World: r3wp

My Logitech optical mouse pointer is getting harder and harder to 
control. It will be working smoothly and then for no obvious reason 
will stick to a certain spot for a moment and then jump ahead. Also, 
sometimes it will not work after starting the computer. Does anyone 
know what might be wrong?

Tried cleaning the sensor?

USB or serial? With USB mouses, other peripherals (like modems) on 
same hub may slowdown or stop mouse interaction. Putting the mouse 
on another port usually fix the problem.

Sunanda, I tried cleaning just now, but the problem remains.


Vincent, it is a usb mouse.  That may be the problem, as I have a 
WIFI USB modem running also.

In addition to the problem already discribed, the pointer will sometime 
start quivering and moving across the screen on its own power.  Distracting.

Mine did that too. My newer (wireless) MS mouse will sometimes go 
to sleep and need a shake to wake up, but no jitter like the Logitech 
did.

I've had a number of Logitech mice do that to me.  Seems M$ doesn't 
like Logitech's drivers sometimes.  I removed the Logitech drivers 
and just used the generic wheel mouse drivers and that problem went 
away.

One of the mice was plugged into a KVM Switch and would randomly 
decide to freak out on me like that when I would change ports on 
the switch.  It even freaked out under Linux but that's no problem, 
you grab a console and type 'kudzu' and the problem went away...

Ammon, how did you remove the Logitech drivers.  I can't seem to 
get my to go away.

Stoping the WIFI modem does not help, so the drivers seem to be my 
last hope.

Logitech usually has software with its driver which if you uninstall 
should also remove the drivers.

Of course.  That pointer jumping all over the screen was causing 
me to forget everthing else.  Anyway, uninstalling those drivers 
seems to have solved the problem.  Thanks, Ammon!

NP

Louis, I have the same problem with a USB MS laser mouse. It quivers, 
goes for a run, and sometimes jumps all over the screen, usually 
after I wake it up.

But that's just because you haven't had your morning coffee yet. 
 I get that same effect from all mice right after I wake up. ;~>

You mean the mice needs coffee?!

No, one who drinks enough always has a jittery hand in the morning. 
;~>

All Optical mouses can jump sometimes. It's due to the surface where 
you move it : reflexion or refraction cause parasite in the optical 
sensor. Using a non reflective surface is usually better.

though clear glass doesn't seem to work very well ...

Anyone tried an optical mouse on a mirror?

LOL

I tried, but I grabbed the wrong one.

Ouch!

I've got a glass top computer desk ... and I have to be sure I put 
the optical mouse on the non glass surfaces if I want it to move

Graham  some years ago the first optical mouse I saw was gived as 
serial for sun mircosystem workstation. Sun was providing with tose 
optical mouse a mouse carpet (don't know if the term is the right 
one) with a metal cover but this metal cover was not uniform it was 
more like a grid. This show that the optical sensor to detect movement 
need to have unperfect reflection (on other optical technology like 
micrisift one engeneers have thinked that the surface must be omogenus 
so they make flash the lazer diode. In sun technology the lazer diode 
of the optical mouse was continous and that's why you will need a 
special surface to make it working ).

micrisift = microsoft ;)

The early optical mice I saw used special mice mats with grids printed 
on them

graham: I actually have one of those for my old Amiga. The mat was 
not in good shape when I got it so I scanned the pattern and printed 
it again on a sheet of paper. unfortunately the pattern was a bit 
too high resolution for the old 300 dpi laser printer, so the mouse 
got slow, but it was still quite reliable.

Yeah, Dale Luck sold a balless mouse.

I recently bought a bunch of wireless optical mice from Microsoft. 
 They make better hardware than software (or better said, they buy 
better hardware to resell than software).

I like it a lot, it is the travel moouse.  Actaully very well designed.

It's true, untill you install the software than come with the mouse. 
Intllipoint is a huge soft for so few functionnality and can causes 
some crash.

I mean "so few USEFULL Functionnalities..."

R: I agree, the Microsoft mice are pretty good.  Very comfortable. 
 D: I assumed that, and haven't installed their software :^)

they are eating into Logitech's share.

having said that, I came across a 'joystick' mouse from 3M.. that 
claims to be less stressful. Have anyone tried that?

I am contemplating the horrors of setting up a dual-boot system (XP 
and I thought I'd try 'Breezy Badger') on a new (almost -- I've been 
procrastinating for months) hard drive.  Any advice?

On the face of it, it looks as if I need a primary partition for 
each OS and an extended partition for my data (which I'll break into 
two or three NTFS logical drives).  But what to do first?  Should 
I set up these partitions, then run the installs, or run each install 
hoping they do it for me?

My new hard drive is set to slave on the same controller as my current 
hard drive, so I can format and partition while using my current 
XP install.

Chris:maybe get a trial version of VMware and then try different 
distros till you find 1 you like and then set up an ext3 or the newer 
reiser  fs(spelling ? )

Yep, I probably should have done that, but curiousity in hype and 
fads led me to try Ubuntu.

Actually, I'm surprised at the success I had.  Probably should log 
it somewhere.  I switched my drives' master/slave positions.  Ran 
XP setup first into a preset NTFS partition.  Then ran the Ubuntu 
setup, slicing up the remainder of the disk.  The most useful side 
effect is that GRUB lets me boot not only to XP and Ubuntu, but also 
my existing XP setup on the now slave drive (meaning no rush to get 
my new XP setup finetuned -- never a trivial task).

The only drawback (this is noted in the Linux group) is that AltME 
doesn't appear to work on 'Breezy Badger'.

But not noted in AltME group...

Chris:that is why I use Mandriva for a Linux distro,never had any 
problems installing View or Altme

manual resync...

What is presently the smallest computer that will run rebol view?

VMWare is now free

Louis, do you mean physically, or in terms of resources?

Brian, I mean physically, like little and light weight. :>)

There are some cell phones that could run the WinCE Core, some embedded 
servers that could probably run one of the Linux builds...