As for price, you’d be best to check the channels available to you. I’m in New Zealand, and our prices aren’t at all in line with prices in the US. You can get much better deals than we can.

After evaluating several mice, I ended up buying the Logitech V450 Laser mouse for notebook. I love everything about this mouse. I love the grip and feel of it, and how it fits nicely and comfortably in my hand. It has the smallest USB receiver than any other mice out there, and it tucks nicely inside the mouse when not in use. There is also a battery indicator on the mouse letting you know when battery is low. I think that if Logitech had made this a Bluetooth mouse, then I would have nothing to complain!

One other note, I am a right-handed person, but on occasion I do switch the mouse to use with the left hand after long use of it on the right hand. This mouse is perfect for that.

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details/US/EN,CRID=2146,CONTENTID=12004

I know some people are the same way with the split ergo keyboards, and now I find it very difficult to use a straight one!

By the way, what’s the rough selling price for one of those tables now days?

Thanks!

~James

Always Go Boldly!

Then a few years later I was curious and bought a graphics tablet myself to experiment with. It was hard to use, because it was totally unfamiliar, but I persisted and it’s now what I use all the time.

Well, not that original one: it died after a while. Then I replaced it and after a considerable time the cord broke (and I hadn’t so much liked the hard surface anyway).

Last year I upgraded to a Wacom Intuos 3 (4×5) and bought a $10 USB extension cable. I love my graphics tablet and now find it far easier to use than a mouse.

The $10 cable is the one that will suffer any damage next time (it’s all to do with how I sit in a chair with the computer on my lap, and the cord being affected by heat and a sharpish bend). It’s simple and cheap to replace an extension cable.

I love that using the tablet is just like holding a pen or pencil – my wrist’s flat, and my arm’s at rest on the arm of the chair.

The 4 corners of the active area are aligned to the 4 corners of my screen (that’s a setting in the extensive preferences). That means that unlike a mouse, where you scroll from one place to another, you just put the cursor in any spot on screen.

The stylus has a switch on the side, with settings for how stuff behaves. I choose to have the lower part of the switch act as a double-click, and the top part generally acts as a Control Click. You can set that per-application.

There’s an ‘eraser’ on the top that I never use, but that can also be set to various actions.

When I want to type I either put the stylus down or kind of swivel it round and hold it between my thumb and palm. It helps that never having learned to type ‘properly’, I don’t require or use all my fingers for typing.

A tablet’s a costly investment and may not suit everyone, but if you have the chance to try one out for a week or two then it may be worth it. Because it’s very different from a mouse a couple of hours use wouldn’t give you a good idea of its value to you. It’s also worth payng a bit extra to get a decent one – I regretted the ‘cheaper’ oneI had for ages and really noticed how much better my current one is.