[X4U] Hopping Mouse

[Randy B.Singer]

Richard Gilmore said:

>I have been noticing this strange phenomenon on both my
>Tiger Macs Intel and PPC. Sometimes when I click the mouse, it will suddenly
>leap in a random direction so that my click lands somewhere else. REALLY
>annoying. But it's a non Apple Macally mouse. My Apple mouse never did this.
>I installed the Macally drivers nothing changed. It also hops a line up
>sometimes for no reason which invariably makes me click the wrong thing. But
>I don't like the one click Apple mouse nor the Mighty Mouse. So I'm not sure
>what to do. Should I be complaining to Macally?


The first optical mouse that I ever had was a Microsoft Optical 
Wheelmouse.  It has terrible tracking at first, using the mousepad that I 
had always used, which was neophrene with solid blue coarse nylon on top. 
 The cursor sometimes jumped unexpectedly, and precise maneuvers were 
very difficult.

After trying the mouse on just about every surface I could find, I 
finally tried a mousepad from 3M called the Precise Mousing Surface:

http://www.3m.com/us/office/myworkspace/mos_mousing_surface.jhtml

I got this one, with a very comfortable gel wristrest:

<http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004Z61K/104-7409994-7391939?v=glance&n
=172282>

Tracking is perfect on this pad!  I'm on my second optical mouse, this 
time a cordless optical Logitech mouse, and it works just as well on this 
pad.

As a side benefit, the pad has a slightly rough, plastic surface, which 
is perfect for sliding the teflon feet of my mouse on.  Moving the mouse 
takes next to no effort, but there is just enough tooth to the surface to 
keep the mouse from sliding on its own.






Randy B. Singer
Co-Author of: The Macintosh Bible (4th, 5th and 6th editions)

Routine OS X Maintenance and Generic Troubleshooting
http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html