Whatever you do, don’t buy a new Mac. That’s right, you heard me, don’t buy a new Mac, or any Mac peripheral. Now, you’re asking, “Has Pete gone over to the Dark Side?” No, not at all. The complete exhortation is: don’t buy a new Mac, or any Mac peripheral, until after January 6th, 2004. Why? Next Tuesday the 6th is Steve Jobs’ Keynote Address at the MacWorld Expo in San Francisco. Undoubtedly, there’ll be wondrous things debuted there.

Does this mean that, if Santa brought you a new Mac or peripheral, you should experience remorse? No way. But, if you escaped the holidays without a Mac purchase, I’m just suggesting you wait to see what the Keynote will bring. At this point the rumor mill is churning feverishly, and although it’s fun to watch, amidst the hype and hyperbole, there’s no way at this juncture to separate the wheat from the chaff, or the wishful thinking from the probable. One thing’s for certain: for Mac users, it’s like Christmas in January. What will Steve put under the tree this year?

Under our tree last week was a two-button mouse, a Logitech MX310 Optical Mouse. A few months ago I poked fun at multi-button mice, but today I’m sold on them! Ain’t I magnanimous? Here’s what changed my tune.

The MX310 isn’t really a two-button mouse – it’s actually a six-button mouse, with a scroll wheel. Every button on the mouse is programmable to just about any combination of keystrokes you can come up with. For example, I programmed the scroll wheel button to “F9” to trigger Expose in Mac OS X. There are two buttons on the side that I’ve programmed to be the Back and Forward buttons on my Safari browser, and the scroll wheel will scroll up and down any scrollable window, including Finder windows. I programmed another button to the “Apple-Tab” keystroke to move around between open applications. The driver software is easy to configure, and I’ve had zero glitches with the little guy. I chose the MX310 because of its ergonomically satisfying shape, and its economically satisfying price – just $30. After a short time with the MX310 I’m looking forward to finding a good, multi-button “mini mouse” to accompany my TiBook and I on the skyways and flyways (actually, in the hotels and airport lounges).

Next time: the MacWorld report!

© 2004 Peter F. Zimowski