(no subject)

[dr_tectonic]

I think the left button on my trackball just died.

It's really hard to do anything on the computer when you can't left-click.

Update!
It looks like it's not actually broken, you just have to click very deliberately. So it probably needs cleaning. Yet Again. (Feh!)

Comments

[flwyd.livejournal.com]

I'm fond of "mouse keys," where your number pad acts as a surrogate mouse, allowing clicks from the computer. In fact, when I had my mouse at a different height than my keyboard, I tended to prefer mouse keys.

And if it makes you feel any better, I spent about a month without use of my space bar.

[navrins]

Yeah, well, back in my day, my whole KEYBOARD broke*!

While I was writing my THESIS!

On Christmas Eve, so all the stores were closed and I couldn't buy a new one!

Mind you, this was back before you could just go online and have a new keyboard emailed straight to your desktop...


* okay, my whole keyboard did break - it would just stop working randomly for no reason till I unplugged it and plugged it back in. Including in the middle of DAoC combat. The rest of the entry - pure hyperbole.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Have you tried dusting off the inside, esp. under the buttons? (I wish there were an input-device design which didn't seem to collect human hair and little bits of lint. I mean, really....)

[dpolicar]

Yeah. I find it's especially a problem for ears and eyes...

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Hee hee.

...And noses. And navels.

[dpolicar]

Navels as input devices?
Actually, never mind... I don't want to know.

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

I meant as in the sense of touch. ...what did *you* mean?

BTW- I read journal comments from gmail. Their three ads for this comment are a riot: petsupplyfactory.com, waggintails.com, and thehungrypuppy.com (pig ears- all natural).

Plug in a mouse?

[madbodger.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Just tried it, it doesn't seem to work. I was thinking you could use a random mouse just for clicking (work the trackball with your usual hand and click with the other). However, the computer seems to associate pointing devices with their own buttons (reasonable, I suppose, as each one seems to have its own notion of the current cursor position).

I do have a spare (Itak) trackball for just such emergencies, but I have to run it through an adaptor so I can plug it into a USB port.

Re: Plug in a mouse?

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

FWIW, Xwindows / linix (at least the version I'm using) seems to only have one pointer when two mice are plugged in, which can be controlled by the ps2 or USB mouse at the same time, so you can either play "fighting for the pointer" or click using the other hand. This might be somehow settings specific, at least under linux/unix.