possibly save you from a repetitive stress injury.

For the Microsoft Trackball Explorer it’s easy. You just go into the mouse properties and set the top left button to Double-click.

But for the Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman that option doesn’t exist. The only option for the top left button is right click.

After doing a couple of searches I discovered the X-Mouse Button Control application. It’s a great little utility lets you override all your mouse buttons.

It lets me override the “right button” which maps to the “top” button on my Logitech Cordless Optical Trackman

When you are using this application you should be aware that you can turn all its overrides off by checking the box: “Bypass ALL Actions when SCROLL LOCK is ON”. This is very important if you are using a laptop, because when the mouse isn’t connected it will still override the right click behavior on your laptop’s mouse pad.

Another thing that took me a while to figure out is how to map the 4 & 5 buttons (those are the two buttons on the left side of the mouse above the left click (big) button)…which I use for “right-click” and “show desktop”.

The trick is that you have to set 4 & 5 to “Generic Button” in Logitech SetPoint and then in X-Mouse Button Control you use “Mouse Button 4” and “Mouse Button 5” to set them to whatever you want. You have to do this because SetPoint doesn’t allow you to configure those buttons to anything. They limit you to what they think is best.

Hope this helps you configure your mouse and save you some clicks.

Jon

Solution to the Exception: Connection failed. The device security configuration disallowed the connection. Ensure that you have the appropriate certificates on your device for development. Review your SDK documentation for proper security settings for connecting to this device.

jongallant — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:02:00 +0400

You will get this exception if you try to debug on a physical device from Visual Studio and haven’t install the debug certificates.

“Connection failed. The device security configuration disallowed the connection. Ensure that you have the appropriate certificates on your device for development. Review your SDK documentation for proper security settings for connecting to this device.”

Do the following to solve this:

1. Connect your device via USB.

2. Copy VSDCerts.cab from C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\SmartDevices\SDK\SDKTools to the root of your device in Windows Explorer.

3. Using File Explorer on your device open the VSDCerts.cab file

4. Try debugging from Visual Studio again.

The cab will be installed and you are now ready to debug from Visual Studio.

Jon

How To Send a Text Message from ATT.com

jongallant — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 01:45:24 +0400

I spent about 20 mins with ATT technical support today trying to figure out how to send a Text from their website. Apparently they did some website updates and the “Send Text Message” option is buried. Hope this saves you some time.

1. Go to https://www.wireless.att.com

2. Login

3. Click on Message Center under the Manage Tab

4. Click “Send Text Message”

5. Complete the form and click Send

Zoom H4n Review

jongallant — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 07:56:53 +0400

I picked up the Zoom H4n not too long ago for my concert and rehearsal recordings. While I’m really happy with the quality of the recordings there are some significant design flaws that prevent it from reaching its full potential. I have sent these issues to Zoom directly and they informed me that they have no plans to fix these problems, but will forward to the developers.

My overall workaround for the problems below is to:
1. Use a Class 6 16GB or larger SDHC Card
2. Stop recording, check Levels and then re-start recording after each song is recorded

There’s No Hardware Based File Divider Function
There’s no easy way to divide a recording into separate files while recording. The result is that you have to start and stop recording while rehearsing to get your songs onto separate files or you have to do more post-processing to extract the songs individually. It does support BWF markers, but only when you are recording WAV files, which is overkill for rehearsal recordings. I’ve heard that Reaper, Sound Forge and Adobe Audition support splitting (surprisingly the included software Cubase LE does not) on BWF markers but I haven’t tried because of the Max File Size limitation (below).

The easiest way to fix this is with a firmware update that allows users to override the default behavior of pressing the Record button while recording, which sets a BWF marker, to instead divide the file at that point. Even my cheap Sony Digital Voice Recorder has this function.

It Pauses Recording When the Max File Size is Reached
The H4n has a max file size of 2GB. If you hit that limit while recording it will pause recording, write the file to disk and then start recording again. The result is that you have a brief pause in the recording. I’m not how long the pause is, but it doesn’t matter because it shouldn’t pause at all. This is really bad if this happens in the middle of a song. This is my biggest disappointment with the device. It’s a basic feature that every other field recorder that I’ve used includes.

My workaround for this is to stop recording every 30 mins or so, let the file write to disk, hit record button to set levels and then start recording. It only takes about 3 minutes or so, but I shouldn’t have to do that.

This is a harder fix for them, but still a firmware fix.

It Only Supports 2 Channels in Audio Interface Mode
I want to be able to record all 4 Channels directly to my laptop, but Audio Interface Mode only supports 2 channels. This is definitely something they should include in their marketing materials. This is a serious limitation in my opinion.

This may require a hardware change, but should really only be a firmware fix as well.

The Recommended 32GB SDHC Card Isn’t Available
The Supported SD Card List has the Toshiba SD-C32GT4 32GB but that card doesn’t exist anymore. I asked Samson and Zoom and they have no recommendation for an alternative. The suggested going with something from SanDisk, Toshiba, Transcend and that the “list” isn’t definitive.

When you do get a card, make sure it is a Class 6 card. There are some reports online of Class 2 and Class 4 not working as well in the H4n. I decided on the Patriot SDHC 16GB Class 6 card and it seems to work fine.

Hopes this helps you in your research for finding the perfect field recorder.

Jon