A Mouse Without A Tail.

jambutty · 30-05-2007, 18:44

A few weeks ago my cordless optical mouse started to misbehave. A single LMB click more often than not ended up as a double click and that caused no end of problems particularly in highlighting a section of text. Renaming files or any other activity that required just one click was also problematical.

Altering the mouse controls didn’t do anything at all so I reasoned that my trusty mouse was on the verge of popping its clogs. And no it wasn’t the batteries.

The only solution was a new mouse.

Ignoring the cries of mercy from my credit card I grabbed it firmly around the middle and presented it to pay £34.99 for a brand new Microsoft WL Laser MSE5000 mouse complete with batteries. It was claimed that they would last for 6 months with normal usage. Now if somebody can define normal usage that bit of information would have been of some use.

But this isn’t just an ordinary wireless mouse. It is a laser mouse and the instructions warn the user not to look into the laser beam.

Being a wireless mouse it would operate up to 6 feet away from the receiver. As the receiver also had a 3 feet long lead to plug into a USB port it would be possible to operate the mouse from about 9 feet away from the computer.

The first thing to do was to use the supplied CD to install the mouse software, then insert the two AA batteries and finally plug in the receiver.

Ergonomically acceptable to me this black and grey (silver) rodent had four buttons and a wheel that can also be pushed to do something. Each button and wheel push button can be set to provide up to any one of about 40 different functions. LMB and RMB were set at their standard default. The extra left button was set to browser back arrow. The extra right button, and this is the one that I really like, was set to magnify. I’ve swopped them round for my ease of use. This button magnifies a portion of the page and by pressing and holding down this extra button you can increase or decrease the area of magnification.

Finally pressing the wheel invokes the Instant Viewer. Meaning that all open windows are shrunk so that they all appear on the screen without overlapping. I’m not too sure what use that will be though.

Nearly thirty-five quid for a mouse might seem a bit extravagant but that magnify function could be a godsend to old and tired eyes.

mallard · 01-06-2007, 20:23

that,s why i stick with the old stuff be cause its still going now

WillowTheWhisp · 01-06-2007, 23:12

I just bought my daughter a new mouse today, paid £4.99!

Neil · 02-06-2007, 11:29

I am glad to see you can now magnify your screen. Is that why you have stopped writing in a large bold font? Is was a little annoying but worst of all quite hard to read IMHO.

jambutty · 06-06-2007, 14:39

I type in Times New Roman font size 12 (being the Word default) and to emphasize a word or phrase I will type in upper case and make it bold and often change the colour to either red or blue.

I reserve the right to continue doing so when the situation demands.

I don’t recall posting a full article in large bold print.