June 8, 2002

• More Windows adventures:
  
  The Windows computer, I got for free. It was a gift from a friend. It’s a P166. It can play MP3s or browse the web, but not both.
  
  Windows 3.1 for workgroups came with the box. The monitor I had from a long time ago, for another junker computer. The CD-ROM drive came from the same friend as the computer, a little after the fact (if memory serves). The mouse, and the Win98 update software, I found at a thrift store for a grand total of 5 bux. My friend Droo, who I don’t see nearly enough of, donated the memory (for a whopping grand total of 64M in six sticks) and the 10/100 NIC. He’s one of those people who, like me, has a bunch of spare NICs laying around for no apparent reason.
  
  Anyway. The story. I went to get lunch today, and it started raining. So after lunch I went into the computer store next door to stay out of the rain. I kind of needed a mouse to replace the thrift store find, since it’s old and clunky and actually has a ball inside.
  
  Poking around in this store, I found a smallish mouse with a retractable cord. Now, I find it extremely easy to resist the marketing wiles of mouse makers. I got an iOptiJr for my Mac, because it’s an ass-kicking mouse, not because it’s clear and has color accents you can switch out to coordinate with your hairstyle. But the retractable cord…
  
  You open a hatch on the side of the thing and that’s where the USB connector lives. You pull it out and it stays. You tug it again and it goes back in. This is, to me, brilliant. For some reason.
  
  I buy the thing, barely able to justify it (I don’t really need a mouse, but, now that I think about it, my iOptiJr’s cable sure is cumbersome when I’m on the road…)
  
  Yay. Delight. Happy mouse, happy Homer. I go home and plug it into the Windows box. It works immediately. Yay. I think, ‘I bet there’s a kickass driver for this thing on the Kensington web site…’ It turns out there is, but the ass it kicks is MINE. If it ain’t broke don’t innovate, is the story from Kensington. Their installer breaks halfway through the process, which leaves my computer in a state of mouse limbo. I restart with the old PS2 mouse, and Windows recognizes it as new hardware. Heh. Windows doesn’t keep drivers around? It kills them, erases them when they’re not in use?
  
  I notice other stuff, too. The mouse pointer is always snapped to the first button on the window, which annoys the frak out of me. I try to run the Kensington program to configure the mouse, but it puts up an alert box telling me there’s no Kensington mouse present, and of course the pointer is snapped to the OK button.
  
  I try to kill the Kensington driver, but IT WILL NOT DIE. Five restarts later, the pointer is still snapping to the button. I try both mice. I try either mouse. I try program uninstall, I try install/remove hardware, I throw stuff in the trash, er, recycle bin, at random.
  
  Finally, for some reason, it works. I did the same thing over three times, and it worked the third time. Windows voodoo. I curse at Bill Gates and his kerjillionaire status built on MISERY.
  
  And then I recall: I’m in this for $10 plus the cost of the mouse, which I can use on my Mac anyway. And everything’s OK again.
  
  Though I’m pretty sure I’ll be staying with the iOptiJr.

  • 12:33 am
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