Catproof Your Computer

image This software sounds like a joke, but I'm pretty sure it's real, in the sense that it's a product you can actually buy (whether or not it works is another question). It's PawSense, the software utility that catproofs your computer. "PawSense analyzes keypress timings and combinations to distinguish cat typing from human typing. PawSense normally recognizes a cat on the keyboard within one or two pawsteps." If it senses cat typing, it'll automatically block any further keyboard input and play a loud noise to scare the cat away. So this should deter those cats who like to sneak onto the computer when their guardian isn't looking and work on their own weblogs.

Animals Technology

Posted on Mon Nov 08, 2004


Comments

I know that every night when I get home from work, my cats have been working on my Linux workstation.

The scariest item was a google search for
adkfjklasd;fjasd;lgfjua8934q23qkjfhsduigfbfjk (or some such) - fortunately it returned 0 hits, but who knows what these furry madmen are up to. I'm assuming world control.
Posted by Scott McDonald  on  Tue Nov 09, 2004  at  05:40 PM
My cat seems to believe that she's already Queen of the World.
Posted by The Curator  in  San Diego  on  Tue Nov 09, 2004  at  11:53 PM
The cat with the weblog sort of reminds me of a story where a cat wrote an autoboiography. It was cute, I read it as a child, but I haven't been able to find it since...Anyway...

Do they have software than can husband-proof the computer? (I can't keep a thing straight. He's always going in a re-configuring things. I never recognize it when I come home.)
Posted by Maegan  on  Wed Nov 10, 2004  at  11:43 AM
Well, now that search is quite dangerous. It does not return 0 hits anymore! 😉
Posted by David C  on  Thu Nov 11, 2004  at  06:45 PM
Maegan, you're thinking of the stories of Archy and Mehitable by Don Marquis. See http://donmarquis.net.

By the way, Alex: please fix your comment options so the comments are listed in chronological order. Reverse-chrono is hard to read, particularly now that a couple of pages of other stuff is appended to the thread.
Posted by C  on  Fri Nov 12, 2004  at  11:13 PM
Er, http://donmarquis.com, sorry.
Posted by Carl Fink  on  Fri Nov 12, 2004  at  11:16 PM
No, it's not that one...The cat 'types' the story & then the next page shows his owner translating it. Mostly the cat talks about how to get a family...and then once you have the man & wife, you make each one try to get your attention more with treats & back scratches. ...It's something like that. It was illustrated with black & white photos of the cat-author doing cat things. It wasn't really a child's story, but I think that was just because it was so long. It might have been a young adult novel.

I do love Archy & Mehitabel though. I used to work in a library & we actually had them all. We kept them in the back because they were 2nd or 3rd editions...so they were still pretty old, and we carried the Shinbone Alley tape.
Posted by Maegan  on  Sun Nov 14, 2004  at  10:33 AM
I actually saw that in one of the Ripley's Believe it or Not! so it HAS to be true! But, that does sound like a pretty good idea!
Posted by DaGrrl  on  Thu Feb 03, 2005  at  06:27 PM
The book that Maegan was thinking of is "A Cat's Little Instruction Book".
Posted by MikeyToo  on  Wed Feb 01, 2006  at  07:47 PM
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