I had a cloth SteelSeries mouse pad, and it was the cheapest gaming mouse pad around, but then it started feeling very rough and I decided that it was time for me to search for a new one. After looking around, it was clear that the best gaming mouse pad seemed to be the SteelSeries SX, and so I decided to get one for myself to evaluate if this was really true.

SteelSeries SX Gaming Mouse Pad First Thoughts

When the SteelSeries SX mouse pad arrived, I found it to be encased by a clear plastic clamshell within a cardboard sleeve that exposes just a bit of the mouse pad. When I opened the clamshell, I found the mouse pad to be a bit greasy – there was even some grease on the inside of the clamshell. I don’t know if this was normal, but it was noticeable to me because I hadn’t had anything other than a cloth mouse pad before (which definitely didn’t have grease on it). This wasn’t a problem though, as the grease on the mouse pad wasn’t much and added to the smoothness of the mouse pad. After using the mouse pad for several hours, the grease was gone.

Also included in the package is a set of Glide mouse feet (they provide 4 feet), a SteelSeries catalogue, and a cloth that you can use to help keep your SteelSeries SX mouse pad clean and smooth. The mouse feet really help to reduce friction and helps you get the maximum glide together with the mouse pad.

On the mouse pad itself is a nice SteelSeries badge. Personally, I find this to be much classier than the large SteelSeries logos that are present on some of their other products.

Size of the SteelSeries SX Gaming Mouse Pad

While there are giant mouse pads that take up your entire desk, the SteelSeries SX is not like that. It’s not a very large mouse pad, but it is bigger than any of the freebies you get from trade shows, and is a very decent size. I found that it sits on my table very well. It does not get into my way, but also provides me with enough mousing area.

Surface of the SteelSeries SX Gaming Mouse Pad

At first glance, the SteelSeries SX mouse pad looks rather like a plastic mouse pad – however, when you touch it, you’ll definitely know that it’s made from metal. In fact, if you’re in a cool area, you’ll find that the mouse pad will be very cold to the touch. The anodized oxide gives the surface a very smooth finish, but the drawback is that the finish will easily accumulate any dirt or dust. Smudges from fingerprints and perspiration show up especially well, but can be cleaned off easily with the supplied cloth or some water.

In terms of performance, this mouse pad is really as SteelSeries claims, and is really smooth. If you do a lot of detailed work and appreciate precision when you use your mouse, then this will be the best mouse pad you will have the pleasure of using.

I’ve compared the SteelSeries SX (aluminum mouse pad) to a SteelSeries QcK (cloth mouse pad), and the difference is staggering, as you can tell from the texture that these photographs reveal. The shinier photograph is of the SteelSeries SX, and the duller/scratchier-looking one is the SteelSeries QcK.

The things that I noticed about this mouse pad is that using it becomes slightly noisier than plastic or cloth surfaces, and this is understandable, due to the harder aluminum surface that the SteelSeries SX mouse pad uses. That’s not a bad thing though, because I like the sturdy feeling that the aluminum gives, and you can actually feel the quality of the material. In fact, you’ll instantly know whenever there’s a little grain of of dust or dirt on the mouse pad because it’s so smooth that anything on it is instantly noticeable to when you use your mouse on it.

Portability of the SteelSeries SX Gaming Mouse Pad

Unlike my previous cloth mouse pad, the SteelSeries SX seems quite vulnerable to scratches, and absolutely is not suited for carrying around. In the past, I regularly roll up my cloth mouse pad and throw it in my bag whenever I need to move around, but I do not recommend that for the SteelSeries SX mouse pad. As such, one thing that I wish SteelSeries would have provided is a carrying case for this mouse pad (especially given its price-point).

Grip of the SteelSeries SX Gaming Mouse Pad

The problem I have with some mouse pads is that they slip and move around. The SteelSeries SX mouse pad has no such problem, primarily because its entire underside is a sheet of rubber. As such, the grip of the SteelSeries SX is nothing short of amazing, and the pad never moves around your desk, at all.

In fact, the rubber base worked so well that I was afraid that it would be too thick and would hinder the use of my mouse. However, that’s not the case at all, as the rubber base adds very little to the overall height of the mouse pad as shown in the photograph.

Durability of the SteelSeries SX Gaming Mouse Pad

I have used both cloth mouse pads and plastic mouse pads before, and one problem that they face is a deterioration of the surface over time. This is not a problem with the SteelSeries SX because of the quality and the material of the surface. The aluminum used in the SteelSeries SX mouse pad is stronger and more resistant to wear and tear, flaws, and deformities.

Conclusion

If you’re in the market for a good gaming mouse pad, then the SteelSeries SX is the best gaming mouse pad around. It’s a cool-looking mouse pad that scores highly on performance and durability, and justifies its cost with the quality of materials, life of the mouse pad, and workmanship in creating the mouse pad. Buy the SteelSeries SX mouse pad from Amazon today, and enjoy free shipping!

MAMP (Mac, Apache, MySQL, PHP) is a package that allows you to run your own PHP-enabled web server with MySQL easily on your Mac. However, if you’re looking for additional libraries like the ionCube libraries, you’ll need to download and install them yourself. That’s not bad because it’s not hard at all.

What you need is to go to http://www.ioncube.com/loaders.php, and download the ionCube loader file for your O/S version. For example, I’m running a Macbook Pro unibody, and so I get the x86 version of the loader.

Now once the file is on your computer, extract the contents and copy the file (e.g. ioncube_loader_dar_5.2.so ) into your MAMP’s PHP5 folder. For the default installation of MAMP, it should be this path:

/Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/zend/lib/

Now you need to edit the php.ini, which is found here: /Applications/MAMP/conf/php5/php.ini

Scroll to line number 1085, hit enter, and then add this line:

zend_extension=/Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/zend/lib/ioncube_loader_dar_5.2.so

That’s all there is to it! Just stop and start the MAMP servers, and you should now have ionCube loaders up and running with PHP!

One of the first problems that I came across the Mac was the “File in use” error that occurred whenever I tried to unmount a hard drive, or unmount a USB thumb drive. It was annoying because I didn’t know how to find the source. In Windows, I would face the same problem too, but I had a program that I used to tell me the offending application. It was handy because it would show me what exactly was locking up my file, and I could unlock/remove its hold.

On the Mac, I had to search for something that offered the same functionality, and I found it in the form of a terminal command:

sudo lsof | grep -i

Basically, the command will look for your filename in the list of open processes, and display all relevant information about it on screen. I find this unwieldy though, so I searched around somemore and found a GUI replacement to this terminal command! It’s called What’s Keeping Me, and it does what the terminal command does, except in a pretty GUI.

So now you can find out what’s keeping a file locked on the Mac. Go grab What’s Keeping Me now – it’s donationware, so you can use it for free, and make a donation if you find it useful. Go to the What’s Keeping Me website.

The Logitech Anywhere MX is a handsome, reliable, functional wireless mouse. I was previously using the Razer Orochi, and the Logitech Anywhere MX, while not Bluetooth, reminds me a lot of the Orochi.

I opted for the plain packaging, which puts the mouse in a plain cardboard box. No hard-to-open, fancy plastic wrapping and extra packaging – just the bare essentials, the way I liked it. Inside the box were the prerequisite manuals, the mouse itself, a protective pouch, 2 AA batteries, and a unifying wireless receiver. Because I also had a Logitech K340 keyboard, which also uses the unifying receiver, I could keep one of the receivers as a spare.

The Anywhere MX mouse is a very handsome mouse, with rubberised grips on the side and very tactile buttons. The mouse also had forward/back buttons on the left, which are absolutely essential for me. I use these buttons whenever I’m browsing websites or folders on my computer, and it’s handy because it saves me from having to halt my browsing, go up to the corner, hit the back/forward button, and go back to whatever I was doing. These buttons are very easy to access, and your thumb barely has to move. Although they’re close together, they’re separated by a small gap, which allows you to feel which button (forwards or backwards) that you’re pressing.

Besides that, I also like the “free-wheeling” mode, or what Logitech refers to as “Hyper-fast scrolling”. Essentially, the Anywhere MX has a typical-looking scroll wheel, but if you depress it, it sort of “un-hinges”, and instead of the notch-by-notch feeling that you get with the default scroll wheel behaviour, you can spin the scroll wheel freely. Love it. It makes scrolling through long documents painless. The scroll wheel on this mouse also allows you to scroll horizontally (left/right) so it’s a VERY versatile and functional scroll wheel.

And if you travel around and want to bring your mouse with you, the Anywhere MX is great for that. It’s a fantastic size, not huge and not small, and comes with a protective pouch. The pouch doesn’t come with foam or anything that protects against bumps and falls, but it’s a perfect fit with a sleek outer shell that will definitely protect against scratches.

The battery life is amazing as well, and has an indicator that tells you when it’s running low on juice – perfect for me, because that tells me when I should start charging the next pair of batteries. One unique feature of the mouse is that while it runs on 2 AA batteries, you can actually still operate it with only 1 battery! It’s not a ground-breaking feature, but with my previous wireless mice, I would sometimes run out of batteries, and only have 1 fully-charged battery available. Charging a pair will take hours, so having the ability to work with just 1 battery is great.

If you’re looking for the best wireless mouse that’s reliable and functional, which also looks good and feels good, then the Logitech Anywhere MX is a great mouse for you. It’s at a very affordable price point, and you can get the Logitech Wireless Anywhere Mouse MX from Amazon at the lowest price, and they’ll even throw in free shipping!

I was using the Apple Bluetooth Keyboard for a while with my Thinkpad (running Windows 7), but I soon found it inadequate. The keys were mismatched, and I had to use software to match up the keys to what I want to achieve in Windows, i.e. home, end, delete, alt-tab. Also, since I got a Logitech Anywhere MX mouse with unifying technology, I decided that I should get a keyboard that uses the same unifying technology so that I don’t have to use 2 wireless receivers.

After searching around, I found that the Logitech K340 seemed to fit my needs. I bought it off Amazon, and it came a few days after. When you take the keyboard out of the box, the first thing you’ll probably notice is that behind the keys is a red “background”. Typically, this would be black on most keyboards. The red matches the red used on the highlights on the keys. If you’re familiar with notebooks, this is the same thing – you can press the FN key and some keys have extra functionality like media functions, search, power off, etc. I like red and black, so I loved how the K340 used those colors.

Coming from an Apple keyboard with the chiclet keys though, the Logitech K340’s keys felt softer in comparison. It’s not a bad thing though, just different, and I soon found myself getting used to it. The sound that it makes is very soft as well, so that’s a good point.

The next thing that I noticed is that the low profile of the keyboard isn’t changeable. You don’t have keyboard “legs” that you can flip up to increase the elevation of the keyboard. That’s fine with me though, because I like the low profile and the comfort that it gives. Normally, the elevated keyboard forces your hands to arch back a little, which makes it uncomfortable for prolonged typing.

The great thing about this keyboard that I especially love is the key placement – for the Ctrl, Windows, and Alt keys, they’re in the exact same spot as my Thinkpad T410s! That makes typing a lot easier because I don’t have to memorize 2 different key layouts when I switch between my notebook and my external keyboard.

Battery life is awesome, especially compared to a bluetooth keyboard. The rated life is in months instead of weeks for a bluetooth keyboard! The Logitech K340 keyboard also comes with a on/off switch, which is useful when you need to leave for trips or for any extended period of time. The good thing about this keyboard is that it uses 2 AA batteries, which is great because my previous Apple keyboard uses 3 AA batteries.

If you’re in the market for a good, reliable, and responsive wireless keyboard, then the Logitech K340 would be it. The price point makes it very affordable, the build quality is excellent, and the keyboard gives you the full range of keys in a comfortable, compact layout. I’ve been using it already for more than a week, and I love how the keyboard feels. Get the Logitech Wireless Keyboard K340 from Amazon for the lowest price, and they’ll even throw in free shipping!

An urologist named Cockburn.

If you think this is a fake, check out the original source right here.

I wasn’t a Dropbox convert until recently, because I didn’t understand what the big deal was with it, but I’ve tried it recently because of a school project, and it’s like I’ve seen the light!

When I first signed up for the service (it’s free), I just used the web-based interface. However, I needed to share files, and the web-based interface was just too clunky. It was just after one day that I installed the Windows application. Normally, I have a disdain of installing programs on my system because I don’t like the additional clutter and resources used, so it takes a lot for me to like a program to install it.

I like the Dropbox program. In fact, I fell in love with it instantly. It’s lightweight, fast, and non-obstrusive.

Since I collaborate with 5 other team-mates, we update and create files all the time, and Dropbox acts as a simplified versioning system. There’s a small notification window everytime a file gets updated, and what’s great is that everything is done automatically and in the background! There’s also no worry that someone will accidentally delete or overwrite a file, because Dropbox maintains old versions of your files too!

Since then, I’ve been looking at more ways to use Dropbox. With it’s cross-platform support (Linux, Mac, Android, iPhone, iPad!), that’s not hard. Here are just some great ideas to get you started!

1. Share Music

This is one of the most obvious methods – depending on the size of your music collection, you can share your music files and access them on any computer or device that you’re on!

2. Share iTunes Libraries

On the same note, if you’re using iTunes, Dropbox is a great way to ensure that your iTunes libraries are synced across your computers. You just need to move your iTunes library. To do so, just follow these three steps:

1. Cut and paste your existing iTunes library folder into your Dropbox folder
2. Start iTunes while holding on to the Shift key (or the Option key on Mac OSX)
3. A dialogue box will popup. Just browse to the location in your Dropbox folder and hit ok!

3. Share Photos

With the same logic as sharing music, except better, because Dropbox supports creating photo galleries too. Just share whatever folder your photos are in, and give the public gallery link to whoever you want to share the photo gallery with.

4. DIY Security Camera

Use a free application such as WebCamFirst or YawCam, have it setup to take photos (YawCam even has a motion detection mode), and have the photographs saved to your Dropbox folder. Dropbox will do the rest and you’ll get the photographs. No worries about the intruder deleting the photographs too – Dropbox saves a copy of all deleted files!

5. Simple Versioning System

If you want a simple versioning system, like CVS/Git/SVN, but don’t want the hassle and deal with simple files (word processing, photos, etc), Dropbox is for you. Versioning system are used primarily by the software development industry because it’s the best way to keep your code in sync with multiple people, branch out in your development, and have automated backups all in one. However, it’s a bit more complex than the average user requires.

This is where Dropbox comes in. If you work on Word documents or other Office documents, or even media files, with a team of people, then Dropbox works fantastic. Every file will get backed up, and synced with everyone automatically. You will even know, and be protected, if you’re saving your file over someone else’s newly uploaded work (Dropbox will save a “conflicted” version of the file).

Don’t have Dropbox yet? Well, what are you waiting for? Get Dropbox now.

This is a funny video by a candy bar company that shows a boy who does REALLY long-term planning.

I love VMWare Fusion, because it allows me to run Windows applications on my Mac seamlessly. It gets to the point that I want some forms of documents to always open with Windows applications. For instance, I don’t like Mac Office, and would rather use Windows Office to open my Office documents. The problem was that when you go to “Get Info” in Finder, some of the Office applications wouldn’t be listed.

I solved this by searching for where the applications were located, and found them in this path:

~/Documents/Virtual Machines/

Select the machine that you want (it’ll look like .vmwarevm), and then right-click on it, and choose “Show Package Contents”. When you’re inside, go to the Applications folder, and you’ll see all your applications there.

Now that you know where the applications are, you can either create a link and place them where you want (e.g. in your ~/Applications/ folder), or whenever you do a “Get Info” on a document, you can choose to open all files in the future with those applications (by browsing to that location, and selecting the appropriate application).

Sometimes you just need to print out the list of files in a particular folder. While I was on Windows, sometimes I’d just take a screenshot of the folders’ contents, but when I had to print it out or when the folder’s contents were too much, I had to use a third-party software just to accomplish this.

On the Mac, you have Automator! Automator allows you to get the contents of any folder on your Mac. With the contents, you can save it as a text file so you can print, copy, or do whatever with it.

Here’s 5 easy steps to list your folder contents on a Mac:

1. Open Automator
2. Create a new workflow
3. Drag: Ask for Finder Items (Change “Type” to Folder)
4. Drag: Get Folder Contents
5. Drag: New Text File (Choose your filename and location)
6. Hit “Run”

And voila! Your folder contents are saved to a text file, ready to be used.

Tip: You can search for your actions, e.g. search for “folder”, and you should see the “Get Folder Contents” displayed.