On mice and me

OR

WHAT TO DO WHEN YOUR MOUSE IS JUMPY

I bought a new mouse a few months - almost a year - ago.

In this day and age I probably don't have to specify that I am not referring to a pet rodent; I will say, however, that it is NOT a cordless mouse, so if you are looking for advice on cordless mice, this is probably not the best place. You'd better move on. (But do come back for other pieces of trivia in the future. ;))

I am crazy about useful new gadgets, but I don't especially fancy the idea of wireless devices because I don't like the idea of being exposed to (even more!) unseen waves of all kinds without anyone really knowing what they do to us. Besides, when one of those high-tech devices malfunction, one feels even more helpless than usually. At least with wires you have something you can sink your teeth into, to use a particularly eerie metaphor.

My semi-new mouse is of the optical kind (I don't remember the name of the model, and I can't find the leaflet that came with it), with a nice long black tail (the wire) to suit its nice black body, and has been made by Logitech, as I had been told they are "the best". (I didn't have the time or the energy to probe in depth just what that means - they guy who sold it to me seemed a game maniac, and I am not, so I fleetingly wondered whether it would be appropriate for my needs - but I did research it on the internet when I got home, so I was reasonably reassured that it is indeed a good mouse.)

A week or so ago, I noticed the mouse was beginning to act erratically - much like a drunkard: snoozing at all the wrong times, and then suddenly jolting up and leaping across the screen, before starting dragging its feet again.

Logitech, as most other serious factories, do have a customer support service, of course.

But for some obscure reason - probably the same reason that makes me HATE asking for directions (it has nothing to do with personal "dignity", it's more about the fun of cracking the mystery on my own - but more on that some other time) - I tried everything before resorting to it.

So, here is what I did.

First, I made sure there was no "gunk" anywhere. But then, it's an optical mouse, so there is very little space for gunk, anyway.

Second, I checked the wire to see if there was a bad connection somewhere in there. The procedure was low-tech in the extreme: I felt the wire up and down while observing the behaviour of the pointer on the screen.

No, nothing changed.

Third, I unplugged it and then plugged it in again. (I did this a few times.)

No, that was not it.

Fourth, I checked on my Device Manager whether anything was hogging the RAM - even though this would not have been a satisfactory answer because it would open another question: why now? What had changed, considering I hadn't installed anything new? (Besides I have plenty of RAM.)

That train of thought led me to the most unpleasant thought: was there a virus, a trojan, something alien sucking the life blood out of my virtual brain?

So I ran the usual tests: Spybot S & D, PCPitstop, Kaspersky online test... you name it.

Nothing.

As relieved as I was, I was also getting increasingly befuddled.

So I went online and searched for other people discussing this very problem. Alas, they were all smartassing about the things I had already checked: gunk, faulty wires, viruses, trojans, dead batteries... Batteries?

At this point I discovered that logic and Logi-tech are not necessarily compatible, let alone synonymous. You may not believe this, but finding batteries for mice that actually require batteries is not always easy.

So, hoping there would be some other solution, that would not require shopping around (shopping for perfume is fun, shopping for batteries is not - not in my book, anyway) I finally decided to email the customer support service, detailing everything I had done and other particulars of the case.

A few hours later, the answer arrived: try putting a piece of white paper on the pad; or, if the pad is white, try cleaning it.

Huh...?

I decided to postpone my anger at this apparently non-sensical answer just long enough to try their proposed solution. I took a sheet of perfectly white paper (the ordinary, stationery kind) , folded it and placed it on my dusty-violet old pad. Upon which I placed my mouse on the pad and gave it a test spin...

It worked.

It worked!

So, if your mouse is being jumpy, you should still try and check everything of the above.

And in case it needs a new battery, just google for... well, "Logitech battery".

But first - just in case - place a simple piece of white paper on your pad.

(And don't forget to replace it when it gets dirty.)

I don't know if Logitech's mice really are "the best"; and on the forums I browsed through while searching for an answer, I've noticed some people complaining about their customer service.

But I must say, for me both worked very well.

P.S. If you want to give your newly light-fed mouse a fun test ride, here are two places you might enjoy:

Redjellyfish (click here) and Jigzone

OR you can go to the Freepoverty website - just click on the image in the sidebar (where I am bragging about the 1019 cups that I have donated ;)) - and exercise your well-fed mouse work for the benefit of water-thirsty people around the world.

It won't cost you a thing except a few minutes of your time - which will also benefit you because you will learn A LOT about geography!



EDIT (14.XII.2008)

Who knew that, contrary to what the people selling this stuff will tell you, even optical mice can be tickled crazy by fluff?

Well, this mice tamer did:

PAPER TRAIL

(For some obscure reason, just reading the post above scared my mouse - which was apparently hungover today - back into orderly behaviour.
I don't suppose my looking very sternly at it while wagging my finger had anything to do with it...)

Crazy ORZ - begone!

In the past few days, my Grisoft AVG started interrupting my work and browsing with alarming pop-ups saying "THREAT DETECTED!"

I immediately ran a full test scan (a long one), and was somewhat surprised that the test results showed no infection.
And yet the pop-ups continued to pester me... until today.

Because I never had any malware before - and because Grisoft is phasing out their wonderful free AVG program (updates will only be available until June 28) - at first I suspected that it was a cunning device by Grisoft to lure more paying customers. (Not nice of me, I know, I am very contrite.)

Then I ran one of my favourite (and regularly updated) applications: Spybot Search & Destroy.
Nothing.

Then I ran a full test at PC Pitstop (the OLD battery, I find it much better than the new Overdrive version)...

Aha!

There was no mention of any virus or malware on their list of programs and processes running on my PC - but there was an "unrecognised" program: ORZ.exe.

I ran a search to find out more about it.
It turned out to be a keylogger - a Trojan.

Aghh!

Not stopping to waste anger on my faithful daily "protectors" (AVG and S & D), I ran another search to find out how to remove it. A quick look at the various forums (I know: it should be fora, but this is not time to engage in dead-language speak, please!) showed that millions of computers have been affected by it since late May and (especially) early June - and the one thing that kept popping up was the supposed inability to remove it effectively.

There is nothing I enjoy more than a challenge - especially if I know I can win, relying on my own resources.

But it wasn't that difficult at all.
Here's what I did:

I used the Windows "search" function to find the EXE itself.
It was - as Orz is supposed to be - located in the Temp folder.
Obviously, I clicked on it and selected "delete".
It didn't work.

So I thought of renaming it - specifically, changing its extension.
I did: I changed it to BMP (don't ask why, it was the first one that came to mind).
And then, I tried to delete it again.
It didn't work. The file was reported to be "in use".
(It figures!)

So I renamed it again, this time to DOC.
Then I opened the newly created "document" and deleted everything in it (it wasn't actually readable, as you can imagine).
then I tried to delete it.
Again, it didn't work.

So I did what you should NOT do (unless you're a dreadnaught hothead fool like myself, obviously) and opened the register (prompt command REGEDIT). I searched for "ORZ.", found a few entries, carefully read their data (location ettc.), and deleted them.

Then I emptied the "bin" and ran another search on my PC, to find any other possible files with the name ORZ.*

There was the ORZ.doc (previously BMP) again!

So I did what I should have done many minutes earlier: I opened the Device Manager (hit CTRL + ALT and DEL at the same time) and checked the list of running processes...
There it was: ORZ.exe, as if I had never renamed it!
I terminated the process.
Then I tried deleting the renamed ORZ bugger - and this time, of course, it worked.

Then I emptied the trash again and ran another search to find any ORZ. files on my PC.

None were found.
And the AVG has been keeping quiet ever since, too: no more pop-ups, no more "threat detected".

I hope you find this rambling of some use.

And remember: if you're looking for advice on removing ORZ today but you only find this entry a week from now, thank Google snaily crawl for it...




IMPORTANT:

I am NOT recommending anyone to proceed as described in this entry. If you do so and something - anything - goes wrong, do not blame me.