Time for a mouse


My MacBook didn't come with a mouse - it simply has a built in trackpad with a single button. I remember one of my early criticisms of the Mac was that it only has a one button mouse - but you got so much power out of right clicking capabilities! Well, Mac does indeed support right clicking - and it's great for accessing sub menus much like I'm used to in Windows.

Unfortunately the trackpad doesn't have two buttons - only a single large button. But how would I be able to scroll through a web page easily? Or right click when I only had 1 mouse button??? Fortunately the trackpad supports a couple of gestures that make it really easy (and surprisingly natural) to do both. I can scroll a web page by simply placing two fingers on the trackpad and moving them up or down.  If I want to right-click an item I move the mouse pointer to the item I want to right-click, place a second finger on the trackpad and then click. It only took a few minutes to get used to it - makes me wish my HP laptop did this.

Even with the trackpad working pretty well I decided to get a new mouse. I've always been a huge Logitech fan and they had a wired laser mouse that looked pretty impressive: The MX400. Great mouse and it listed itself as Mac compatible. I simply took it out of the box, plugged it in and it worked like a charm.

The only thing it did not do was make the little Forward and Backward buttons work in Safari or Firefox. Turns out I needed to go up to the Logitech web site and download and install the Logitech Control Center. Simple install and now I could completely customize the buttons on the mouse.

While I'm very comfortable using the trackpad on my MacBook, the external mouse from Logitech is a very welcome addition.

Comments

Devin said…
Just letting you know, Logitech Control Center does mess up some things, like Growl (an awesome notification system for OSX that I highly recommend). You can still use those buttons for things like Exposé and Dashboard (which I'd recommend over Safari controls anyway) without installing LCC, but for more advanced things like Safari controls you might need LCC or some alternative
March 13, 2008 at 1:44 PM
David Alison said…
Hmmm - I've been running LCC for a while now and haven't noticed any problems. I actually bailed on the MX400 and put one of my older MX510 gaming mice in there. LCC recognized it and away I went. Now I've got a dedicated button for Spaces which is friggin wonderful. Thanks for the comment!
March 13, 2008 at 1:48 PM
Anonymous said…
Keep in mind any USB mouse or keyboard should work on a Mac, along with bluetooth ones as well. While not every mouse might have a manufacturer supported control panel, USB Overdrive can fill that gap.

http://www.usboverdrive.com/USBOverdrive/News.html
March 14, 2008 at 2:29 PM
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