Maria’s Guides

An update to my Mighty Mouse experiment…and a cleaning tip.

I’ve been using my new wireless Mighty Mouse for about a month now, which I think is a fair amount of time for an evaluation. Because there seems to be so much interest in this topic here, I thought I’d give readers an update.

Here’s what I’ve experienced so far:

• From the start, I began having problems left clicking (normal clicking). After years of using a regular Apple mouse, my hand had found a comfortable position on the device. This mouse feels pretty much the same under my hand, but my hand position is all wrong. My fingertips aren’t close enough to the “top end” of the mouse. Thus, many of my clicks aren’t recognized as clicks at all. I’ve been working on this — it’s basically re-teaching myself a motor skill — and am having much better results. Still, I’d say that a full 10% of my clicks — primarily those that I attempt right after reaching for the mouse from the keyboard — are not recognized. That’s down from about 50%, so I’m definitely making progress.
• About 50% of the time, I Control-click (rather than simply right-click) to display a contextual menu. Again, this is a motor skill — I’ve been doing it that way for so long, that a right click just isn’t natural. Oddly enough, I use a right click 100% of the time when using my wireless Microsoft mouse. (I think it’s because my second finger feels like it’s in its own space: a right mouse button.) I’m working on this.
• I absolutely love the track ball. Of all the mouse’s features, the ball is the one that really sets it apart from its competition. Although I mostly use it for vertical scrolling, I’m delighted when I remember to use it to scroll horizontally, too.
• I do not use the side buttons. They don’t have enough of a mechanical feel to them — no “click.” Plus, the squeeze feels unnatural to me. Perhaps I’ll take advantage of this feature in the future.
• I’ve had one or two instances where the mouse connection failed. I don’t know why. It could be because I’m on an old dual G5 and rely on a USB Bluetooth adapter for Bluetooth connectivity.

Am I happy with it? Well, let’s just say that I’m not unhappy with it.

One of the things that came up in comments on my “How to Configure a Mighty Mouse” post was cleaning. I haven’t had to clean the mouse yet — other than to scrape some accumulated junk off the base of the mouse with a fingernail.

There were some pretty good suggestions in the comments, but I also stumbled upon a post on MacOSXHints.com titled “Cleaning Mighty Mouse and other rodents” by DocChaos. In it, he suggests a short soak in a high concentration of alcohol. (And no, I don’t mean Jack Daniels.) Read the post to get the details before you try this. Although he doesn’t mention removing the battery, I would think that’s a good idea.