Tag Archives: logitech

Bluetooth Mouse

I was excited when Bluetooth first came out, that I’d be able to connect a wireless mouse to my Mac without a USB adapter. Unfortunately at the time, either due to the version of Bluetooth or the mouse itself, I had significant cursor lag.

I decided to give Bluetooth a try again. I’m now using a Logitech Bluetooth Mouse M557 with a MacBook Air. While it’s not quite as responsive as my Anywhere MX, I only notice the tiniest amount of lag.

If you’ve been avoiding Bluetooth mice like I have, I think it’s worth giving them another try as long as you’re not gaming.

Stopping a Logitech Unifying Receiver from being detected as a keyboard

On MacOS, plugging in a Logitech Unifying Receiver brings up the detect keyboard dialog. Unfortunately this happes every time a user logs in if the user is not an Administrator. Following the onscreen instructions doesn’t work. MacOS just gives you an error, saying you’re using the wrong keyboard. Even opening the System Preferences, authenticating as an Administrator, and trying to configure the new “keyboard” doesn’t seem to work.

The solution I found doesn’t make complete sense from an OS design point of view. You need to log in with an Administrator account. When the Keyboard Setup Assistant launches, click Continue. Press any key on your keyboard. Click Skip when told your keyboard can’t be identified. Select “ANSI” and click Done.

Note: If the Keyboard Setup Assistant did not automatically launch, open System Preferences, click Keyboard, and click “Change Keyboard Type…”.

Logitech N305 on a Mac

I love my Logitech VX Nano mouse for it’s size, weight, battery life, tracking, and scrolling. I wanted to unobtrusively add a number pad into my computing setup, but figured I’d only use it occasionally. I’d decided to “upgrade” to a Logitech Anywhere MX and a Logitech N305 since I could use them with a single Unifying Receiver. The only problem is I’m trying to use these with a Mac…

The Logitech Anywhere MX works great. I love the convenience of the on/off slider and tracking on glass is neat, but the extra weight and reduced battery life make it about equal to the VX Nano in my opinion.

I ran into a number of problems with the Logitech N305. The product page says it only works with Windows, but I figured “Hey it’s a keyboard, of course it will work.” Well, I was wrong. Logitech Control Center for Mac doesn’t know about the N305. Ok, I pulled my Unifying Receiver, plugged it into a Windows 7 box with Logitech Control Center, and paired my N305 with the receiver. With the receiver back in my Mac, it was time to see if there was any key mapping issues. Everything looked good typing a bit in TextWrangler, and everything look good. Then I tried to do some accounting in Excel and that’s when the problems started.

For some reason the N305 seems to send a backspace after a pause in typing. If I typed “1”, a “1” would appear and then disappear. If I typed “12”, I would get “12” and then “1”. Typing “12“, would get “12” and I would be editing the next cell. I avoided using the number pad with Excel for a while, but that’s the primary use for a number pad, so I broke down and installed KeyRemap. To install, I had to change my installer permissions. You do have to restart after installing KeyRemap.

Once I restarted, getting everything working was as easy as clicking the new square, key icon in my menu bar, selecting “Open KeyRemap4MacBook Preferences…”, searching for “N305” and checking the “Logitech N305 hack”. Now everything works as expected on my N305 numberpad.