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Writer's pictureReed James

Trackball Mouse


The other day, my son came into my office and remarked on my mouse, which is pretty small. Since my hands are larger than average, he suggested I buy a bigger mouse. I didn’t do it right away, because I thought I was doing fine with what I had. Then I got curious and saw all the different options. I ended up buying a Logitech wireless trackball mouse that my right hand sits on comfortably. I liked the idea of trackball, because I had used track pads on laptops. They’re a bit like joysticks in that the range of movement is small compared to traditional mice where you are moving the mouse itself as a pointer. The trackball setup, on the other hand, means that you are controlling the cursor with a ball that you roll around with your right thumb. It is strange at first to have the mouse stationary and not move anywhere. But after a while it becomes second nature. Although I have a large monitor, with one or two flicks of the trackball, the cursor travels from one end to the other. With the other kind of mouse, you have to move your hand some distance to do so.


I am pleased, because my windows are full of tabs: Translation Office 3000, Microsoft Edge, and I added some tabs of my own with Groupy by Stardock and rolling the pointer with the thumb is much less tedious than pushing the mouse up and down and sideways, focusing in on small areas. Besides the trackball, the mouse comes with more features, which is nice. Let’s face it, those of us who translate full time have our hand on the mouse for hours, and we need to be as comfortable as possible. There are back and forward buttons for web browsing, a button to make the mouse move slower for centering on small spaces to click on, and it even comes with predefined movements with ubiquitous programs like Microsoft Office and Photoshop. It comes with a dongle, rechargeable batteries and a USB charging cord. You can even use it to move across the screens of two computers. All in all, it will be a comfortable and enjoyable mousing experience.


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