Don't Back Down

For the better part of a year, I've been using a Microsoft Wireless Intellimouse Explorer. I've been pretty happy with it, but in the last couple of weeks it's gone rather wonky. And I don't know what that word means, but it fits so I'm going to use it. Even with fresh batteries, it doesn't seem to be quite on, with jumpy tracking and even some missed clicks.

So I picked up a Logitech MX 1000 Laser Mouse. I was actually going to get a mouse of the wired variety, having had my fill of wireless for a while, but I figured what the heck and took the plunge to the Laser.

Thus far, it's taken a little getting used to the mouse, but overall it seems to be tighter than the MS mouse it's replacing. I think I'll keep it.

The only problem that I had getting going was to get the dang thing recognized. When I first booted, the base station picked up just fine, but the mouse itself didn't seem to be working. I tried the reset buttons on base and mouse, I tried installing (and re-installing) the software, I even rebooted once or twice. Nothing. Finally out of sheer frustration, I sat the mouse back in the base, then picked it up again and lo and behold, the pointer moved. Cool.

I did some reading online, and overall the mouse has very good reviews, except for sporadic connection issues between some bases and some units. I don't think this is what I experienced, but I'm going to keep an eye on it.

Once connected, there has been just one issue with normal usage to this point - the back and forward thumb buttons on the mouse didn't work correctly in Firefox. After a bit of searching, I stumbled across a tip that suggested mapping the keystrokes to those keys - ALT-LEFT for back and ALT-RIGHT for forward - instead of using the default back and forward functions. This seems to do the trick in Firefox and it still works in other applications as well.

The center thumb button (called APPLICATION SWITCH) is very nice, bringing up a small task list from which you can select another open application. I haven't used it a lot yet, but I think it will work better than the ALT-TAB flipping that I've done for years. Training myself to use it rather than ALT-TAB may be the biggest problem.

I also like the CRUISE UP and CRUISE DOWN pointers on the top and bottom of the scroll wheel, which move more than just a couple of lines that you get from moving the wheel. I think they will work well, but I have to get used to the speed at which they scroll - otherwise I'm at the bottom of the page before I know it!