Logitech still Rules

Somehow or another I've always had Logitech keyboards and mice, and they have continued to be invaluable.
On the PC this isn't too surprising, but the trend has continued on the Mac, albeit a much taller order. Not even Logitech cater specifically to the Mac. The Wave keyboard in particular, is more Windows/MS orientated with "Word" and "Excel" program icons, vs generic or Mac orientated icons. Be that as it may, the Wave keyboard performs very well under OS X and is easy to customise.

Much to my dismay, Logitech Control Centre doesn't install on OS X 10.6, Snow Leopard. That is until I found this article. To my delight this procedure works fine, but there are some extra steps to make it work completely.
For some reason, Expose doesn't work by default. The easy workaround is to select "Key Click" for a button instead, and enter F9. If you have trouble doing this, because it activates the function, rather than record the F9 key, open System Preferences and temporarily unselect the function key. Assign it in Logitech Control Centre, then reenable it.

For many years I've been a trackball man. I own 5 Logitech Trackman Wheel devices, one of which is wireless.
Just recently I've been getting RSI in my thumb. To resolve this, I bought a Logitech MX Revolution mouse. Despite the fact this is by no means cheap, it's worth every cent. On the Mac it is outstanding. The thumb wheel can be assigned to move Spaces. The scrollwheel is quite a wonder. It has two modes of operation. One is freewheeling, with express scrolling through documents, the second accessible via scrollwheel click, is a line by line scroll with tactile feedback.

All 7 buttons are comfortably accessible, and highly programmable. Perhaps without the above work around under Snow Leopard, it would be a little handicapped, but coupled with the Control Centre, it's an absolute winner.

The future is Jolly Cloudy

A couple of weeks ago I came across a couple of Linux distros aimed at netbooks. Among these was jolicloud. At present this is an invite only alpha, but I was fortunate enough to receive an invite.

The install is clean and simple. What's more it runs inside a Parallels VM beautifully. Although their target is netbooks, they should probably think a little outside the square, as this is an ideal web orientated OS that has wider applications than netbooks.

The GUI is clean and simple. It's probably one of the few Linux distros where you are oblivious to the fact you're running Linux. The primary interface is a full screen "browser" for want of a better word. Down the left hand side of main UI are icons to program groups. Down the right hand side are file locations. Across the top of the UI is a taskbar.
This is a very functional approach to keeping things simple and easy to use. My 4yo would pick it up in a snap.

Installing new functionality is extremely easy. Apps are presented in categories. Installation is as simple as clicking an install button.
What truly makes this a cloud based OS, is the seamless integration of web based apps. Google apps, and Apple's MobileMe are extremely good examples. They run within the OS as if they were a native app. I was quite surprised to see MobileMe considering this is a netbook based OS. It does however show off the OS very well.

Considering this is an alpha, it's extremely stable and polished. Hiding beneath the very friendly GUI is Ubuntu. As such if you want to delve into the Linux innards, there's a popular stable foundation to be delving within.

Jolicloud is undoubtedly one version of the future. Web based apps accessible from anywhere, where the OS plays a far lesser role, and should purely be the vehicle you access your cloud.

If I was indeed running Jolicloud on a netbook, it would have to have 3G capability. I would lose my mind if it didn't.
I believe there are plans afoot to bring out a kernel more taliored and focussed on the Intel Atom processor. Whereas I can understand the benefits of this, the broader the platform this thing runs on, the better. I'd happily buy a netbook, as Mac orientated as I've become, based purely on how good Jolicloud is.

Penguin in my Mac

Driven by an increasing amount of security paranoia and a post at readwriteweb about Moblin, I decided to install a net savvy Linux on my MBP via Parallels. The idea is to snapshot a nice clean install, browse where ever and however I like, and go back to the snapshot should I get paranoiod about what I might have picked up whilst browsing.

The first hurldle was the fact Moblin didn't like the Parallels 4 VM. More's the pity because it looks really good and a quick Google to try and troubleshoot the problem seems to indicate some people have been sucessful getting it to run inside Parallels.

Not to be deterred, I settled for gOS. This is a nice clean Ubuntu with a handful of moderately useful/less gadgets on the desktop. To try and achieve what Moblin seems to offer I've restorted to iGoogle.
The first challenge to be overcome is a unified clipboard between OS X and the VM. I could attempt Synergy if all else fails, but hopefully there's some other slighty more elegant solution.

Given the huge drive towards the cloud, twitter and the like, it will be nice to see some more net savvy OSs come out. OS X is fantastic of course, but I'm looking to really embrace the cloud in a single unified view.