Sunday, March 15, 2009
New Toy
I went to MacWorld in January here in San Francisco, and stopped by the Kensington booth where they were showing off their new "SlimBlade" trackball. I'm a big trackball fan, and have been for years, ever since I realized how much more accurate they could be when making selections in Photoshop. No more "the cursor moves when I click" stuff. The Kensington folks were taking names of folks who wanted to try out the SlimBlade Trackball, so I signed up. They asked all sorts of questions about what I like to do with my trackballs. I'll resist the temptation to make a juvenile joke here....
I use trackballs both at work and at home, and the Kensington folks seemed most interested in the fact that I use them on all my home computers, for photo editing, video work, 3D stuff, and so on. A week or so ago, they contacted me and said I'd been selected to participate in their promotional project, and that they'd be sending me a SlimBlade to try out. All they asked in return was that I'd post images of me using it, what my setup is, and eventually to tell how I liked using it.
So, here's the first post about it. Since we're working in post production on Inspector Hieronymus, I'm doing a lot of cursor controlling, which seemed like a great way to try it out. In the photo you can see me at work with our MacPro, editing Scene H (a lovely scene filled with drama and pathos). The SlimBlade is next to my Wacom Tablet. The USB Powered Robotic Owl sits perched atop the Blu-Ray Burner Drive, advising me on edit decisions. On the screen is Adobe Premiere Pro, CS4, with the Scene H sequence open. If you look closely, you can see an exclusive, first look at the mysterious pillars of Scene H!
My first impressions are this:
Give me a while working with this device and I'll let you all know what I think about it....
In the meantime, I'm off to create some otherworldly energy fields for the movie. ¶ 12:36 PM
I went to MacWorld in January here in San Francisco, and stopped by the Kensington booth where they were showing off their new "SlimBlade" trackball. I'm a big trackball fan, and have been for years, ever since I realized how much more accurate they could be when making selections in Photoshop. No more "the cursor moves when I click" stuff. The Kensington folks were taking names of folks who wanted to try out the SlimBlade Trackball, so I signed up. They asked all sorts of questions about what I like to do with my trackballs. I'll resist the temptation to make a juvenile joke here....
I use trackballs both at work and at home, and the Kensington folks seemed most interested in the fact that I use them on all my home computers, for photo editing, video work, 3D stuff, and so on. A week or so ago, they contacted me and said I'd been selected to participate in their promotional project, and that they'd be sending me a SlimBlade to try out. All they asked in return was that I'd post images of me using it, what my setup is, and eventually to tell how I liked using it.
So, here's the first post about it. Since we're working in post production on Inspector Hieronymus, I'm doing a lot of cursor controlling, which seemed like a great way to try it out. In the photo you can see me at work with our MacPro, editing Scene H (a lovely scene filled with drama and pathos). The SlimBlade is next to my Wacom Tablet. The USB Powered Robotic Owl sits perched atop the Blu-Ray Burner Drive, advising me on edit decisions. On the screen is Adobe Premiere Pro, CS4, with the Scene H sequence open. If you look closely, you can see an exclusive, first look at the mysterious pillars of Scene H!
My first impressions are this:
- The SlimBlade looks really cool; I really dig the shiney, sheeny ball, and the smooth shape of the base is nice, too.
- In addition to the usual trackball method of moving the cursor around, you can rotate the ball like a knob to scroll. It's like a scroll wheel, but different.
- There are four buttons in the base. The left and right click buttons are where I tend to rest the heel of my hand, so I tend to click them accidentally. The other two buttons (the "Medium Mode" and the "View Mode" buttons) are where my instincts tell me the left and right click buttons should be. I haven't played with the settings for the SlimBlade to see if I can re-assign the buttons (though I did note that it doesn't put a new pane in my system preferences, but rather a new icon in the upper right of my computer, which is a little annoying). I need to play with the settings to see if I can assign the buttons myself.
Give me a while working with this device and I'll let you all know what I think about it....
In the meantime, I'm off to create some otherworldly energy fields for the movie. ¶ 12:36 PM
