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mouse



Rob Ransbottom wrote:
> 
> Having looked at pointers at my local Staples, I'm leaning toward
> a Logitech marble trackman trackball.  The line Jerry is referring to.
> They are designed to fit a right hand with the ball falling under the thumb.
> 
> There are currently three versions mass marketed:
> Two button + wheel.
> Two button + wheel cordless.
> Three button + wheel.
> 
> The cordless has some appeal if one can use it inverted cupped in the hand.
> But I don't like the idea of batteries failing in the midst of some effort.

I have two Logitech Marble trackballs: one with three buttons and no
wheel (an older model), and the cordless one. I love them; smooth,
reliable, and low-maintenance. Despite the claims, you do need to clean
them once in a while; after a lot of use, the tiny fixed-position Teflon
balls that the big ball rolls against get dirty, and the ball doesn't
roll as freely as it should. But that's something you'll do only a few
times a year; exactly how often depends on how much you use it, and how
dirty your thumb is.

Clicking the wheel of the cordless stands in for a third button, though
I don't find it quite as convenient as a real button. The wheel works
nicely with Linux and X. Not being tethered is fun, especially if you
want to lean back in your lounge chair and surf the Web. The cordless
range is 5 feet or so.

The battery in the cordless trackball lasts for months, so at least the
failure problem doesn't hit very often. And you get some warning; the
range of the cordless trackball gradually falls off as the battery nears
the end of its life. If you're paranoid, just keep a spare near the
computer.

The Logitech product I've been waiting for is a cordless keyboard with
built-in Marble trackball - preferably with enhanced range so it will
work from 15-20 feet away. I want this for my digital convergence system
- the one with the DVD player, the video capture board, and the HDTV
tuner in it (and one of those new DVD-R drives when I can afford it) -
so I can operate it from the sofa. (The infrared keyboards that other
companies offer don't work for me in this application - with the
keyboard on my lap, it may not have a clear sightline to an IR
receiver.) I even tried to suggest it to them on their website, but
there is no obvious place for product suggestions.
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