something sparkly this way comes…

For as long back as I can remember, I owned a Kensington Turbo Mouse for my Mac. They were pricey (at around $100) but oh so comfortable. The giant trackball meant I never had to move my mouse around the desk, was very easy to clean, and took up less space, with no mousepad to boot. Add in precision mousing and you’ve got yourself one fantastic mouse. But in 2000, I opened my store and had to come up with something with a smaller footprint. The enormous Turbo just wouldn’t fit on the shelf I’d allotted for the mouse next to the register. Enter the Logitech Trackball. A perfectly serviceable mouse, much narrower in size, but fully functional (if only a two-button mouse). I used this mouse in the store for five years, and after closing down the business, took it home to use with my iMac DV G3, then when I bought the spiffy Macintosh G5, it was still good, so I figured, why buy a new one when the old one still works? But after seven years, it just isn’t what it used to be, and it was skipping a lot, acting wonky all over the place, especially in iPhoto, closing windows that I needed to remain open, all sorts of nonsense. Time to start looking for a new mouse. I was loath to order a mouse online without trying it in person, but I also hate going to computer stores, and the local Circuit City is a dump. I checked out Amazon, and found a nice update to the Logitech, a new, four-button mouse that otherwise looked almost exactly like my old one. Then G suggested the Kensington Orbit, which looks like something out of Star Wars. On the page for the Orbit was a link to the Kensington Expert Mouse, a new version of my beloved Turbo. It still kind of looks science fiction-y, but the features it has! Four buttons that can be mapped to do pretty much anything I want. I’m sticking with the defaults because, well, they’re fine by me. Here’s the Post-It with the map I drew to help me remember what buttons are for what function:

Pretty technical, right? Then there’s the scroll ring that sits around the trackball. Instead of a scroll wheel that lies on the front of the mouse, it’s a whole ring that you can use to scroll up and down windows. So cool! The prices have come down from what they used to be (price after rebate on Amazon: $71.24), but even still, it seemed like a lot. After reading the reviews (some of which disparaged the scroll ring), I decided that I’d get it and if I really hated it, I could just return it. I paid the $3.99 for one-day shipping (ah, Amazon Prime!) and got it pronto. I set it up with the enclosed wrist rest (the incline is a little steep) and once I “broke in” the trackball (about an hour), I wondered why I hesitated. All in all, it’s a great mouse, a super alternative to the traditional mouse, but you’ll most likely have to find one online; both my local Best Buy and Office Max only carry them online, not in the stores (I visited both in person, hoping to save the shipping fee).