Mac Essentials for using a Microsoft Wireless Mouse

tools,

There are some Microsoft Mac essentials that need be on my Mac. Windows Media Player and IntelliPoint at least. I have also found but not tried yet an update for Virtual PC, which maybe can solve my previous installing issue.

Mac and other Platforms

I especially recommend IntelliPoint if you use any Microsoft Mouse. I became very frustrated by my Wireless Optical Blue Mouse on the Mac. It was slow and sticking; improving the speed within the Mac’s System Preferences did not improve the handling very well. However, the IntelliPoint software does support the devices very well, and by using the IntelliPoint pointer speed option instead of System Mouse Tracking the performance and reliability of the wireless mouse is improved dramatically.

Microsoft Mouse

It also has some additional information on the mouse, depending on the attached device. After replacing my Optical Wheel Mouse USB with the Wireless Optical Blue Mouse I got this additional tab showing the battery level.

Microsoft Mouse

CanonScan N650U

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One of the first things to fix was to bring my CanonScan N650U to work with my Mac. Canon offers a plug-in for the CanonScan N650U. I tried MSN Search and some Google Groups but I did not find any helpful solution. Actually I had no idea what to do with the package, so I started the CanonPI CS-U Installer in the package. After the installation, the system needed to restart. After reboot, it was possible to scan images in Office using the Canon plug-in Module CS-U 3.8.

Canon Plug-in Module CS-U 3.8

 

You can never have enought… Backups

tools,

Actually, you can never have enough backups, but the original reason for getting Acronis’ TrueImage was to copy an image of my 60GB laptop HDD to a new 100GB HDD. This worked surprisingly well, connecting the new disk, using an external USB case, the tool reboots the system and copies a bootable image of the disk.

Beside this, the tool can perform backups while you work on your system. Very cool and helpfully if you backup to a server, which could take some time. In addition the tool provides a very great feature, which makes accessing files within your backup very comfortable. You can just plug an backup image as a virtual disk to your system and this way you can access the complete backup and access specific files you are looking for.

Pick a Task

PLug Image Wizard

Assign Logical Drive Letters

Plug Image Wizzard

Please Wait

My Computer

 

VRDK

microsoft,

We are still working with the VRDK at Microsoft Reseach, Cambridge. During the last few months I gave several talks, introducing the VRDK to a wider range of audience. Finally, a lot of people asked me if and when we will release it. Unfortunately, it is not a product rather a research platform.

However, I checked the web and found some articles and weblog entries about the VRDK, written when it was presented to the public the first time.

Official Sites

Weblogs

Misc

dasBlog2WCF

meta,

Three weeks ago I spent an evening together with Clemens Vasters at the University Arms’ bar in Cambridge, UK. Great guy, just added him to my blogroll. Two months ago he joined Microsoft as Community Relations Program Manager for the Windows Communication Foundation: Hey Clemens, I still want to put in WCF into our VRDK!