May 20th, 2010 — Gadgets
Yesterday afternoon, I received a provocative tweet from my husband. “I have a surprise for you”, stated the first tweet.
“Is it a good surprise?”, I asked.
“Depends”, was the answer.
“Do I get more clues?”, I asked.
“It’s white, and textured and not a cat” was the reply.
Shortly after, I was picked up from work and I got to see my surprise – it was a brand new Kobo eReader from Borders book store! Here’s a brief initial review of the Kobo eReader, based upon my short use of it.
Continue reading →
October 6th, 2007 — Gadgets
With a number of presentations coming up, I wanted the ability to remotely trigger my presentation slides. A quick search on eBay revealed similar remote devices at varying prices, mostly from overseas. I ordered one, but while waiting for it to show up, hubby suggested that I look into using the Wiimote as “it’s just so much cooler”.
We tried a few things…and found a solution that works.
Here’s what you’ll need to get your Wiimote to work with Powerpoint in Windows Vista:
- A Wiimote
- GlovePIE version .22 or higher
- A Bluetooth enabled PC – the standard Microsoft Windows Bluetooth stack isn’t completely compatible with the Wiimote. I ended up downloading and using BlueSoleil.
- DirectX 8.0 or higher
Once you install GlovePIE, you’ll need to set up a GLovePIE script to enable the Wiimote to function in Powerpoint. Here’s the script I’m using at the moment (just save it as a .PIE file somewhere easily accessible). As you can see, it’s really basic. I haven’t had time to play around, but there’s a lot more cool stuff you can do!
Mouse.LeftButton = Wiimote.A
Mouse.RightButton = Wiimote.B
PageUp = Wiimote.Minus
PageDown = Wiimote.Plus
up = Wiimote.Up
down = Wiimote.Down
left = Wiimote.Left
right = Wiimote.Right
At present, the Wiimote mimics the page up and page down function and up/down/left/right arrow keys.
If you want more information, check out:
February 23rd, 2007 — Gadgets, General
I was reading this article about how the Wii has taken off with the retiree generation (thanks Kaja for the link!). It’s interesting to see how Nintendo has challenged the presumptions about the target user groups and looked at a very non traditional segment of the market.
I love the article for two reasons:
- For showing that you can successfully challenge ‘traditional’ ways of doing something.
- For bringing a smile to my face.
