In my never ending quest for the perfect computer mouse, I bought another one just the other day. This one is the Kensington PilotMouse Mini Bluetooth (Model #72414). Kensington is a brand I’ve respected since way back during the days of pre-Mac OS X. They’re a little on the high-end, and thus a little more expensive, but their stuff is usually very well made (and pretty, which is always important for us Mac types). It’s a “mini” mouse meant for laptop use, but is on the large end of mini form factors, which suits me just fine. It’s actually quite similar in size to the original mouse that came with the Mac Plus. I have a hard time with the “full size” mice available nowadays that are giant lumps of plastic formed to fit a person’s right hand with ridges and lips and buttons all over the place (like my Logitech MX1000 Laser). I much prefer the simple symmetric rectangular shape. The way I grip my mouse is between my thumb and ring finger half-way down the sides of the mouse with my index and middle finger tips resting on the top of the mouse near the middle. I don’t rest my fingers near the front of the mouse, as most form-fitted mice are designed.
Anyway, I like the Kensington one so far. I’ve only been using it for about a day. Setup was a breeze. I popped open the battery compartment, placed in the batteries the way that was clearly marked, closed the compartment, turned on the mouse, and ran OS X’s built-in bluetooth device setup. I was up and running in a matter of seconds. It’s got a handy ribbed rubber grip that goes around the circumference of the mouse which I can only assume is for both my pleasure and my comfort. I miss the charging dock, as I’ve never been comfortable, environmentally-wise, with the idea of continually going through AA batteries. The tracking is probably not as good as my MX1000, but seriously, how much accuracy do I need to surf and check e-mails?
And in other computer accessory news, I’ve ordered a replacement fan for my ATI Radeon X800 XT, as the ATI one on there has started to wear out. About a week before I left on my vacation, the fan on the card started to make a winding noise, much like ED-209 did after it fell down the stairs in Robocop. I fiddled with it a bit and noticed it was a little loose and wobbling. After a few hopeless attempts to tighten it, I’ve now got it to the point where it’s quieter, but rattles, making a sound more like Archie’s jalopy. I’ve ordered a Zalman fan from NCIX to replace it. We’ll see how that goes.