Hands on with Kensington's SlimBlade Trackball

I haven't been a trackball user for many years, but Kensington's new SlimBlade Trackball could make a convert of me once again.

Foremost this is a standard trackball, but it's one with an impressive feel and immaculate design. The ball is large and rides quite high. At the same time, as the name implies, the base is very slim and flat, the result being that your wrist doesn't strain upwards when you use it and your fingers rest very naturally on the top of the ball when you use it. Buttons are big and easy to reach, too. Overall I found the trackball extremely comfortable even for extended computing sessions.

If that was all there was to it, the SlimBlade would be a pretty cool device, but it has a few more tricks up its sleeve.

One problem with most trackballs is the lack of a scroll wheel. Well, Kensington solves that by letting you rotate the ball along the plane parallel to the desk to scroll up and down or left and right, whatever is allowed by the app you're in. Think of it as spinning a dial or knob side to side and you get the idea. No need to take your hand off the device to scroll; you can do it all with a simple twist.

And there's more: There are two additional working modes you can use, the View mode and the Media mode. Click the button above the right-click button and you enter View mode, which lets the trackball perform shortcuts designed for graphics and photo programs. Now, the dial-twist action zooms in and out of your image, a left-click displays the image at 100% size, and the right-click displays it to fit the width of the window. Click the View mode button again and you return to regular browsing. (View mode isn't supported in all apps, but it worked with everything I tried. A list of supported apps is here.)

Media mode is similar. Click the top-left button and the dial action changes volume, left-click pauses, and right-click stops the music. This works with both Windows Media Player and iTunes.

All cool stuff, and I encountered no problems working with any of the modes -- at least once I'd trained myself. Since none of this is labeled on the trackball (all four buttons are text-free), you might want to keep the cheat sheet guide handy for the first two days. (Also, don't forget, none of this will work unless you download the drivers from the above website; software isn't included in the box.)

At about $105 (street price), this isn't a cheap solution to dropping a standard mouse or even a less sophisticated trackball on your desk, but if you spend long hours working in image editing apps or leave your computer to play music all day long, the SlimBlade is an appealing solution... and a very attractive product to boot.

Voice mail losing its appeal for many

Remember when a blinking voice mail indicator on your phone or answering machine used to be a badge of honor, a status symbol that meant someone was looking for you and needed urgently for you to call them back?

Now that's been replaced by an email inbox, SMS, and comments on your Facebook status. For many, that blinking light is no longer something to be proud of but an annoying nuisance that's likely to be ignored outright.

It was slow to hit me, but I now realize that I'm among the "voice mail phobics" that the New York Times discusses in this story. When I return home, I feel anxious when checking for that red light, because if it's flashing, it means I have a headache ahead that I never want to deal with.

Like many, I use a voice mail service provided by the phone company, and while that's convenient -- when I'm on the road I can check my messages from anywhere, easily -- it means dialing a gaggle of numbers and passwords and remembering the various codes required to make it all work. Naturally the process is totally different for my cell phone and my land line, too. And even though I've set up speed dial codes to make this all reasonably automated, it's still a hassle that, at the end of a long day, is the last thing I want to deal with.

The bigger headache, though, is still lying in wait. Most messages are safely deletable ("This is an important announcement. UPS will be coming to your house between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.!") but some people really want me to call them back, leaving phone numbers and email addresses that, I guess, I am expected to write down. That means finding a pen and paper and, most difficult of all, the will to care about what the caller wants. If it's so important, can't they just send an email? If paper isn't within easy reach, I usually end up figuring that if it really is important enough, they'll call back.

And now I know: I am not alone. One study shows that 30 percent of all voice mail goes unretrieved for three days or more, and 20 percent of people rarely -- or never -- check their voice mail at all. On the other hand, text messages are responded to considerably faster, almost universally, even by older users.

I will say there's one reason I end up checking my voice mail that trumps all the others: It's the only way to stop that aggravating red light from blinking.