The mouse is a terrible way to control a cursor on your personal computer screen. It takes your hands away from the keyboard, where your fingers are most needed; it is always running off the edge of the pad, forcing you to pick it up and move it back in place; and it is ergonomically incorrect, raising the possibility of wrist injury.
As proof of my point, look at how many alternatives the computer industry is devising: trackballs, pointing sticks, trackpads and even an emerging category of speech-control software.
Software designers are as much to blame as PC manufacturers for the mouse mess. Programs keep getting more and more mouse-centric, making it difficult if not impossible to control your PC completely from the keyboard, as was easily doable in the days before Microsoft Windows.
If you’re sick of mice, take a look at the nifty new Logitech Internet Keyboard.
This $39 keyboard for Windows PCs offers 17 extra buttons for controlling Web browsers.
Buttons on the right side of the keyboard, such as “forward,” “back,” “stop,” “refresh” and “print,” let you perform these common browser functions without using the mouse. Best of all is a rocker switch for scrolling up and down through large Web pages, sparing you from moving the cursor to click on the tiny up and down arrows at the top and bottom of on-screen scroll bars.
The Internet Keyboard works with any current flavor of Windows–95, 98 or NT–and both of the major browsers: Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, which is part of the Netscape Communicator package. And the keyboard includes plugs compatible with PCs using either the newer PS-2-style keyboard port or the older AT style.
For more information, go to the company’s Web site (logitech.com).
My only regret is that the Internet Keyboard can’t completely eliminate the need for a mouse during Web surfing. That’s not Logitech’s fault; the way Web pages are designed, there are many tasks–such as clicking on a link–that take much longer with the keyboard than pointing and clicking with the mouse.
