Thursday, February 20, 2014

Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000 - my first wireless mouse

Recently the mouse attached to my desktop PC became less responsive and less precise to scrolling, and I decided to replace it.

I have been using wired mouse all the while, be it PC or laptop. Wired mouse has the advantages of being cheaper price, lightweight, operates without the need of battery, and precise pointer handling.

However, wireless mouse is cool, can operate quite a long distance away from the computer, and its price gap with wired mouse has gone narrower and narrower. I decided to give it a try.

I have finalized my selection between Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000 and Logitech Couch M515 Mouse. Their similarity being able to work on almost all type of surfaces, can scroll sideway by tilting the scroll wheel, and has a comparatively bigger size than most other wireless mice (though still slightly smaller than normal wired desktop mouse).

The price of Logitech Couch M515 Mouse is higher, and I doubt the M515 is still in production as it can hardly be found in the market. Therefore, I settled down with Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000, which cost me around RM70 (bought from Lazada with credit card discount campaign).

The Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000 comes with a nano transceiver running on 2.4Ghz wireless technology. It can be stowed at the bottom of the mouse, which will intelligently turn off the power of the mouse. When first plugged into the USB port of my PC, the installation program is automatically loaded, and it will automatically pair with the mouse.

All the 4 buttons on the mouse (left button, right button, scroll wheel button and left button) are programmable with Microsoft Mouse and keyboard Center which is automatically downloaded and installed when first use.



The wheel button can be used to quickly flip through opened applications in Windows 7. It is be programmed for other function too.



The scrolling speed of its wheel is also programmable.


I like the smooth scrolling of this Microsoft Wireless Mobile Mouse 4000, particularly the accelerated vertical scrolling function.

This is a 1,000dpi mouse, which I find it moving quite slow on the screen. This can easily be solved by setting the pointer speed to be faster under Windows' Control Panel > Mouse Properties > Pointer Options.


Despite it weights heavier than my previous wired mouse, and the need of changing battery in the future, I like this mouse very much for its ergonomic design and size, good set of programmable functionalities, precise BlueTrack Technology that can even work on glossy surface, and being wireless with freedom to operate from any location near to the computer.



Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Converted my CIMB Petronas Platinum Mastercard to CIMB Cash Rebate Platinum Mastercard

Recently, I have successfully converted my CIMB Petronas Platinum Mastercard to CIMB Cash Rebate Platinum MasterCard, and the process is more straightforward than I thought.

I just made a call to CIMB credit card customer service center to request for the card convertion, and upon approval (1 week later), the conversion was done and I received my new CIMB Cash Rebate Platinum MasterCard.

Sharing out my credit card conversion experience here:
  • The credit balance of existing card will be transferred to the new card.
  • The auto-payment arrangement (for utility, telco, etc.) with existing card is automatically carried across to the new card. The auto-payment seamlessly continues in the new card.
  • The CIMB 0% Easy Pay instalment payment plan with the existing card seamlessly continues on the new card. 
  • The CIMB Touch 'n Go Zing card that tied to the existing card will now be tied to the new card. I have successfully made an auto-reload to the Zing card just as before.
  • The RM50 Government Service Tax period continues from the existing card, and will only be charged upon expiry.
  • The new card has a new expiry date, which is later than the existing card.
  • The CIMB Cash Rebate Platinum MasterCard is capped with a maximum credit limit of RM20k only. If your existing card has a higher credit limit, it will be reduced to RM20k.
Conclusion: with CIMB, if you want to switch from one card to another, you don't need to cut your existing card and apply for the new card. Just make a call to the customer service center to request for the conversion. You will need to verify your identity over the phone with some questions and answers, but the good news is, you don't even need to fill in any application form for the new card. The auto-payment, Easy Pay instalment and Touch 'n Go Zing will also be automatically migrated to the new card without any hassle on your side.

Monday, February 17, 2014

PDF Split and Merge (PDFsam), free tool to split, merge, extract, rotate, reorder pages in PDF files

If you want to extract a few pages from a PDF file to another PDF file, or you want to insert a few PDF pages (such as the cover page) into an existing PDF file, what tool will you use to accomplish that?

There are several commercial tools available, which require you to buy a license. There are also several shareware tools and online tools which imposed a lot of limitation to the PDF file, such as with an accepted maximum page of a small number only.

I am using a free tools with the open source GPL2 license to do this. It is called PDF Split and Merge (PDFsam) Basic, developed by an Italian guy Andrea Vacondio and his team.

PDF Split and Merge Basic is able to:

  • Split your PDF documents (into chapters, single pages, etc.).
  • Merge many PDF documents or subsections of them.
  • Extract sections of your document into a single PDF document.
  • Mix alternate pages taken from two PDF documents in straight or reverse order into a single document.
  • Rotate pages of the selected PDF documents.
  • Visually reorder pages of a selected PDF document.
  • Visually compose a document dragging pages from selected PDF documents.
  • Save and load your workspace to automate your recurrent jobs.
  • Manage PDFsam settings and set a workspace to load at start up.
PDFsam is running on Java, and is cross-platform. You can run it on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and the developer has also created a trimmed down version called PDF Merge for Android.

It has a simple and clean user interface, making it pretty easy to use.


You can download PDFsam here: http://www.pdfsam.org/download/

There is also an Enhanced version of PDFsam, which the source code is available. The developer has requested for a donation of any amount, and he will provide you with the compiled executable file and installer.

The additional functions in PDFsam Enhanced version are:
  • Encrypt your PDF files (RC40 bits, RC128 bits, AES128 bits) and set permissions on them.
  • Add a PDF document as front page or addendum (or both) to your PDF documents.
  • Mix alternate pages taken from two PDF documents in straight or reverse order into a single document.
  • Extract attached files from a PDF document.
  • Decrypt your PDF files.
  • Set viewer options to tell the viewer application how should open the document.
  • Set the metadata of a document (author, title, subject and keywords).

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