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Logitech Have Lost The Plot
HTML Table Menu Buttons
Covid 19 Lockdown
Logitech Have Lost The Plot
1:30pm, Tuesday, May 25, 2021
Current mood: angry 
Once upon a time Logitech were a wonderful company: They made quality keyboards, webcams, remote controls, mice etc which performed flawlessly, lasted well and were a reasonable price. Sadly, like all large companies they no longer care about their customers, their products or their reputation. They do care about their bottom line of course but the fact that by trashing their reputation they will actually LOSE revenue just doesn't enter the heads of those irresponsible vandals that seem to run all the major companies these days.
Early in 2020 I bought a Logitech Wireless Gaming Keyboard & Mouse combo, the G613 and the G603. They had good reviews and were a little expensive but they boasted that they were premium quality. I unpacked them and installed them and for a while I was impressed with the quality and performance. The solidity of the units and the responsiveness of the mechanical keyboard was certainly a step up from cheaper units I had owned in the past. HOWEVER, that happiness was not to last...
The Logitech G613 wireless gaming keyboard and the G603 wireless gaming mouse.
Just over a year later I began to get key repeat on some keys. I had to continually stop my typing and go back and delete the superfluous letters. Clearly this kind of thing was unacceptable so I opened a ticket describing the symptoms on the Logitech Support site and waited for them to solve my problem. You can read the response I got here. Note that my comments have been deleted. This is typical of Logitech's new unhelpful support policy.
Alyzza from the Gaming Team was quite useless and apart from insisting I update the firmware (which would not be the problem since it developed over time), also insisted I connect the device direct to the motherboard! Quite impossible as it is a WIRELESS DEVICE!! He/She also insisted I provide a photo of the keyboard with a hand-written note as well as a PDF of proof of purchase. WTF? I wasn't about to go to all those lengths only to receive no useful support and I told them so. After a number of back and forth emails they eventually decided that it was a hardware issue after all but since the unit was now out of warranty they would not replace it and would not help me any further. USELESS!
Naturally I wasn't relying on the manufacturer to fix my issue, (I know better than that after all these years), I was checking out the various online forums looking for the problem and possible solutions. It turned out that I was not the only one with the issue: LOTS of people were complaining about repeat characters with their mechanical keyboards! I went to Logitech's online forums to see what people were doing about it. When I clicked on the post "G613 Keyboard key chattering" I got this! "You're not authorized to access this page". WTF? In all the years I've been surfing forums I've never been locked out of a post. And it wasn't only this one, EVERY post about G613 key chattering had been blocked off.
Logitech sent me a feedback survey. (Click on it for full size.)
There was no problem with my forum membership, I could still go to other posts on the site, just not any related to keyboard chattering. I seemed clear to me that Logitech were simply censoring the subject as they had no solution to a known problem and they wanted to continue selling these faulty keyboards. So I created a post on the subject! 
You can still see it here. As you can see, there were others getting the same runaround and they were not happy with Logitech's shoddy support. Logitech even pretended to attempt to solve the problem but since the issue is on their side it is clear they had no intention of doing anything except provide disingenuous advice.
I did eventually find the solution on You Tube. All you need is a key puller and a can of WD40. You just pull off the offending key and squirt a SMALL amount of WD40 into the base of the key. This actually solves the problem, (for quite a while ie months), and I am actually typing this blog post up on the offending keyboard at the moment, quite happily. If I had listened to Logitech I would have had to throw out this expensive mechanical keyboard just because they can't be bothered telling people how to fix what is really quite a simple problem.
To fix your mechanical keyboard you just need these two things: a key puller and a can of WD40.
No doubt there are still some good people working in product design at Logitech and no doubt they are well aware of the issue but the fact that the company are playing dumb suggests quite strongly that Logitech no longer care that about the reputation of their products. This is quite stupid on the part of the managers as people know when their purchase develops problems and they also know when the company is giving them the run around and many of them will simply refuse to buy another product from an uncaring company which sells faulty products. 
My keyboard chattering problem is solved (no thanks to Logitech) but there is still an issue that is irritating me about the damn device every day: The G613 is a gaming keyboard and it comes with 6 additional keys down the left hand side which can be mapped to whatever you like. Nice! Or it would be nice except that for some brain-dead reason the G1 key overrides your mapping SOMETIMES and sends through the F1 code instead. In my case I use G1 for "copy" (ie control C). Every now and then, usually when I first open a program, instead of copying the select object I get taken to the help page for that program. Not helpful Logitech! WTF are you thinking Logitech? Why would you override my mapping? Why only sometimes? You know: I'd open a ticket if I thought that they'd make any effort to fix the issue but it's pretty clear that that's not something they do. Support is just there to provide the appearance of support, not to actually fix anything.
Sadly for the modern world there is little diversity of manufacturers now and if you want to buy a wireless keyboard you are pretty much stuck with Microsoft or Logitech, (or Apple). If you want an illustration of how the capitalist system does not help the consumer this is a good example. There ought to be at least 10 quality manufacturers of such things but there are only 2.
A few months ago I had to source a wireless keyboard for my step grandson who had an Apple laptop. This meant a bluetooth keyboard and I had no alternative but to buy a Logitech unit, the MK850. When we unpacked the device and installed the batteries we found that there was NO MANUAL! We had a great deal of trouble getting it connect as Logitech failed to provide this essential item. I couldn't believe it! Even a memory stick comes with some instructions!
I went looking for the manual online and THERE IS NO MANUAL! This is quite an expensive wireless/bluetooth keyboard with a tricky connection routine and Logitech simply couldn't bothered going to the small expense of writing a manual. Disgusting!!!
Of course everyone that bought the MK850 has the same problem. Here is a thread from Logitech's forums dealing with the subject. Again we see the same disingenuous attempt to provide help. They provide a "getting started" page and a page of FAQs about the device, but Logitech: FAQs are NOT a manual! and your "getting started" page does NOT provide the essential information required to make the keyboard connect. Look: If they actually cared about their products or customers they would simply write up a manual post-haste and make it available on the product downloads page. It ain't there!
Here is the secret trick you need to connect the MK850 to an Apple. Good luck trying to find it on Logitech's website.
And then there's my Logitech universal remote. I have a Harmony 650, which, to be fair, is generally very good, BUT, every time I turn on the TV, unless I select the last program used, the TV will boot up with that program. Ie if I were watching sport on the TV the previous evening and I fire up the multi-media computer in the morning via the Harmony 650, the TV will go back to the sport. If I press the help button the 650 will fix the problem and take me to the multi-media device that I asked for BUT the point is that I shouldn't have to make this adjustment.
Yes I understand that the problem is because the TV takes time to boot up and the Harmony 650 doesn't allow for it so the command doesn't get through. However Logitech know what devices I have and know how long they take to boot up so surely if their universal remote is as "smart" as they say it is they can allow for the wait and issue the commands when the device is ready.
I understand that if the device is already booted up then you don't want to wait those precious few seconds, which I presume, is why they don't wait, BUT, the remote should know when you last shut the TV down and can therefore make the sensible assumption that if it has no record of itself turning the thing back on since then then it needs to allow for the boot delay. Come on Logitech! This is not a new problem. It has been around since the first multi-device remotes. It's quite irritating and you are NOT making any real attempt to solve it.
It's sad to see a really useful company like Logitech fall into the hands of idiots. I understand that perfection is hard to achieve but pretending your products have no flaws and making no effort to fix them is NOT the way forward. I will be thinking twice about buying your products in the future and if it weren't for the fact that there is almost no competition I would have consigned you to the bin already. This is a sad business all round. 
Currently watching:
Attack On Titan Series 3 by Wit Studio (highly recommended)
HTML Table Menu Buttons
10:30pm, Thursday, July 8, 2021
Current mood: sleepy 
I began this extensive website way back in 2005 and originally I was repelled by HTML as I didn't want to get my hands dirty and used Microsoft's FrontPage as my development engine. I avoided any direct contact with HTML or JavaScript and just put up with FrontPage's various infamous "quirks". All that changed however in 2009 when Microsoft retired their dodgy product and left their customers high and dry! Not the first time I've been shafted by MacroShaft and I guess it won't be the last... 
I looked at the alternatives and discussed the matter with my friend James who suggested I that I simply code in pure HTML and CSS. I am a programmer by trade, although very out-of-practice, and after a while, with a bit of help and encouragement, I soon found that it was beautifully straightforward and I got satisfactory and reliable results in all situations so long as I kept it simple! Yes! No more reliance on the hated and untrustworthy Microsoft! Woooot! 
I setup my templates and established my development routine and created all that you see here today in the hundreds of HTML pages that comprise my site. It was all fairly sensible and straight forward EXCEPT the matter of how to do menus. Now you might think that a bunch of buttons along the top of the page giving you choices of where to go next would be so common and essential to the functioning of most websites that HTML would have some simple mechanism for doing it... Wouldn't you? Well folks, believe it or not: They haven't and they don't!
"That can't be true!" You say. "I see top menu bars everywhere." Well, yes you do and they are almost always implemented with JavaScript NOT HTML. Most of the rest are done as I do mine: with tables! If you want regular sized buttons in a row to push there really isn't any other practical way without using JavaScript.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), don't like tables being used for this purpose. They say tables should be used for tables, not to manage space on the page and partition regions into various sized blocks. Despite this they STILL have not provided a satisfactory alternative! "Why not?" You ask. "Head up arse!" I reply.
Tim Berners-Lee specified HTML and wrote the first browser and server software in late 1990. Graphical displays were common at the time but Windows had not yet caught on and Macs were a niche item. He considered HTML to be a development of the earlier SGML and consequently the first web browser was all about TEXT. Hell, it's even in the name: "Hyper-TEXT Markup Language". If you want to jump to a new page you just click on the WORD in blue! Why would you want a button when you can click on a word? This same attitude is still there today although the W3C have improved the spec greatly since the evil Microsoft empire fell.
How the table menu cludge works is that you create a 1 row table across the page with as many cells as you there are items in your menu. Using your table class set up in your style sheet you dictate the size, background colour, border and text style for your cells and the way they change when the mouse hovers over them. Great! You now appear to have a nice colourful set of responsive buttons! Kewl! Except you don't.
Your browser lights up the entire cell when you mouse over any part of it BUT it will only jump to the hyperlink when you click on the actual WORD in that cell. If you click on the space around the word NOTHING will happen and the user will be confused until they realise that they need to click on the actual word. This is the legacy of Tim Berners-Lee. It's HyperTEXT not HyperCELL!
I was acutely aware of this problem from the time I started coding in HTML but for 11 years I could NOT find a solution. My friend James was a web programmer who did this stuff for a living and he assured me that there was a way around it but even he could not find it. After extensive searching the net with no success I gave up and just let my readers click on the word in the middle of the cell. I don't know how many couldn't figure out that essential detail... hopefully not too many...
Recently though, I tackled the problem again and James said: "Why can't you just put the anchor onto the cell?" Sounds like a good idea but it doesn't work. Why not? Ask the W3C. I trawled the web and yes, there are other people with the same problem. I found a number of very complex and dubious solutions and I was about to give up again when EUREKA! There it was! The answer. It seemed to simple to be true: Just make the cell contents a separate division! Wrap div signs around your button text and you're done! Finally after 11 years! Woooooooooooooooooot! 
Thanks guys!
Here is the HTML that does the menu for this page (note the divs). Press Cntl U to see the full code for yourself.
There is a slight problem with this though as if the cell contains more lines than you have text the empty lines will not be included in the div and will not trigger the hyperlink. This is easily fixed though by appending a line break and em space to fill up the cell.
I have now fixed all the 300 odd HTML pages in my primary site by making this mod and you can all benefit from the enhanced functionality. In the vast majority of cases the menus were only one line and it was simply a matter of wrapping the word in a div. The few examples of multi-line menu text were easily handled with the line break and em space addition. Problem solved! 
Currently playing:
Hearthstone by Blizzard
Covid 19 Lockdown
11:20am, Wednesday, September 1, 2021
Current mood: calm 
The COVID-19 pandemic began in Wuhan in China in December 2019 and it hit us here in Australia in January 2020. Victoria was the state hardest hit in the first year with Melbourne having the first serious outbreak. The state was first locked down in March 2020 for 43 days when 46 locally acquired cases were detected. This was followed in July with a lockdown of 111 days which REALLY rocked the state to its core. Since then there have been 4 more lockdowns which have separated families and friends, impaired education, frozen or destroyed most businesses and seen depression and suicide skyrocket. 
Thanks to the ABC for their partial history here.
Daniel Andrews, Premier of Victoria during the pandemic and Brett Sutton his Chief Health Officer.
In Victoria we have now been locked down for in excess of 200 days since March last year or about half of the time. In fact, it feels more like 3/4 of the time. We aren't allowed to travel more than 5 km from our homes. We can't eat out. Non-essential businesses are closed. Schools are closed. We aren't allowed to have ANY visitors and we can't visit ANYONE! If you live in Melbourne you are under curfew from 9pm to 5am every day. Finally, face masks are mandatory both inside and out. Even if you are walking down a deserted street your mask must be on. Fortunately, you are still allowed to visit your loved one but that's ALL!
These measures are HARSH and the sanctions for breaking them are even harsher. A group of Melbournians who attended a private engagement party were issues fines of $5,000 each! Any family who attended is $10,000 out of pocket. Yes, they flouted the law but IMO the sanction was grossly excessive!
I am not the worst off. I haven't lost my business over it. I haven't been forced to stay with an abusive partner. I'm not a student trying to complete my final year. Nevertheless I have been significantly impacted. I am a professional musician but I can't perform live. I can't jam with my friends. I can't visit my mother. I can't tutor my step-grandson in maths. I can't do my weekly bicycle ride. I can still see my partner but I can't see my step-children and step-grandchildren. We normally go away during the winter but this is not allowed so we have not had a holiday in 2 years. My partner's mother has recently suffered an illness and been placed in care but we cannot visit her. I had to cancel my 60th birthday party after I had booked a venue. I cannot make any plan that involves any meeting face to face. I tell you folks: It ain't good! 
I have had my 2 shots of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine so I am fully immunised. The same is true of my partner. Everyone in Australia should have been vaccinated by now but sadly our government has dragged its heels in the matter when it should have been sprinting for the finish line. At the time of writing only 46% of Australians have had one shot and only 28% of Australians have had both shots. This is TOO SLOW as everyone knows. It will likely be Christmas before 80% of us are fully immunised and the country is opened up again! The Delta variant of the virus is proving to be almost unstoppable despite the stringent control measures and we will probably be locked down until some magic number of vaccinations is reached. In that time there will be further businesses destroyed, lives damaged and suicides. Much of this could have been prevented if the government had rolled out the vaccines faster and earlier.
Australia's vaccination data at August 30 2021, (click for full size).
Australia is a rich, first-world country so why were we so slow? This is a complex issue and part of it is that we can't make the most of the vaccines here, unlike the UK and the USA, who are world leaders in the drug industry.
The one vaccine we do make here: the Astra Zeneca, suffered widespread public doubt after a few people under 60 died from thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), (blood clots), after receiving a shot. According to the RACGP, as of 5/8/2021, in Australia, there have been 93 cases of TTS (57 confirmed, 36 probable) and 6 deaths from the 6.8 million AstraZeneca vaccine doses administered.
So the odds of death are only 1 in a million which are very good odds, but most people have a poor grasp of maths and don't realise how unlikely such an outcome is. They hear of 2 women dying and straight away imagine that it could be them. As the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) said: "So far, the observed number of deaths reported after vaccination remains less than the expected number of deaths that would occur naturally, or from other causes, for that proportion of the population."
Despite the tiny risk of death, the Australian Government performed its idiotic knee-jerk reaction and recommended that the AZ vaccine only be administered to those over 60. This might have placated the nervous anti-vaxxers but it set our program back by months! If the government had stood firm and said: "We are willing to accept 20 deaths among women under 60 in order to get back to normality. The AZ is fine, your odds of death are one in a million.", then we would be considerably further along the track than we currently are.
Another problem was that the vaccine being developed by the University of Queensland which showed promising results back in 2020 was not able to proceed because of the possibility that antibodies induced might interfere with certain HIV tests. This didn't mean that the subject actually had the HIV virus, just that tests might generate a false positive. And so died the dreams of Australia's immunological industry.
Another problem was the difficulty the Australian Government had in sourcing the best alternative to the AZ vaccine: the Pfizer vaccine. Because we can't make it here we had to rely on sources overseas such as Europe, but they were so keen to secure their own supplies that there was not enough for us to buy.
At any rate, our vaccination rate is about middle of the pack compared to other countries. We could have done better but we could also have done worse. In hindsight the Government of Scott Morrison SHOULD have gone harder earlier. There are limits to what was possible but they certainly could have rolled out the AZ vaccine faster with a more aggressive approach.
We live in the world's foremost nanny state here in Australia and when it comes to copping a few deaths for the good of the nation we are reluctant to bite the bullet. The consequences of such reluctance are the destruction of people's lives which far outweigh the few deaths from TTS but our nannies can't see it like that. Nor can our media and opposition politicians who just make the situation worse. They complain when people die from clots. They complain when we are locked down. They complain when people protest. They complain when vaccines are made mandatory. There is just no pleasing these people and the confused messages emanating from them only act to freeze any initiative on the part of the government.
With respect to our lockdowns, which are surely among the toughest in the world: Yes, we have largely stopped the virus and our deaths from the said virus are the envy of most of the world. But the cost to lives, businesses and Australia's bottom line has been ENORMOUS! The USA, who took relatively little action to lockdown its citizens, has seen 13% of its population infected and has suffered 640,000 deaths from the virus, (or 0.2% of their population), at the time of writing. If we had embarked on the same laissez faire plan we would have lost around 60,000 people instead of the 1,000 that we actually have. Our hospitals would have been overwhelmed with the 3.4 million cases we would have had and the place would have been a mess. Is the price worth the result? To put it another way: Would you sacrifice your elderly mother to carry on as usual?
Currently watching: Nichijou by Kyoto Animation (VERY weird)