I have to say, there isn’t anything more frustrating when the tools you use to work, just won’t work. I can’t imagine if I was building a building and the crane I was using just wouldn’t budge. I guess those workers are being paid on the hour, and are probably getting paid regardless if it’s working or not. Bad analogy.

Anyhow, what I am getting at is a few gripes I have with some of my tools. Today’s culprits are The Mighty Mouse and Firefox. When I first got The Mighty Mouse I fell in love with it. The mini scrollball and the elegance of two buttons in one were both big hits with me. However, as time goes on, I am starting to fall out of love with this piece of hardware. Firefox, when I first got it, had me singing its praises to anyone who would listen, however this too is falling by the way side.

The Mighty Mouse has a few flaws. The first is the middle click, because the scroll ball is so small, a push down is also a roll forward. It’s difficult to push it down just right without making a conscience effort. Every time I am surfing in Firefox I middle click on a link, and it does that funky up down page scrolling thing. When I go to middle click close a tab, it often scrolls to the next tab over and closes that one. This is a flaw I have lived with, but still a nuisance.

The flaw that spurred me to write this post is again associated with the little scroll ball. This thing collects dust and randomly stop scrolling down or up. Remember the old Microsoft mice, before they went laser? You could take out the little ball and clean out the insides of the mouse if it wasn’t working right? Well this scroll ball does the same thing, but you can’t open it up. I scoured the internet and the solution is this: poor rubbing alcohol on a cloth, and then turn your mouse upside down and run the scroll ball over the rubbing alcohol (helps to do it with a vengeance). The first time I had to do this was nine months into using The Mighty Mouse, now I have to do it once a month. This is annoying. Can someone please make a pretty white mouse?

Firefox, oh once so near and dear to me. I used to be a PC user and Firefox ran smoothly. Now I am on a Mac and Firefox runs like shit. The problem is, I am addicted to the Live Bookmarks and the extensions I am running.

• Better Gmail 0.7
• Colorzilla 1.0
• del.icio.us Bookmarks 1.5.29
• Dummy Lipsum 1.2.0
• Firebug 1.05
• Gmail Notifier 0.6.0
• Google Browser Sync 1.3.2
• MeasureIt 0.3.6
• Tabbrowser Preferences 1.3.1.1
• Web Developer 1.1.3

I don’t think it’s a crazy amount, but who knows. These used to work fine on a PC.

Anyhow, I’m going to try to clean out my install of Firefox and see if a fresh copy will work better. As for the Mighty Mouse, I probably won’t change anytime soon, I can live with it.

Popularity: 12% [?]