Soft Feel

For a long time now, Roll Call has been accustomed to running on both Mac and Windows machines. That’s part of what makes it a great fit for so many churches and non-profits. It’s flexible and allows you to pick the operating system that you’re comfortable with while retaining all the great features of the Roll Call software.

With the new release of Mac OS X, dubbed “El Capitan,” Mac users are probably pretty excited for a few new features of their own. I’ll go over a few highlights of the update and throw my take on them here, along with if you should take the plunge.

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Depending on what you’re doing in OS X, your mouse cursor can turn into a rainbow colored spinning beach ball, a blue spinning beach ball, and in some rare instances, a ticking watch.

Split View

Being a Mac user myself, I’ll admit, I’ve never wanted to be able to do this, but Apple is touting this as a major improvement. Basically it’s similar to the “snap” features of Windows. This is El Capitan bringing some viewing improvements to your app windows allowing you to easily organize multiple open windows side by side. When it comes to full screen vs multiple windows, Apple claims it’s “The best of both worlds.”

Mission Control Improvements

Mission Control is another feature that I’ve hardly utilized because I’m more of an CMD + Tab guy (Alt + Tab, for all my windows friends). Mission Control does see a little more use when I’m at home on my laptop with it’s gesture capabilities, but even then, I’m pretty focused on only a few apps at once. This new feature improvement allows you to view, arrange and organize your desktop spaces more easily. It also lets you see all the windows without them being overlapped like they have in the past. Yay?

Spotlight Searching meets “Siri speak”

Now we’re talking some more functionality that I can get behind —that is, being able to find stuff quickly and more easily. The new spotlight features allow you to search using terms similar to everyday language like you may already do with Siri. Note: Siri (for iPhone) got some nice new enhancements similarly in the latest iOS 9 update. You can search things like “Email I got from Jimmy in July” and it will yield results right before your eyes. I love intuitive user interfaces and features. This kind of feature may seem trivial, but it’s the kind of feature that you may end up using without even realizing how much goes into making it work properly. Being able to type in your own words when looking for files, folders, emails or documents is pretty nifty.

Improvements to Notes

I do use notes. I have tried third-party apps like Evernote and found them pretty awesome. But the truth is, I’m app-lazy. If I have to log in every time or hunt for some app, I am more likely to want to do something that the operating system offers natively — along with all the native blessings and integrations. All of this to say that Notes has gotten a major overhaul. You can create todo lists (complete with checkboxes), insert images, and other file attachments. Like before, it all syncs with iCloud, so your iPhone notes show up here (and vice versa) and it’s just easy to use. Not too many frills here.

Other “major” changes…

There are a handful of other major apps that got some improvements like:

• Photos: (New editing abilities thanks to third-party extensions)
• Safari: New Pinning of Favorite Sites, Mute audio on hidden tabs, more…
• Maps: Public transit visibility (honestly, who is using maps on your mac to view transit options? That’s what your phone is for, right?)
• New Fonts included: A sans-serif font called San Francisco
• Performance and Graphics improvements (Apple claims this with every update so take this with a grain of salt, but they say apps start up to 40% faster)
• Here’s a link to all the features in a simple list

So, will Roll Call and Mac OS X El Capitan play nice together?

Roll - A - Ball Mac Os Update

The short answer is probably. We have users who have already jumped on board with El Cap without issues, but don’t stop reading to hit that update button just yet. The current version of Roll Call (Version 13) is not officially certified for use with El Capitan.This means there may be unforeseen consequences to updating your operating system that we will not be able to address until our fully-certified version arrives in late November. Roll Call Version 13.5 of will be a Free Update to current v13 users. Along with full certification for El Capitan, this version will include numerous user-requested enhancements to the Check-in system and more. Stay tuned to the blog here for a post in the coming weeks about new features that v13.5 will contain and when you might be able to get it installed.

So are these new OS X features worth the potential risk of encountering issues with your Roll Call Church Database Software? It might be wise to wait a couple months. Especially for features that I would argue aren’t really that exciting to begin with.

Outside of By the Book, Josh's superpowers include being a husband/dad, playing guitar, writing songs, and other geekery involving computers and code. He has a hard time passing up a board game of Settlers of Catan.

Click here to return to the 'One method of cleaning a Mighty Mouse scroll ball' hint

Wanted to confirm this does work.
We have had a couple mice here that we've tossed in our box o' mice because the scrollball didn't work. Putting pressure on the ball when rolling did dislodge it... for about a week or two. It got to the point that we went back to our other generic mice with scroll wheels, which I still had to use anyway since I have a KVM on my desk and the ((IMO) not-so-)mighty mouse's scroll ball ONLY works when plugged straight into the powerbook.
OK, rantings aside, I did this to a mouse and it's working great so far. I guess see how long this method works. Closest I've tried prior to this was taking a piece of scotch tape, laying it on the table sticky side up, and with the mouse upside down, roll the ball on tape. If you recall, that's always been the recommended way of cleaning the tracking ball on mice, prior to led/laser mice *shudders at the thought*.
It took a few times before I could get the tape to feed in correctly. Like the author, nothing noticeable was on the tape. I was able to slowly rotate the tape around so I could move the tape in all directions. I was able to do this, moving it back and forth and rotating around (was able to go 180º in this time) for about 30 seconds before the tape started to rip and I had to feed it out.

I find a sightly wet finger works the best.
Dip your finger in water, roll it over the ball, and your mighty mouse will be back to work in a few seconds. No need to unplug, no need to dry. (just don't pour water on it.)
---
A completely SANE Canadian.

Most importantly, make sure your three-year-old doesn't drool on it.

Lately I've found a good way to clean the ball, and now I do it every week or so to keep it healthy:
Take a wet wipe and moisten the ball a little, around it (roll and wipe), than place the mouse upside down on a piece of paper, that the ball will touch the paper, and gently roll the ball on that paper. Don't do it too hard because you might break something inside or disform the ball, but you'll see lines of dirt on the paper.
Now it'll be fine!

to add, that with the same wetwipe - you can clean the rest of the mouse, from the rest of day to day dirt... :)

I found that returning it worked well.
By the end mine wasn't scrolling in either direction, tried cleaning it, did nothing, just returned it and got a cheap $5 optical mouse with a scroll wheel.

I am a big fan of blu tac it cleans my keybord and I have used it to my Mighty Mouse scroll ball. it works fine just get a bit and and dab it on the ball jobs done.

blue-tack did the trick - well actually it was Patafix! So frustrating when you can only scroll in one direction :)

Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! Your tape 'thing' did the trick. It was not easy to do. But, once I got the tape threaded through; it dislodged big clumps of gunk. Afterwards, I wiped the scroll ball down with alcohol; and now my mouse works fine! Thanks, again!!!

Thanks - my scroll wheel would not work in one direction, but the wet finger trick worked great!

Roll - A - Ball Mac Os Download

i use some rubbing alcohol on a cotton pad and really roll it around.

This was sent in by Anonymous as a hint, but it belongs here as another solution to the same problem... I am the proud owner of an Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse, and while so far it's treated me well, one problem has persisted for a long time - the scroll ball sometimes ceases to scroll at all. It was so frustrating, and I tried every remedy I could think of, i.e. canned air, dry/wet cloth, alcohol and the like, yet nothing worked for more than an hour or so. I was just about ready to just buy a new mouse when a friend mentioned to me how he cleans the little trackball on his Blackberry - Printer paper.
It may sound strange, but it's the surprising miracle cure for a sticky Mighty Mouse scroll ball. Here's how to go about the procedure:

1. Find a completely blank, completely clean sheet of ordinary white printer paper. Any brand will do.
2. Lay the paper on any hard, flat surface. Unplug the mouse (or turn it off, in the case of wireless MM users), turn it upside down, and make sure the ball can still roll somewhat freely.
3. Press the scroll ball firmly against the sheet of paper, making sure that is the ONLY part of the mouse that touches the paper, and vigorously rub in all directions (up/down, side to side, figure eights, spirals, all that jazz) for one to three minutes. I recommend at least 90 seconds if the ball won't scroll at all in at least one direction, three or more minutes of it just won't budge, period.
4. Reconnect the mouse and test the scrolling by opening anything that has both a horizontal and vertical scroll bar, like iTunes. If it still feels like it's grinding or if it still won't scroll, repeat steps 2 and 3 until you get the desired result.

And there you go! You just protected your $40+ investment with an ordinary piece of paper! I haven't tested this method.
-rob.

I tried the alcohol and it did not work for me. I tried the printer paper and it worked. Thanks a lot.