gus torres: illustration - animation - design

As a full-time left-handed mouser, this is wonderful news. I’ve been on a quest for the perfect left-handed mouse with mixed results. See my previous entries here and here.

I’ll be getting in line for this one…

Find out more here…

A while back, I wrote about Apple’s Mighty Mouse. Well I kind of gushed about it to be honest, but a week later I returned it. It, like a long line of computer mice (mouses?), never felt quite right and actually started to cause me pain in my wrist and forearm.

I’m a left-handed mouser and in my previous entry about the Mighty Mouse I pretty much described the headaches of trying to find just the right mouse. Though Apple’s new mouse wasn’t quite it (though it came closer than any other at the time), I finally did find a mouse that finally worked wonderfully for me.

Still not perfect (and I’ll explain why shortly), the Razer Copperhead High Precision Gaming Mouse has come as close to what I’ve been looking for in a mouse. And I’ve tried and returned them all (at least the one’s that are for both left- and right-handed use). Designed exclusively for gaming, it has a 2000 dpi laser and incredible response time (like Logitech’s gaming mouse). There’s also on-board memory to maintain those customized driver settings and the ability to change DPI on the fly. Physically similar to Razer’s other gaming mouse, the Diamondhead (which I also tried then returned because it was too uncomfortable after extended use), this one has a higher arch in the center. That has made this mouse the most comfortable one for me since my old MS Wheel Mouse Optical and I can use it for long stretches of time without discomfort.

Now I’m not a gamer, not by any means. Fast frame rates make me motion sick for one thing. But I have found the accuracy and overall smooth tracking of this mouse has helped me when I’m working on details in Photoshop or laying down bezier curves in Illustrator. The mouse also has up to 7 programmable buttons but I’ve set them to similar settings to the Mighty Mouse and that serves me fine.

There are a few issues which, though minor for me, may be problematic for others. This mouse was not designed for the Mac. USB Overdrive doesn’t recognize the additional buttons. OS X 10.4 Tiger’s built in mouse preference pane still allows you to choose primary and secondary mouse functions which translate to the mouse perfectly well and you can control Exposé and Dashboard functions through the middle (scroll click), third and fourth button, that’s all you can do out of the box. This may have to do with the fact that driver settings are saved in this on-board mouse memory. PC users have all sorts of additional options and it took me loading the drivers to an older PC (Virtual PC doesn’t work either) to finally access and configure the settings to my liking.

Understandably, this is obviously a deal-breaker for many Mac users, but for me I’ve found a comfortable, well-built, and incredibly accurate mouse that I can finally use. My search is over!

I’d been on the market for a new mouse for quite some time. I’m very particular about them, being one who works on his computer up to 12 hours a day in a given stretch. In the last few weeks I read and tried what seems like dozens of mice (mouses?). Though I started on a Mac one button mouse over a decade and a half ago, I’m a 2-button mouser now through and through, not to mention that I couldn’t live without my scrolling wheel. That pretty much ruled out any of the Mac mouse offerings (though ergonomically, I’ve always like them best). I’m also a left handed mouser, thus narrowing my choices even further. Many of the current crop of pointing devices have been designed for the majority set. And the universal ones tend to keep the number of additional buttons down to one, usually the scroll wheel button.

So… when Apple came out with their four-button Mighty Mouse I was thrilled. But that thrill turned to disappointment when I read that any modifications to the default keys would require Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger). I’m planning on installing Tiger, but only when client work slows down enough to do a proper install. And being a left hand mouser, I need to have the “right mouse click” be on the left and the mouse click on the right. Frustrated and tiring of this mouse hunt, I was prepared to pick up another inexpensive Kensington mouse similar to what I had used recently. Though their mice have always been okay, their MouseWorks software made their products shine. And unlike Logitech and Microsoft, they’re committed to the Macintosh.

Then I came across a few testimonials online about USB Overdrive and using it to re-map the buttons on the Mighty Mouse. Being a left-hand mouser in a right-hand mousing world, I already owned a copy of this magnificent piece of software. I decided that I would buy a new Mighty Mouse. But everyone was out of them and they were on back order. I thought I could order one online, but then if for some reason it didn’t work or USB Overdrive couldn’t perform its magic, I’d lose more time doing the shipping and packing thing.

Then in a last ditch effort I decided to go to a CompUSA nearby. Lo and behold a whole slew of brand new Mighty Mouses (Mice?)! Their order had just come in and I snatched up mine. Getting home, I unwrapped and plugged it right in not bothering to install the included CD (which is for Tiger anyway). Everything but clicking on the scroll nubbie worked. I was able to scroll left, right, up and down. Interestingly, I was also able to squeeze the sides and get Expose to function (something that was suppose to require the installer on the CD, so I thought). I checked my settings in the Expose Preferences and I had set under the “Mouse” setting “All Windows: Mouse Button 4″. This must have been for my previous mouse and I had forgotten about it. It seems that the two side buttons (they work in tandem) were actually both button 4.

As I suspected though, there was no way to swap left and right buttons so I installed USB Overdrive and restarted. Sure enough, the squeeze buttons (for lack of a better name) identified themselves as button 4. I then proceeded to swap left and right button functions along with adding a function for clicking on the scroll ball (it’s not a wheel since it scrolls in all directions). In Tiger (once Apple’s mouse software is installed) clicking on the scroll ball is reserved for Dashboard, but by using USB Overdrive, I can set it to do many more things. I also believe Apple’s software allows the mouse to function as one button for all the Apple purists, but this can also be accomplished using USB Overdrive.

In conclusion… I’ve been using Mighty Mouse and USB Overdrive for a while and I’m happy to report no problems. Well… sometimes I’ll drift my index finger across the smooth top and “right” click when I should be clicking but that’s a minor user glitch and I’ll need to retrain myself to stop. More importantly, I have a quality Mac mouse I’m using daily again, something I haven’t been able to say in nearly a decade!

Finally… a way to use all those bad photos (you know the ones, caught mid blink, bedhead, etc.) that you hold onto in iPhoto.

Uh oh, I’m going to get myself in a heap of trouble at home with this cool application…

Find out more here…