My mouse has no tail! No, I do not mean the little rodent variety, but the ones fitting comfortably under your hand that you poke and prod all the time at your computer.
One of my readers/listeners, Jenny saw me in a local eatery the other day while I was working on something. I go to several of the fast-food, pastry shops, coffee shops, book stores, etc. in the area that offer free Wi-Fi access to work on columns, etc. If you ever see me, come over and say, “Hi!” too.
But now back to the story. Jenny had never seen a netbook and she thought it was a “cute little thingy”. Uh, thanks Jenny. She had also never seen a wireless mouse – she did not say that was cute. She wanted to know about them. If one person does not know about something there must be plenty of others who do not know about it either, so here we go.
You know how it is when you are intent on something at your computer. Your mouse slips to the edge of your mouse pad; you pick up the mouse and have to untangle the wire to get it back just where you like it.
A wireless mouse uses a laser instead of a ball on the bottom . What do they look like? Look at the mouse you use now and cut the wire off of it really close to the mouse body. That’s it, now you have a wireless mouse…NO! STOP! Not really, but that is what one looks like.
They work just as well as a wired mouse, are much easier to keep straight and fit into your backpack for traveling with your notebook. They have a little USB bar maybe 1.5″ long that plugs into your computer which is how they communicate.
There are two slight drawbacks to the unwired mouse. First is that they will not work on a glass top. Before someone out there writes me, yes I know that they do make a type of blue-laser mouse that works on glass. However, I have a friend who bought one. He says that it does work, but it does not work as well as advertised. Also it cost about 3 times as much.
The second little problem is that they use batteries for power. I have two different brands, a no name that uses two-AA batteries and one from Microsoft that uses one-AA battery. The one that I use at work five days a week, probably nine hours a day, lasts for approximately six months before needing a new battery. The other, I would guess even longer.
Now you are asking, “OK, Ron how much?” You can get the Microsoft mouse for less than $20 in the local area. Try one out. You will like it.
