http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/ Engadget Comments for Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: for colleague http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 2:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 2:41PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 3:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 2:45PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 2:46PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 2:48PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 2:49PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/
1. Engadget readers love to see lists of cool gadgets- even if they've already been reviewed on Engadget

2. Engadget readers love to sit there and masturbate to all the cool things their co-workers would get for THEM.]]>Dec 23rd 2008 5:11PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 7:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 2:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/
your mom likes it down there!]]>Dec 23rd 2008 2:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 2:56PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/
"Oh, uh, thanks. I got you an iBone."]]>Dec 23rd 2008 3:02PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 5:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 9:36PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 3:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 3:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/
but do they really call each other colleagues? ]]>Dec 23rd 2008 3:49PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/
Maybe Engadget should do a Holiday Gift Guide for "Killer Bee's on da Swarm!"]]>Dec 23rd 2008 4:17PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 3:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 3:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 5:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817153071
I don't know if it's better or worse, but it's certainly cheaper and it also has USB 2.0 and eSATA. It's also available in stores as I've seen them at Best Buy, so there's still time to get them. Just make sure you get the one with the eSATA port for only a couple dollars more.]]>Dec 23rd 2008 5:03PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 5:07PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/
Are you kidding me? These things are awful, how can you recommend them? It has tons of software incompatibilities, which prevent you from programming the mouse without first rebooting. For example, if I play WAR and decide to change my mouse settings to match the game better, I need to quit WAR, reboot my computer, then hope the programming software sends the update to the mouse. Since you can only store 1 button profile at a time, you need to reboot every time you want to change the config. Meanwhile they have not once updated the programming software that I can tell (last modified shows a date of October 2007!) , so none of these things look like they're getting sorted out anytime soon.

Did I mention that the button programmability is lackluster at best? You cannot assign a modifier key, like shift, to any of the buttons. You can assign it as part of a macro, but it doesn't work right. I like to put shift on a side button, so I can sprint in FPS games, and access a second hotbar in MMOs and similar styles of game. If you press and hold the button on the Ikari Laser mouse, it repeats shift as if it were a regular character, so your character will stutter, and your hotbar will flash on and off repeatedly. If you tap the button it sometimes just puts shift on and off instantly, and it sometimes makes things flash repeatedly. I even tried assigning one side key to a shiftDOWN state, and the other to shiftUP, but it didn't do anything. The macro editor (which is the only way to assign functions) is also very limited in it's functionality. You can only record a macro, which means it puts down whatever you type/press, and the only options for editing a macro are changing the time delays. That's right, you cannot even change the order of a keypress in the macro, and you cannot delete a keypress. If you screw something up, you need to do it all over again from scratch.

The ergonomics of the thing are off too. Normally when you rest your right hand it tilts to the right, bringing the thumb up. The Ikari Laser mouse however, is twisted in 2 directions at once! The palm area is alright, it tilts right like your hand does (just not enough to be truly comfortable), but the mouse buttons have no tilt at all. If you're having trouble picturing this, rest your fingertips on the edge of your desk, then rotate your hand clockwise. Yep, it makes your middle finger press down harder on the desk. That means when your hand is at rest on the mouse, it is actually pushing your middle finger against the R-button. So even when you get used to the poor shape of this mouse, every now and then you will randomly start right clicking on things. Great for getting killed in games or screwing up Excel spreadsheets!

Lastly, the mouse has the shakes. I've tried playing around with all the Freemove settings, but to no avail. What does this mean? Well, when I try to draw with the mouse every single line looks like /\/\/\/\/\/\/\ and not -------. But the best part is the mouse cursor will move on it's own. So, let's say you're watching a full screen movie, the controls are hidden unless you activate the mouse to do something, but the mouse can't sit still, and it will slowly jitter and travel across the screen, activating the controls every 5 seconds. This also means my screen saver defrag pretty much never comes on, since the mouse is busy making patterns all night long. Goodbye precision, your sniping game will be off, and many times when you go to click a button it will jitter in a random direction and hit an entirely different button. This has lead to constant sessions of cleaning out the Firefox dictionary file, occasional document rewrites, accidental spam link activation, and many other wonderful things which have made me decide to dunk this thing in a vat of acid when I can finally afford a replacement.

In short, if you hate your co-worker and want them to kill themselves, buy them this mouse.]]>Dec 23rd 2008 5:24PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 6:31PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 6:40PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 9:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 23rd 2008 6:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/
Secondly, anyone who's rich enough to buy a more than $50 gift for a colleague is not doing the shopping themselves and hence have no use for this. Seriously, the "for colleague" list should be limited to the $0-50 range, with 10 or so gadgets.]]>Dec 24th 2008 7:07AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 24th 2008 3:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/http://www.engadget.com/2008/12/23/engadgets-holiday-gift-guide-for-colleague/Dec 24th 2008 4:13PM