Life on the wireless side
My recent foray into wirelessville with the Apple Wireless Keyboard has made me appreciate the advantages its connection method offers, many of them unexpected.
Yesterday I was sick. I felt like lounging around watching movies, so I plopped down on the bad and swiveled my display around so I could see it from a reclining position. Presto! Instant TV! Apple includes some great software for just this eventuality–Front Row.
The problem is, I don’t have all my content in iTunes, which makes using Front Row difficult, and Apple goes out of its way to make getting unapproved movies and TV shows into it a real chore. So I picked up my keyboard–my wireless keyboard–and lay down and navigated my computer sans mouse until I found what I wanted and watched it. Sadly, my wired mouse was in an awkward enough position for me to abandon it since unplugging it to reroute the cord was just too much trouble at that moment.
While reclining and watching, I repositioned the keyboard several times. Eventually, I just set it down beside me so I could twist and turn unrestricted (being sick is no fun, by the way).
Now, this example may be a little weird, but it illustrates the freedom that wireless peripherals can give you. Had the keyboard been tethered, I probably would have tried to recline on my desk chair to little success, and not watched anything in the end. Because of the flexibility my keyboard offered me, I was better able to make my computer system conform to my (at-the-time somewhat unconventional) needs, rather than the other way around–the virtual holy grail of human-computer interaction.
It would have been even better had my mouse–the wondrous Razer Pro|Click mouse whose 7 buttons I use approximately 975,7821 times a day–were wireless. Alas, it is not, and I haven’t been able to find any decent 7-button wireless mice out there yet. The Logitech MX900 looks great, but it was discontinued in favor of a bizarre-looking thing with two scroll wheels. Yes, two scroll wheels. No, really.
In short, go wireless. You won’t regret it. In fact, you may start thinking up ways and justifications to cut the cords on your other devices too!
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