Cav's Place

Meant to write this yesterday, but couldn’t even get started, so here it is now. Admittedly, there are a few more things I can add to it because of this, one of them quite worrying, so it’ll end up bigger than the relatively quick post it was initially meant to be, but hoping not too big, because in that case I’ll find myself stopping again and having to continue tomorrow, especially considering the Europa League matches this evening, and I definitely don’t want that. Don’t know what this week’s second post will be as it is…

Last weekend, I ordered an APC Back-UPS ES 700VA, since it was on sale and the UPS I had needed replacing soon anyway, as it clearly only got this far because it was replaced under warranty at the start of 2013 and either way I remember that the last time the power failed it said it’ll need to shut down the system in two minutes after less than 30 seconds. And interestingly enough, though I expected it to be delivered with some delay, since the sales the shop had generated a large amount of orders and I saw people complaining already, I actually got it on Monday.
That meant I could let it settle while I attended the public meeting which was supposed to mark a restart for the United We Save movement, then plug it in and leave it like that until Tuesday evening, when I actually moved the old one out and plugged my computer into this one, which surprisingly fit inside the desk as well, even though when I measured it seemed like it wouldn’t. Unfortunately, I still can’t seem to be able to unplug the network switch from the power strip, which is a problem I noticed quite some time ago, and I don’t dare pull until something comes apart, so at the moment I can’t plug that into it as well, despite the fact that there definitely are enough battery-powered outlets. Plugged the speakers into one of those not connected to the battery, however, since there’s no reason to want those to stay on if the power fails.

Another thing that was on sale, at another shop, was ROCCAT Kone XTD, which was the mouse I had my eyes on for the day I’ll have to give in and replace my old Logitech MX518. Had the original Kone in my sights ever since first seeing it in an issue of the now-defunct Level magazine which I had purchased for the game it came bundled with and followed the series over the years, as my MX518 was purchased in 2006 and had been acting up since 2012, requiring me to first reconfigure some buttons around the start of 2013, then to revert the changes a while back after another button failed but the one that had failed first appeared to have fully recovered, and lately to just keep struggling with the wheel, which I couldn’t reconfigure to anything else and was increasingly difficult to persuade to work.
Well, this other shop had their sales in their physical locations only during the weekend, but a few products had the sale extended for a few days afterward and therefore had the discounts visible on-line as well, and this mouse was one of them. Now, of course, it’s terribly expensive for a mouse and the sale worked out at 15.9% off, so not too much, but the first thing I noticed was that it was suddenly being reported as out of stock by all shops I was checking except this one, so the manufacturer is probably not sending any more for a while, probably to boost sales of the new Tyon, and they had a few left over and wanted to get rid of them as well and it was probably a good time to grab one. Incidentally, the UPS I bought also seems to be going out of stock just about everywhere these days.

What actually made me decide to ask for the money, however, was witnessing a talk between my parents as I was waiting for the delivery guy to bring me the UPS and learning that they’re spending about as much as I’d spend on the mouse, if not more, on cigarettes each month, and only one of them is smoking… So we supposedly don’t have any money for anything and I cut down on as much as I could in recent months, giving up on the idea of checking out something that may look interesting when I go shopping, at most getting myself some biscuits or some bagels that were on sale as far as sweets and things to munch on go, also throwing away the plan to order some more books this year after cracking that pot, thinking those money will be needed for a replacement which, by the way, still wasn’t bought, yet we’re throwing away that much per month on something so harmful, and which I have to breathe in as well, as she keeps going to the kitchen to smoke instead of staying in her room with the door closed! In that case, excuse me, but I have a list of things I plan to get over the next few months too!
As such, I got the money and Tuesday around noon I went out, because I wanted to actually see the mouse before purchasing it, since if it’ll work well enough I’ll be spending the next several years with my hand on it. Had a route planned that’d have taken me to up to five locations, not knowing where I may still find any, and would have required a lot of walking if I wouldn’t have found it in one of the first three, but luckily, while the first two seemed to only stock lower-priced general-use mice, the third has a dedicated gaming zone and the good gaming mice were in the first shelves as you walk towards it from the entrance.
There were two Kone XTD’s there, so I had a good look at them, tried to see how it’d fit in my hand by placing it on it in the box, inspected the boxes carefully, then grabbed one and checked out, being a bit surprised at getting only a receipt with warranty terms on the back which say six months, though as far as I know the legal period that shops must cover is two years. But I know not to expect services from that store, as they say clearly that they redirect you to the manufacturer in case of warranty issues, and either way, at this price, if it’ll need servicing within six months or two years it’s the same problem. I mean, I definitely expect it to last at least as long as the MX518 did! Anything less will be quite a problem.

And this is pretty much what I’d have written if I’d have posted this yesterday, and already about twice the size I thought it’d be, so there goes the quick post I mentioned in the first paragraph. It’s also what I managed to write before the day’s first match, so I’ll need to add what I still have to add and quickly finish this at half time and then see about looking over it and making the necessary changes and additions later.

Back to the mouse, after toying with it for two days, I can say I definitely like the software and all the options it offers, though I could use a way to assign starting a program to a button directly instead of needing to assign a keyboard shortcut to the program and then the shortcut to a button. But at the moment I’m yet to think of enough actions to assign to fill even the generic Windows profile I made, and the only other one I created so far has the buttons assigned the same way I had them on the MX518, so with the shift function disabled to have a fifth button in its place, the button above the wheel as the middle one and clicking the wheel set to do nothing, so I won’t need to change any settings. When I’ll install something new, I’ll see about making another one to take full advantage of its functions in a game as well.
Yes, that means that now I’m using wheel clicking as middle button for the standard Windows profile, since on this one it seems to work without accidentally scrolling at the same time, with some care. I may tilt it while pressing, but that usually doesn’t do anything, so it’s all right. Definitely won’t work in a game that’ll use the middle button, so that’s why I have that other profile there and I am worried by the fact that the button above the wheel is particularly difficult to click, in the sense of requiring significantly more force than any other, but I’ll get used to it, the same way I’ll get used to the slightly different pointer speed and lack of acceleration, since no matter what I tried I couldn’t quite make it match the way the MX518 moved and muscle memory keeps making me miss what I mean to click at the moment. It’s already happening less than on the first day, however.
In addition, I definitely like the way it feels in my hand, the surface texture and the amount of feedback I get from both wheel and buttons, except that one I mentioned. The lights are a nice touch as well, but the cool factor already wore off and as of last night I already left them off for the default profile, only being on for the other one to make it obvious when it’s switched. I do find it rather limiting that only up to three programs can be set to automatically select each profile, however.

The one thing that worries me, on the other hand, is that the wheel slipped a few times so far. It definitely doesn’t register the first scroll in one direction that comes right after a scroll with shift pressed, which I set as page up or down, in the opposite direction, and that’s quite obviously some sort of software issue, but I only noticed that after starting to test all sorts of things after the wheel simply slipped a few times, failing to scroll when I moved it, and if I was careful I could actually feel in my finger that something didn’t connect as it should have when that happened.
It happened quite a few times last night while browsing, plus once while scrolling through a text document and twice more, one after the other, while scrolling through a PDF, but otherwise I kept scrolling in both directions with varying amounts of pressure, tilting and clicking for a good ten minutes straight last night and, albeit not for so long, several other times since then, and I didn’t notice it happening again. Now I’ll need to keep pushing it these days and see how things stand, because I have 31 days to return it and, quite frankly, if there are obvious problems with it at this price, I’m tempted to do that and get back to my failing MX518 for a while longer, then see what else I can do.

Still, I definitely hope it won’t come to that, because I really like it. Plus, I guess I made a tiny additional accidental sacrifice for it, as in on top of the fact that I went to look for it in stores and actually purchased it that way instead of ordering on-line, so maybe that will count for something. I’m referring to the fact that, after leaving the store with the mouse in a bag, I put the bag under my jacket and carried it that way all the way back instead of simply holding it, and that and the sweat resulted in the paint coming off the plastic bag and ending up on my sweater. It mostly came out after washing, but you can still notice some of it, and that is the thicker sweater I have, so it may be a problem in certain situations. Definitely worth it if this will work well and last long enough though.