List of RSS/ATOM feed readers/aggregators.

• Bloglines -
• Netvibes -
• Google Reader -
• Firefox Live Bookmarks -
• Hirlapom.hu – Online RSS reader – Hirlapom.hu – Online RSS reader from BudaPest, Hungary, Central Europe.
• FeedRaider.com – Customizable RSS Aggregator
• NewsFire -
• FeedReader – Very well designed offline feedreader. Inone view, folders, feeds, and read the article. You can adjust the size of the article that you are reading. With internal browser.
• Blog – A Powerful Marketing Tool – If you are frequently surfing the Net, you may have heard about blogs. Blogs are like newsletters, they are frequently updated mainly for general public usage.
• RSSOwl – RSSOwl – A Java RSS / RDF / Atom Newsreader
• NetNewsWire for Mac -
• Protopage – Protopage – read feeds and share them with others.
• t3h Blox0r – A XUL rss reader that only runs ons Mozilla browsers.
• Alertbear – A great new approach, I love it! http://www.donationcoder.com/Forums/bb/index.php?topic=3015.0 has tiny review with screenshots.
• onelurv – Channel-based online feed reader & password bookmarker. Embed feed reader into external blog/webpage.
• Feeds 2.0 – Feeds 2.0 is an online personalized RSS aggregator. It uses a learning engine to prioritizes incoming information according to the user’s interests, and also clusters items from different feeds who deals with the same subject.
• MonkeyChow – Web-based RSS/RDF/ATOM feed reader/aggregator/republisher that you can set up on your own *AMP server to access from wherever you want with whatever computing platform you want. Offers tagging and social networking hooks.
• Sage (Firefox Extension) -
• Apple Safari -
• Online RSS Reader, No Signup – Web 2.0 application (web based, no install) that allows you to import a RSS feed to be seen like a web page (I use it for my giving out a link to my del.icio.us account RSS feed).
• SharpReader -
• Orijinn – …since you are there, you know what to do…
• Gritwire -
• GreatNews – offline aggregator aoptimized for fast reading
• Krawler[x] – The only RSS reader that offers feed tagging, river of news style interface and rating of feeds!
• TheOnlineDiary – Built in online RSS reader
• Alesti.org – **Alesti.org** is a fast *web 2.0* online feed aggregator, in which you can *tag* your subscriptions, *bookmark* your prefered articles, send them by *mail* to a friend, *import/export* OPML and more, thanks to it’s simple yet *friendly* interface that resembles *desktop* aggregators, which is available in multiple *languages*.
• Rojo -
• NewsGator Online -
• RSS Bandit -
• Gregarius – Gregarius is a web-based RSS/RDF/ATOM feed aggregator, designed to run on your web server, allowing you to access your news sources from wherever you want. live demo: http://rss.gregarius.net/
• Attensa Online -
• FeedDemon 2.0 -
• FeedLounge -
• Pluck Web Edition -
• Google IG(Personalized Home) -
• Pluck for Firefox -
• Omea Reader – Best offline feed reader.
• Attensa Mobile -
• News Alloy -
• RSSFwd – Forwards RSS items to a email address. Combines well with GMail.
• Google Desktop Side Bar Web Clips -
• HanRSS (Korean) -
• Attensa for Outlook -
• Google Desktop gdRSS Reader plug-in -
• My Yahoo! -
• Opera -
• Pluck for IE -
• Start.com -
• Pageflakes -
• Mozilla Thunderbird -
• Internet Explorer 7 -
• Windows Live -
• NewsGator Inbox for Outlook -

Litebox Plugin incorporates Litebox to display both single images and galleries in your posts.

authUI, a productivity plugin, provides a function that can be placed anywhere in a template to display a toolbar consisting of a log-in form, and links to creating new posts and pages.

Random Image displays images from Desktop Exchange in your sidebar.

WP Contact Form – Part III is another mod of Ryan’s WP-Contact Form and Douglas‘ mod. It now includes custom Subject support.

Head Meta allows you to add your own meta data or javascript to the meta section of your blog without editting your template

Enquiry and Contact form lets you create and embed standard or Ajax powered forms.

Link Love is a WordPress plugin which turns off nofollow for all commenters who have posted at least 10 comments (configurable).

Better Stats Insertion is a WordPress plugin that allows you to easily insert stats code from trackers such as Google Analytics, SiteMeter, or just about any other.

FeedBuilder24 generates a custom RSS-2.0 feed from your WordPress weblog postings.

Photon is a plugin that allows to integrate phpwebgallery WordPress.

Admin Theme Preview allows you to preview of any currently installed theme without making it viewable to site visitors.

AdKit24 lets you create your own adbar for your WordPress blog.

Motivational Quote will randomly display a quote in the upper right of your admin screen. Similar to the now infamous Holly Dolly plugin.

BibTex is a tool for formatting lists of references used by the LaTeX document preparation system.

My Link Order Widgetized is the widgetized version of My Link Order.

Role Manager 2.0 is based on the plugin by Owen Winkler. This Plugin allows you to define and manage multiple subscriber profiles – called Roles and their Capabilities. Also you can create new Roles and Capabilities.

WatchMyBack24 verifies if a backlink exists to your trackbacked posting. If no backlink is given, the trackback will fail.

Tickme.com plugin adds a TickMe.com ribbon to the top right of your WordPress Blog, with a link to your profile on TickMe.

Any suggestions, ideas? Feel free to comment on this article!

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No Directory adds NOODP and NOYDIR meta tags to the header of your theme to force the search engines to use your own description and title for your site, instead of the one that is in DMOZ or the Yahoo directory.

Selig-Stats provides you with a number of filters that can be used directly within your posts / pages in order to display some statistics like post count, comment count etc.

Technorati Rank utilizes the Technorati API to display your blog information (Rank, Links, Blogs Linking) and an Add to Favorites all in simple display.

CodeHighlighter uses GeSHi to highlight syntax for source code.

Book Cover displays the book cover image from ISBN.

WordPress AdSense Deluxe+ Widget is a widgetized version of AdSense Deluxe+ Plugin

Attach Links is a Word Press plugin that allows you to attach one or more external links to each post. They will be shown in a list when calling the function al_display().

TellAFriendPost allows the user to forward the post to there friend.

PromotePost allows the user to Extend the post reach by forwarding it to the 45 sites including del.icio.us, Digg, Flurl, Techorati.

DoubleClick Meaning allows you to doubleclick on a word to know its definition / meaning.

ScaleImage scales images in the post using a slider.

Any suggestions, ideas? Feel free to comment on this article!

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Litebox Plugin incorporates Litebox to display both single images and galleries in your posts.

authUI, a productivity plugin, provides a function that can be placed anywhere in a template to display a toolbar consisting of a log-in form, and links to creating new posts and pages.

Random Image displays images from Desktop Exchange in your sidebar.

WP Contact Form – Part III is another mod of Ryan’s WP-Contact Form and Douglas‘ mod. It now includes custom Subject support.

Head Meta allows you to add your own meta data or javascript to the meta section of your blog without editting your template

Enquiry and Contact form lets you create and embed standard or Ajax powered forms.

Link Love is a WordPress plugin which turns off nofollow for all commenters who have posted at least 10 comments (configurable).

Better Stats Insertion is a WordPress plugin that allows you to easily insert stats code from trackers such as Google Analytics, SiteMeter, or just about any other.

FeedBuilder24 generates a custom RSS-2.0 feed from your WordPress weblog postings.

Photon is a plugin that allows to integrate phpwebgallery WordPress.

Admin Theme Preview allows you to preview of any currently installed theme without making it viewable to site visitors.

AdKit24 lets you create your own adbar for your WordPress blog.

Motivational Quote will randomly display a quote in the upper right of your admin screen. Similar to the now infamous Holly Dolly plugin.

BibTex is a tool for formatting lists of references used by the LaTeX document preparation system.

My Link Order Widgetized is the widgetized version of My Link Order.

Role Manager 2.0 is based on the plugin by Owen Winkler. This Plugin allows you to define and manage multiple subscriber profiles – called Roles and their Capabilities. Also you can create new Roles and Capabilities.

WatchMyBack24 verifies if a backlink exists to your trackbacked posting. If no backlink is given, the trackback will fail.

Tickme.com plugin adds a TickMe.com ribbon to the top right of your WordPress Blog, with a link to your profile on TickMe.

Any suggestions, ideas? Feel free to comment on this article!

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Noembedder inserts a noembed section into any embedded content (videos, etc.) in your posts. It inserts a customisable message, and for Youtube videos, a thumbnail too.

Dahnielson’s Footnotes adds footnotes to your posts.

Language Plugin allows you to create a bilingual or multi-lingual blog, using WordPress. The way it works is that you will write the content for your blog in multiple languages, using special HTML tags.

ScoreRender renders inline sheet music fragments inside posts and comments into images. It supports ABC, GUIDO, Lilypond and Mup music notations.

bib2html enables to add bibtex entries formatted as HTML in wordpress pages and posts.

Skinner adds skin selection and editing to WordPress for Skinner compatible themes.

wp-weather widget uses Weather.com to show forecast information for a city.

Duplicate Content Cure prevents duplicate content in wordpress blogs by adding a noindex meta tag to wordpress pages that don’t contain any unique value, like categories, archives, and paged pages.

wp-publications-archive is a WordPress plugin that allows administrators to upload and manage all sorts of files (i.e., publications). Additionally, end-users are able to navigate, search, and download them in the front-office.

Currency Converter sidebar widget for WordPress that can convert between 148 currency formats from all over the world.

Ajaxified Expand Post NOW uses AJAX to expand the “more…” on your blog.

Ma.gnolia Widget allows you to display your ma.gnolia links in your sidebar similar to the del.icio.us sidebar widget. This widget uses SimpleXML and as such requires PHP5.

Visualize Advanced Features will display the hidden buttons in the WordPress 2.1 WYSIWYG editor.

Meyshan 6 acts as a place holder for any 6 plugins of your choice, in a very beautiful mini tabbed pages.

onAirNow gets information about your currently playing track from a file uploaded via FTP and displays it on your blog.

IWG Extended Author List expands your author-list at the post-page of every user that is allowed to show_in_authorlist.

Any suggestions, ideas? Feel free to comment on this article!

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Feature Me! makes it easy to spotlight a blogger on a site with multiple authors.

WPCandy inserts a “candy” (snippets of code/text) into pre-defined locations. It can insert more than one candy in the same location, there is no limitations.

Better Nearby Posts Links lets limit the length of the previous and next post titles to the number of characters you want and display the full post in the tooltip.

Really Simple Sitemap generates a simple sitemap so that every post is only 2 clicks away from the homepage.

Web Log Generator creates daily web logs containing IP address, request, referrer, date/time stamp and useragent. Can be used in conjunction with a web log analyser.

root Cookie is a simple plugin that changes the authentication cookie’s path to /. It is useful if you use wordpress code outside of your wordpress installation directory.

Webvirtue Share Your Post allows your visitors to share your post content via 45 social bookmarking websites and/or e-mailing the post to a friend. Post to a friend also support Import Contact from Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail and MSN.

Thamizmanam inserts the Thamizmanam toolbar code at proper places.

Retz Flash XML Blogroll is a WordPress Flash-based dynamic Blogroll / News Ticker.
MasterWish WordPress Plugin allows you to aggregate your publicly viewable lists from MasterWish.

WP-Enhanced Plugin Management adds some additional functionality to WordPress default plugin management.

o7aCode Plugin allows to use o7aCode for the page-setting of posts and comments

AutoFlickr will automatically find and insert one ore more photos that are related to the content of your post. Photos are found and hosted on Flickr.

Ma.gnolia WordPress Plugin makes it easy to output a list of your Ma.gnolia bookmarks anywhere on your site. You can set it to only pull bookmarks with a specific tag, which is great for listing sites related to a specific category or post.

Unitary is a Units Converter sidebar widget for WordPress that can convert between hundreds of different units of Length, Area, Volume, Weight / Mass, Speed etc.

Security Code creates a security image with security code that is shown on the register screen.

tdw-combobox-links displays the links in the sidebar as dropdown boxes. It will list each of your link categories in a separate box.

PG-CafePress is a WordPress 2.0 plugin that uses the PrestoGifto API and lets you put CafePress stuff into your sidebar, a static page, your footer or after posts.

SpamViewer deletes spam entries in your database as marked by WordPress or various spam plugins like SK2, Akismet, trackback validator etc.

TDO Mini Forms allows you to add a form to your website that allows non-registered users and/or subscribers (configurable) to submit posts.

No Directory adds NOODP and NOYDIR meta tags to the header of your theme to force the search engines to use your own description and title for your site, instead of the one that is in DMOZ or the Yahoo directory.

Selig-Stats provides you with a number of filters that can be used directly within your posts / pages in order to display some statistics like post count, comment count etc.

Technorati Rank utilizes the Technorati API to display your blog information (Rank, Links, Blogs Linking) and an Add to Favorites all in simple display.

CodeHighlighter uses GeSHi to highlight syntax for source code.

Book Cover displays the book cover image from ISBN.

WordPress AdSense Deluxe+ Widget is a widgetized version of AdSense Deluxe+ Plugin

Attach Links is a Word Press plugin that allows you to attach one or more external links to each post. They will be shown in a list when calling the function al_display().

TellAFriendPost allows the user to forward the post to there friend.

PromotePost allows the user to Extend the post reach by forwarding it to the 45 sites including del.icio.us, Digg, Flurl, Techorati.

DoubleClick Meaning allows you to doubleclick on a word to know its definition / meaning.

ScaleImage scales images in the post using a slider.

Any suggestions, ideas? Feel free to comment on this article!

Back to Top

Feature Me! makes it easy to spotlight a blogger on a site with multiple authors.

WPCandy inserts a “candy” (snippets of code/text) into pre-defined locations. It can insert more than one candy in the same location, there is no limitations.

Better Nearby Posts Links lets limit the length of the previous and next post titles to the number of characters you want and display the full post in the tooltip.

Really Simple Sitemap generates a simple sitemap so that every post is only 2 clicks away from the homepage.

Web Log Generator creates daily web logs containing IP address, request, referrer, date/time stamp and useragent. Can be used in conjunction with a web log analyser.

root Cookie is a simple plugin that changes the authentication cookie’s path to /. It is useful if you use wordpress code outside of your wordpress installation directory.

Webvirtue Share Your Post allows your visitors to share your post content via 45 social bookmarking websites and/or e-mailing the post to a friend. Post to a friend also support Import Contact from Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail and MSN.

Thamizmanam inserts the Thamizmanam toolbar code at proper places.

Retz Flash XML Blogroll is a WordPress Flash-based dynamic Blogroll / News Ticker.
MasterWish WordPress Plugin allows you to aggregate your publicly viewable lists from MasterWish.

WP-Enhanced Plugin Management adds some additional functionality to WordPress default plugin management.

o7aCode Plugin allows to use o7aCode for the page-setting of posts and comments

AutoFlickr will automatically find and insert one ore more photos that are related to the content of your post. Photos are found and hosted on Flickr.

Ma.gnolia WordPress Plugin makes it easy to output a list of your Ma.gnolia bookmarks anywhere on your site. You can set it to only pull bookmarks with a specific tag, which is great for listing sites related to a specific category or post.

Unitary is a Units Converter sidebar widget for WordPress that can convert between hundreds of different units of Length, Area, Volume, Weight / Mass, Speed etc.

Security Code creates a security image with security code that is shown on the register screen.

tdw-combobox-links displays the links in the sidebar as dropdown boxes. It will list each of your link categories in a separate box.

PG-CafePress is a WordPress 2.0 plugin that uses the PrestoGifto API and lets you put CafePress stuff into your sidebar, a static page, your footer or after posts.

SpamViewer deletes spam entries in your database as marked by WordPress or various spam plugins like SK2, Akismet, trackback validator etc.

TDO Mini Forms allows you to add a form to your website that allows non-registered users and/or subscribers (configurable) to submit posts.

No Directory adds NOODP and NOYDIR meta tags to the header of your theme to force the search engines to use your own description and title for your site, instead of the one that is in DMOZ or the Yahoo directory.

Selig-Stats provides you with a number of filters that can be used directly within your posts / pages in order to display some statistics like post count, comment count etc.

Technorati Rank utilizes the Technorati API to display your blog information (Rank, Links, Blogs Linking) and an Add to Favorites all in simple display.

CodeHighlighter uses GeSHi to highlight syntax for source code.

Book Cover displays the book cover image from ISBN.

WordPress AdSense Deluxe+ Widget is a widgetized version of AdSense Deluxe+ Plugin

Attach Links is a Word Press plugin that allows you to attach one or more external links to each post. They will be shown in a list when calling the function al_display().

TellAFriendPost allows the user to forward the post to there friend.

PromotePost allows the user to Extend the post reach by forwarding it to the 45 sites including del.icio.us, Digg, Flurl, Techorati.

DoubleClick Meaning allows you to doubleclick on a word to know its definition / meaning.

ScaleImage scales images in the post using a slider.

Any suggestions, ideas? Feel free to comment on this article!

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Original article for power defragmentor was posted here.

The never-ending two-step defragmenting process of Vista can soon become a thing of the past. With certain tools, we were able to cut defragmentation time of a 25 GB drive with Vista Ultimate on it from 82 minutes to 6 minutes!!! That is defragmenting 10X faster than the built-in Vista defragmenter! The tutorial also works with Windows 2000 and XP.

Right now, many things are probably whirling around in your head:
- Is this true? Yes, it is.
- Does it work? Yes. We will show you charts on hard drive fragments before and after defragmentation.
- This has got to cost money. Absolutely free.

These “certain tools” we will be using are called contig.exe and PowerDefragmenter.
When we used these two programs, the results were as follows:

Hard drive before defragmenting:

8 minutes later:

However, using the Windows Vista Defragmentation tool took longer… much longer. To further exaggerate the comparison, we ran the Vista Defragmentation Tool AFTER we had already defragmented that same drive with Contig and PowerDefragmenter. It took 8 minutes alone to analyze the drive. By now, contig.exe and powerdefragmenter would have already finished defragmenting a drive. On top of that, it took Windows Vista 75 more minutes to defragment the hard-drive. As you can easily see, the new tools we will introduce to you will greatly cut your defragmentation time.

Tutorial:
The two programs that we have talked about work together to defrag your computer.

Download powerdefrag archive containing contig.exe and Power Defragmenter

Once you have finished downloading the zip file unzip into a folder on your desk top.

No installation is required. The next step is to run Power Defragmenter. Click next, and you will arrive at the screen below:

You may then select from the following options:

Defragment File(s): Allows you to defragment up to 4 files

Defragment Folder(s): Allows you to defragment up to 4 folders

Defragment Disk: Allows you to defragment a disk

PowerMode(TM) Disk Defragmentation: Defragments at a power equivalent to two consecutive defragmentations.
To defragment your hard drive at the speed of light choose Powermode(TM)

After you click next, just choose the desired drive, and you’re good to go. When you are finished, the command prompt window will read “Windows Disk Defragmenter…”

Any suggestions, ideas? Feel free to comment on this article!

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Computer mice. They’re about as exciting as bars of soap. Heck, earlier models even looked a lot like soap. Yet in the very same way as computers began to evolve, these rodents have gone through changes too. Mechanical mice turned to optical mice, which then became laser mice. One-button mice improved to two buttons, then three, and later the scroll wheel appeared. Basically, today’s mouse has evolved from its ancestors at a slow tempo, leisurely trucking along until something exciting happens.

Logitech made a big splash after being the first to market a laser mouse, the Today, Logitech makes an ever bigger splash with the release of two new high-end mice—the MX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse and the VX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse for Notebooks. Today, we take an in-depth look at the MX. As the name suggests, these aren’t just evolutionary upgrades from their predecessors: They’re more like quantum leaps—new wheels, new buttons, and an aggressive design that intrigues the eye.

Aside from its laser sensor, range of up to 30 feet, and longer battery time than most cordless mice, the Revolution MX has four distinct, new features that could very well change how we navigate through files and programs. Logitech goes so far as to bill the MX as “the world’s most advanced mouse.”

At the top of the list of innovations is the huge upgrade to the scroll wheel, which has two modes of operation—line-by-line scrolling and free-spin scrolling. Free-spin scrolling allows the scroll wheel to become a flywheel capable of traversing thousands of spreadsheet rows or hundreds of word-processing pages with a single flick. Other advanced new features are the document quick flip wheel (or button), one-button search, and a zoom slider. All of these buttons could add up to an overload of options, yet with Logitech’s software, SetPoint, customizing them to fit your needs is a snap.

So is the “world’s most advanced mouse” really the “world’s best mouse”? We cleared some space for these rodents, tested them out for a few weeks, and decided to get to the bottom of that question.

Four Cool New Features You can’t hail a mouse as being the “world’s most advanced” without some new, nifty features, right? The MX and VX have four standout new features to distance it from your current, modest mouse. These are the MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel, Document Quick-Flip, the One-Touch Search button, and the Zoom slider. The Zoom slider exists on the VX only.

Reinventing the Scroll Wheel
At the center of Logitech’s extreme mouse makeover is the MicroGear Precision Scroll Wheel, a wheel that surpasses its predecessors with its features, intelligence, quality of build, and tweaking options. Intelligence? We’ll get to that in a minute.

Logitech’s newest scroll wheel has two modes of operation—the clicky, line-by line scrolling mode that we’re all accustomed to, and a free-spin mode. The free-spin mode allows the scroll wheel to retract from a ratchet mechanism to become a flywheel, capable of spinning for up to 7 seconds from a single flick of the finger, scrolling through virtually thousands of spreadsheet rows or hundreds of word-processing pages. If hyperscrolling isn’t your cup of tea in free-spinning mode, you can just use the wheel slowly to glide more precisely across a document or photo without the clicky, jumpy scrolling. You can switch between modes on the fly by clicking on the scroll wheel. Doing so will sacrifice that precious middle click button many of us have grown to use on a daily basis. If you absolutely can’t live without your middle click, you can disable manual mode switching in the SetPoint software and reassign the middle click to the scroll wheel.

Now, how is this scroll wheel intelligent? For starters, if you are in line-by-line scrolling mode, you can activate the free-spin mode based on how hard you flick the scroll wheel. Basically, the wheel detects how fast the wheel is spinning in line-by-line mode to determine when to switch to free-spinning mode. If you’re in a program and you want to scroll down the page a long distance, quickly flicking the scroll wheel instructs the scroll wheel to enter free-spin mode automatically. When the wheel stops spinning, either on its own or by your pressing on it, the wheel resumes normal line-by-line clicky scrolling mode.

Wheel Reinvented
The MX is governed by SmartShift Technology, which detects and automatically fine-tunes the scrolling mode depending on the application currently active. For instance, opening up Microsoft Word will instruct the mouse to enter free-spin mode to permit users to quickly navigate through pages, but switching over to Excel will then reactivate the ratchet for line-by-line scrolling. If you disagree with Logitech’s default rule for the program you’re in, you can simply click the mouse to enter the other mode, and the SmartShift technology will remember that the next time you enter that particular program. You can also define how much flick force is required to enter free-spin mode by tweaking some settings in Logitech’s SetPoint software. And if you’re not a fan of this flywheel thing, you can disable the mouse from entering free-spin mode automatically in the software, as well. We’ll go into software details later.

In addition to these features, the scroll wheel can also be clicked over to the right or left for horizontal scrolling.

Document Flip
Located within the thumb rest on the Revolution MX is the Document Quick-Flip wheel that, when pressed, brings up a window of current programs running. Nudging the wheel up or down scrolls through this list, letting you select your program of choice. This gives users a newer way to access files or programs quickly without using the taskbar. This can save you time if you get into the habit of using it

One Touch Search Button
Where would we be without search these days? The likes of Yahoo!, Google, and other search juggernauts have not only changed how we surf the Internet, but have also become the solution to questions we can’t answer off the cuff.

Logitech satisfies this demand by giving users the power to search the Internet just by clicking one button. Users can do a search on a highlighted word or phrase and have Yahoo! LiveWords pop up or open a tab automatically and display results in Google or Yahoo. Pressing the button without any word highlighted will simply take you to Google or Yahoo’s home page.

A Close Look at the MX Revolution Okay, so we’re being a bit long-winded about the new whiz-bang features of these mice, now let’s take a look at the nitty gritty of the MX Revolution’s design, buttons, power consumption, and more.

The MX communicates wirelessly with a USB receiver via 2.4 GHz and can deliver range of up to 30 feet. It’s powered by an integrated Li-Ion battery and includes a battery charger to dock the mouse. There’s a four-level battery indicator LED on the mouse to help you monitor your battery strength. The MX is Windows XP and Vista compatible, and supports Mac OS X as well.

The MX is guided by a laser sensor roughly the size of a human hair, which promises improved tracking accuracy on tricky surfaces and consumes less power. At 800 DPI, it’s not nearly as hi-res as the high-end gaming mice some of us are used to.

The scroll wheel is metal and heavy-duty enough to sustain up to 7 seconds of free spinning (obviously a strong flick of the finger in this case). The tread surface of the wheel has a textured rubber-grip for added traction. The document flip button also has this type of ruggedness. Below the scroll wheel is the One Touch Search button. The button is easily out of the way yet quick to access.

Design
The MX’s ambitious design has a striking and prominent thumb rest area. Many other mice have grooves or a floor for the thumb, but the MX definitely wins for having a huge sculpted curve. And why not? Above this area are two buttons for navigation, usually defaulted as forward and back buttons, and at the tip of the thumb is the document flip wheel. This area is also molded with a nice rubber grip. There’s no lefty version available at this point.

The other side of the mouse doesn’t have the same rubber surface as in the thumb wrest area but is coated with a graspable exterior that cups inward a bit.

Below the mouse are four low-friction polytetrafluoroethylene (aka Teflon) feet to reduce resistance and allow for smooth gliding across any surface. There’s also an on/off switch to save power when the mouse is not in use.

Using the MX Revolution The MX Revolution is noticeably heavier and bulkier than most mice out there, allowing users to “palm” the mouse if they desire. The shape and design conform to the hand comfortably; our thumb stretched out on its rest area and planted itself on the Document Flip Wheel. We suspected that our thumb would commit accidental clicks on this wheel during use, but we didn’t run into that problem, because the wheel requires a firm push or forward or back nudge. Some people with smaller hands may also opt to position their thumb in front of the Document Flip wheel when gripping the mouse. The buttons just above the thumb are just as easy to access. They are high enough that the thumb doesn’t rest against them, yet are close enough so you can reach up and give them quick press.

We had no need to adjust the mouse’s pointer speed. The DPI seemed to be just right for us. Given the mouse’s bulky size and ability to tread across any surface, we ditched the mouse pad and let it comfortably slide across the desk. The mouse worked like a charm from a distance and on varying surfaces. We used the mouse on boxes and on distant walls and detected no noticeable lag. Many cordless mice have lag problems or problems with jumpiness when the mouse is far from the receiver. We were surprised that at a distance of about 20 feet and on different flat surfaces, the mouse didn’t stutter at all.

Scroll Wheelin’
The scroll wheel has firm detents in line-by-line scrolling mode, which can be a bit noisy. In free-spin mode, the wheel is completely silent. The scroll wheel took some time to get used to when switching from one mode to the next automatically. A common problem was the wheel disengaging into freewheel mode too early when all we wanted was to move down a few pages. Logitech is not ignorant of this problem, as they’ve offered several ways to adjust the wheel to your liking, whether by adjusting its scrolling speed, tweaking the force required to enter free-spin mode, toggling from one mode to the next, or even disabling the feature completely via the software.

Since we wanted more control telling the wheel when to enter free-spin mode, we went into the software and instructed it to require more force when flicking the wheel before entering free-spin mode. This way, we can give it a little extra force than usual if we really want our scrolling to move quickly. As an experiment, we launched Excel, flicked the wheel, and jumped down 15,000 lines until the mouse stopped spinning.

Accessing programs via the Taskbar doesn’t require much work in the first place, so we didn’t find ourselves using the Document Flip wheel very often. In fact, clicking in the south of the monitor has been ingrained in us, becoming almost instinctual since the days of Windows 95.

It’s easy to press the wheel and to nudge it up and down to highlight the program of choice. We’re not stuck on using it every day, but it is helpful if there’s a mouthful of applications already open and you’d like to see a vertical list of them all.

One Touch Search
The One-Touch-Search button definitely felt like a luxury. We made the default search engine Google and were able to search for terms on the fly. It was, however, a bit buggy at times across certain applications by opening up more than one tab at a time and displaying the same search results.

Battery
Compared with some Logitech mice, the MX lasted a very long time. We never turned it off, and were able to run it down after a little over a week. The mouse has varying amounts of sleep mode depending on how long it’s idle.

Gaming
Logitech has a slew of gaming mice. The MX Revolution is not advertised as one, but we definitely had to get our game on to see if it has the horsepower to sustain long gaming sessions and precision-needing games. We launched some FPS games to test it under fire.

We didn’t experience any burps during gameplay. No lags. The sensitivity was on-target, and aiming in certain games showed no sign of stutter. Picking up the mouse was very easy. Be careful not to press the document flip button or quick search buttons during gameplay, as the window may minimize and halt the game. This is the painful equivalent of Alt-Enter.

Using Photoshop
To get a really good sense of the MX’s subtle movement, we launched Photoshop and opened some images that needed work. Photoshop has a feature in which you manually draw an outline around an image with a tool called the lasso. Since you can freely select an image by drawing a boundary around it, you need a precise and accurate mouse or pen digitizer to make the image look flawless. This requires some skill and a steady hand—and most certainly a mouse that’s up to the challenge.

The MX performed with ease, hugging our images without any noticeable jumps. The scroll wheel can act either as a zoom tool or can scroll up and down, and it was nice to be able to nudge our image over horizontally with the scroll wheel, too. We tested the mouse in Photoshop from a distance to measure its range and precision and drew circles with the brush tool just as precisely as if we were sitting right at the computer. This is quite an improvement over other wireless mice.

In-depth Look at Logitech’s SetPoint Software Logitech’s included software, SetPoint, is by far the most advanced software out there for input devices. Its intuitive interface provides users with many options to fine-tune your mouse while also monitoring your mouse’s status. Because the MX and VX Revolution line come with a variety of new features, SetPoint bundles far more tweaking options than ever.
SetPoint goes beyond generic settings like adjusting the pointer speed or adding pointer trails. The first menu allows users to reassign each button for a variety of tasks. A list of common commands is at your disposal, and a longer list is available if you select the “Other” tag.
If you want the mouse to behave differently in a different program, you can select a program from a drop-down list and reassign the buttons based on that program. This can be pretty handy if you don’t agree with the automatic recalibration the software makes based on the program you’re in.

You can really spend some time fine-tuning the scroll wheel to fit your comfort level. Both the MX and VX have tweaking options to adjust the scrolling sensitivity. Since you can scroll vertically and horizontally, you can adjust how much scrolling is done on one click or detent. For instance, a slow speed might be where your browser jumps two or three lines down a page when one detent is registered, which is pretty modest. But if you bump up the acceleration, you can have it really jump down the page, 10 or more lines. You can do the same with horizontal scrolling.

When you get a sense of what you like and don’t like about the advanced scroll wheel, you can customize it in the software. You can disable the software from entering free-spin mode automatically, if you want, or even adjust how hard of a flick is required before it enters free-spin mode. This is also where you can tweak SetPoint into bringing back that middle click button many of us can’t live without.

The other new feature we spotted with the software is the ability to track your battery’s status. This will show you how long the battery is expected to last, not just the percentage. The software records your usage and determines how many days, or hours, is expected for the mouse to last based on your habits. When the battery is running low, a popup will remind you to charge that battery soon. You can also hover over the SetPoint icon in your system try to bring up a popup that informs you on your mouse’s status.

You can apply a modest number of game settings to either mouse, but they don’t go far. In the past, Logitech’s gaming mice had an advanced game settings menu that permitted users to adjust the mouse’s DPI, and even adjust X and Y coordinates for some games.

Final Thoughts The MX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse deserves to be lumped into the same category as the Six Million Dollar Man or Bionic Woman. It’s certainly one of a kind, possessing far more features and a unique look and feel unlike any other mouse out there. Logitech has unloaded a bombshell with this mouse, slapping us with something we didn’t expect.

But this feat of Logitech begs one question: “Is all this really necessary?” The easy answer is no. But the Revolution mice do introduce features that can very well adapt to our mousing habits and improve the computer experience. Its scroll wheel is out of left field, but we were duly impressed with its technology and execution. Though scrolling or navigating down a page using the scroll bar are easy enough with a regular mouse, the Revolution’s scroll wheel, with practice, can be fine-tuned to become one’s best friend.

Other new and advanced features, such as a document flip wheel (or button) and one-button search, add to this mouse’s arsenal. The document flip button allows you to quickly access programs and files currently active. The search button makes it easy to search on highlighted text or simply pull up your favorite search engine on the fly.

The MX does come with a learning curve. You’ll have to consciously remind yourself to use some new features, and you might not like them at first. But, again, with practice, they can really become part of your mousing habits.

At $99.99 the MX Revolution is pretty high-ticket, even for a high-end mouse. But that’s pretty much what you’ll have to pony up at this point if you want to own the world’s most advanced—and best—mouse period.

Product: MX Revolution Cordless Laser Mouse
Company: Logitech
Price: $99.99
Pros: Cordless; superb precision; dual-mode scroll wheel; stylish and comfortable design; search button; document flip wheel; SetPoint software; great range and battery life.
Cons: $99 for a mouse hard to swallow; bit of a learning curve to adjust to the scroll wheel; no lefty version available.
Summary: You’re paying top dollar for the best mouse, period. Other than the price, there’s nothing else that we can really complain about with the MX.
Rating: 9 out of 10

Any suggestions, ideas? Feel free to comment on this article!

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Resources for web designers. XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, AJAX, you name it we should have it here. If not let us know!

• A List Apart – For people who make Websites. A List Apart Magazine explores the design, development, and meaning of web content, with a special focus on techniques and benefits of designing with web standards. My very favorite one …
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• CSS Play – Amazing Experiments with CSS – demos, menus, layouts, boxes, opacity, etc. – by Stu Nichols … neverending source of inspiration … one of my very favorite …
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• Maxdesign – Max Design – web design and web development focusing on Cascading Style Sheets, usability, accessibility and web standards … Russ Weakley co-chairs the Web Standards Group, co-founded Web Essentials and has produced a series of widely acclaimed CSS-based tutorials including Listamatic, Listamatic2, Listutorial, Floatutorial, Selectutorial …
• I Love Jack Daniels – ILoveJackDaniels.com is the online playground of Dave Child, an internet marketing consultant and web developer from Brighton … articles, references, guides, scripts and the well known cheat-sheets …
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• W3Schools – The best online tutorial for Html and advanced Html too.
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• A Beginner’s Guide to Web Page Design – Designing your own successful web page can seem difficult and nearly impossible if you do not do a little research first. The reason you need to know the basics of web page design is because the design of your website will actually influence whether or not people continue to visit your site and ultimately, whether they will buy from you or not. Obviously, a lot is riding on your website design so it is worthwhile to take this seriously and put some effort into doing it right the first time.
• Will You Site be a BIG SUCCESS. 7 Reasons Why it Might Not! – With so many new websites going up, it is hard sometimes to tell if your site will be a BIG SUCCESS or an unexpected flop? If you are unsure of whether or not your site will fly with visitors or crash and burn, this article is definitely for you.
• Web Site Design Company – Web Site Design company that has Professional Web Design & development
• To be successful in web design – The appeal of the website will determine the success or failure of many sites in the future. Finally, site design must be work you proud to show. The priorities changes and grows daily in the World Wide Web. Success is about learning new ideas, and getting the most but of the one’s that work.
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• Color association in logos and designs – These logo and color association is called business “branding”. Branding is the strategy in which businesses create and maintain their own unique symbol; can be in terms of a logo, fonts, graphics and most especially, colors.
• 9rules – The 9rules Network is a community of the best weblogs in the world on a variety of topics. We started 9rules to give passionate writers more exposure and to help readers find great blogs on their favorite subjects. It’s difficult to find sites worth returning to, so 9rules brings together the very best of the independent web all under one roof …
• Evolt – Evolt.org is a world community for web developers, promoting the mutual free exchange of ideas, skills and experiences … … site development with the best ressources, designs, tools and tutorials … (x)html, css, javascript, php, ajax … one of my favorite …
• The Web Developers Handbook – “Web Developer’s Handbook is a pocket-edition of the Web-Dev-Bookmarks (alvit.de/web-dev) – a list of essential web-sites, which make the life of web developers easier.”
• Ordered List – This site was designed as a place for me to convey some of my ideas and keep a record of my thoughts. If it helps people code better websites, then that will make me happy. In general, I really want a place for me to try new ideas and bounce them off of other people and get their thoughts. You can help me out by making comments, whether you agree with me or not …
• Listomatic2 – An excellent resource for learning how to create CSS based menu systems with many examples
• 07Designs – A very cool design blog and message boards. Very new to the scene, but interesting!
• DezWazHere – Jeffrey Zeldman – No worries mate! Here you’ll find a whole bunch of links to some of the vast resources out there. These are places I’ve have gone to and still visit for help and to learn. As new resources are constantly popping up, watch this space for changes …
• Dynamic Drive – DHTML scripts for the real world … Document Effects, Dynamic Content, Iframe & Ajax, Form Effects, Games, Image Effects, Galleries, Mouseover, Slideshows, Links & Tooltips, Menus & Navigation, CSS Based, Multi-levels, Mouse and Cursor, Scrollers, Text Animations, User/System Preference, Window and Frames … etc …
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• Brain Bliss – Offers useful web design articles and tutorials spanning a wide range of popular topics.
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• CoolHomepages Design Gallery – Enormous gallery of remarkable web site design examples. Categorized and searchable.. to get some needed inspiration.
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• K10K – Creative inspiration and more from San Francisco.
• Mandarin Design. Web and Blog Design and Development – CSS and HTML code served copy and paste style.
• Apache htaccess tweaking tutorial – In this tutorial we are going to **improve our website** by **tweaking** out the **.htaccess file**
• Webmaster Toolkit – This site came into existence as a collection of webmaster tools developed to help myself and a few other webmasters with our daily webmaster chores. After creating a fair number of online tools, it was decided that we should make the site public, so that other webmasters around the world would have access to them for free. The suite of free tools and resources offered continues to grow to this day, and we aim to offer something useful for the beginner to the advanced webmaster alike …
• TJK Design – Custom Design, Bringing Sites Up To Code, Setting layout-design free from tables… tutorials, articles, templates, boxes, bars, navigations … inspiration and good read …
• photos and text, amazing – Amazing technique to combine colour images and words/characters, clean cut website
• JotForm – Web based drag and drop form builder. Create forms on the homepage without registration.
• NY Public Libraries Online Guide – This Style Guide for the Branch Libraries of the New York Public Library explains the markup and design requirements for all Branch Libraries web projects, along with various standards and best practices. Branch Libraries projects must be authored in valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional and styled with valid Cascading Style Sheets …
• istockphoto – professional quality stock photos and vector illustrations starting at $1 per image.
• Newstoday – The one and only – a design portal community showcasing the best in web design and resources.
• SanBaldo design blog – design, interfaces, ajax tutorials, examples, javascript tips and more!