I thought I was on the road of redemption with my new found love for a multi-button mouse, a Kensington Bluetooth PilotMouse. The need for this came as a result of the lack of any way on the XP side of my MacBookPro to right click anything.
The Kensington mouse I got had a great feel, not too monstrous, good movement, etc. But over time, I have grown more frustrated with all the effort needed to get this critter awake and working. On the Mac OS X side, any time I need to use it, I must go through the Bluetooth process of discovery and set up via the system tools. If I sit and think too long, or go outside to check on the dog, or just take a break, the mouse gets lonely, and decides to disconnect and go offline.
On the Windows side, it got to the point I was able to get it recognized about 2 out of 10 tries. I would continually need to go through the Bluetooth set up, where it would discover the same mouse it had discovered the day before, go through the Wizard set up, etc. Often it would get through the passkey transfer (why does my mouse need so much security?) and then fail with an unspecified “problem” chirping at me from the System tray. Sometimes a reboot helped, often not.
Today I needed to do a windows screen capture of an application that absolutely would not bring up its settings without a right moue click– Oh, now there is another story- the only way to use the built in system is to press a PRINT SCREEN button, which every online site lets me know is “just to the right of the F12” button… not on this machine. How the *#^~ do they tie a key function to such a freakily anointed, arbitrary key? Why is there not a key for PRINT DOCUMENT IN LANDSCAPE MODE or CONSTRAIN SELECTION TO SQUARE?? So, it was off to the net to download a free screen capture tool.
Anyhow, I went through 9 gyrations of trying to get this Bluetooth mouse to get up and dance. Windows would see it recognize it, send a passkey, and then say… “I had a hardware problem.” Aha, you say, I bet it was batteries. No dice, they are all fully loaded.
But this mouse had crossed the line with me. I got in the truck, squealed the tires on the way to Target to get a $20 Logitech USB wireless mouse– that needs no special song and dance, no incantations, to get mousing around.
Maybe it is late, maybe I am just cranky, but a mouse should not require special commands, configurations, instructions to do mouse work! A mouse should not need a start up sequence, a magic spell, a Windows Wixard! It should be transparent, and should rise to work when I caress its back and tickle its ears. A mouse that gets in the way… well, is out of my way.
So maybe tomorrow there will be a photo of this Blue, Toothless, Dead Mouse squashed under the wheels of my truck. Geez, I would rather have a cat than this mouse.
