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Tuesday Quick Tips: Middle Click…

If you’ve ever used a mouse, you pretty quickly notice there is a left mouse button which you can use to click, double click, and hold down to drag things around. The right button brings up a little menu called the context menu that has commands that you can use to perform available actions such as copy and paste, create a new folder, and look at the properties of various items. Finally, there is a scroll wheel that allows you to, well, scroll around on web pages and documents.

What you may not realize is that the scroll wheel also has the ability to click! You may have to investigate what it does in various circumstances, but here are a couple things for you to try out:

1. When browsing the web, click the scroll wheel on a link. You will notice that link opens in a separate tab or window in the background leaving your current page available to continue using. Most of the links on my site will open in a separate tab or window, however, they open immediately, taking you away from whatever you were reading. This is especially helpful for things like Friday Night Links. Try scroll wheel clicking each link, then you can go read them after you’ve read all my commentary!
2. Open up a PDF document (try it on a Form 1040 in honor of tax season). If you scroll wheel click on the PDF, you will see a circle with some arrows pop up. If you move the mouse, it will pan around the PDF. It makes for nice fluid navigation of PDF documents.

Now that you are armed with these tips, try scroll wheel clicking in other programs. Let me know if you find any other secret middle clicking secrets in the comments!

Easy Monday Evening…

Not hardly. I had a big project I was working on tonight. Don’t worry though, Tuesday Quick Tips will be back in full effect tomorrow and a great How To on Wednesday.

Friday Night Links (3/5/2010)…

Friday, Friday, FRIDAY…

The weekend is here and I’ve got some good plans: sis-in-law’s birthday dinner, moving a friend, fixing a computer, making USB flash drives filled with goodies, and a couple other odds and ends. But for now, I’ve got some links.

• Homemade Granola Bars (http://thedig.in/c3) – Man I love granola bars. I will point out that I love crunchy ones, but if someone happened to make these and drop them off at my house, I would definitely eat them and sing your praises. If you didn’t quite get what I said there, “Bring me granola bars.” Clear?
• iPod Auction (http://thedig.in/c4) – Pictures speak volumes. I’m heading over there to put up my ‘$52 reward’ sign tomorrow. Hopefully nobody is smart enough to put up a $53 sign. That would just be CRAZY.
• Survive a Tsunami (http://thedig.in/c5) – After concerns about tsunamis from the recent Chilean earthquake, I saw this guide from the US Geological Survey that has a ton of pictures, charts, stories, and tips on how to survive a tsunami. I think the amazing thing is how low and how high the water actually goes. Additionally, the pictures of the before and after are pretty scary as well. Below is my favorite chart.
  

  Image from USGS website: http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/c1187/images/fig17.jpg

FYIJSYK: Apple vs. HTC…

If you pay much attention to gadget news, you probably heard a bunch of stuff about Apple’s lawsuit against HTC for all types of patent infringement. So what is the story? Is Apple justified in these lawsuits? Can HTC stand up to the onslaught of the Apple lawyers? What does this mean for HTC’s phone lineup? We’ll answer these questions in the week’s FYI, Just So You Know, but you probably won’t be satisfied with the answers.

What’s the story?

Apple has brought a bunch of complaints regarding patents that they filed over the past 10 years. Some are super technical and others are just crazy, such as using your finger on a touchscreen button to unlock a screen. Umm, how else are you supposed to unlock the screen?

Is Apple justified?

Hard to tell. Patents are always a weird thing because sometimes it is very legitimate: you find a new way of doing something that is revolutionary; think inventing a CD in the land of audio cassettes. On the other hand, some companies get a way with patenting things like “how to remember things by using black liquid in a tube and creating characters of of the black liquid.” So you just described writing words with a pen. Lame. But somehow those types of patents get through, but they still have to stand up to scrutiny.

As this case is reviewed, the court will have to determine what can stand and what will not.

What about HTC?

They will most likely be fine for now. The soonest anything would come of a lawsuit like this is about 5 years. In the meantime, unless it turns out HTC is straight up making an iPhone, it should be good to keep doing business.

A majority of the hardware that contains the allegedly infringing patents are actually Android devices and the functions are core Android functions. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you should know that Android is developed by Google. Also, unless you’ve REALLY been living under a rock, you would also know that Google has more money that most of the planet, so defending its technology against Apple really shouldn’t be too much a chore from a financial standpoint, but as I said, we won’t know from an infringement standpoint for a long time.

This all boils down to the fact that HTC is going to have Google and Google’s money in its corner. Not a bad entity to have your back.

What’s next?

I would recommend busting out a nice, big bag of popcorn and settling in for 5-10 years of legal jargon, posturing, and losses and wins on both sides of the courtroom. In the end, I predict that there will only be one true loser: the consumer. They will get the raw end of the deal as licensing fees will increase costs or injunctions against HTC and Android will reduce competition in the market. Once again, the consumer loses again.

What are your projections of what is going to happen between Apple and HTC? Are you rooting for one or the other? Let me know in the comments.

Tuesday Quick Tips: Google Calculate…

Carrying a calculator around with you isn’t very practical, unless you are Mrs. Digitante, then you have one in your purse. Your computer has a calculator, but you have to dig about three menus deep to find it. Fortunately, most people have a browser with a calculator built right in.

Not only does Google’s search box do calculations, but it will show you the answer in auto-complete before you are even done. Check it out in action:

As you can see, it reveals the answer of 46,656 as you type. Pressing enter isn’t really necessary. However, if you do press enter, you get more options.

If you wanted to actually search for the term 6^6, you are certainly given the option to do so.

Anybody use Google as a units converter as well? Got any other quick and easy ways to make calculations on the fly such as an abacus or your brain? Let everybody know in the comments.

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