I’m currently adjusting to a new mouse. Actually it’s not a mouse I haven’t used a certifiable mouse on my computer since, oh, 99? 2000? I prefer trackballs. And the bigger the ball the better baby. There’s a practical reason for this requirement - better control. Like the rest of me my hands are short and wide. Unlike the rest of me they’re sweaty as all hell. I have no idea why it’s always been this way but I usually attribute it to having spent a lot of my youth with my hands in clay. So I need a fairly good grip on things and feel like I get slightly more control with a larger trackball.

The volume of cuddly cats in the house combined with my sweaty palms dictates that the ball needs to be able to pop out of its holder to be cleaned several times a day. And preferably the trackball is optical as opposed to mechanical because that makes cleaning the cat hair a much simpler task than unwinding that insidious melon fur from around mechanical wheel bits.

These are just the basic requirements. I’m more picky about the various fits and functions for my trackball than my mother is about purses. Can’t fault women for knowing what they want can you?

I have to admit that the Trackman Marble f/x was this close to being perfect for me. I’ve been using it since I first learned about it in early 2000. We thought it was pretty damned expensive at the time but having survived perfectly until last year it was well worth it. The only thing it needed to be the perfect mouse for me would be a thumb-driven scrolly wheel and a fan built into the handbase to cool the sweaty palm. My only complaints have been the regular click and right-click buttons get sticky every few months and that logitech programs are much larger and memory-laden than they really need to be. So I usually just didn’t run them.

But alas others didn’t seem to appreciate the sheer size of trackman’s ball because they discontinued it pretty soon after and logitech hasn’t come up with a ball of comparable size since. So I’ve been relying on ebay sellers instead of having to compromise my need for the trackman marble fx.

Cody bought this kensington last week and it came in yesterday. After about five years of using one trackball on my system it’s taking a little adjustment. The hand position is slightly different but my wrist is actually more comfortable with the neat little wrist rest that hooks onto the bottom. I’m also not really used to using nifty little programmed buttons. I felt the logitech program that controlled it slowed things down a bit and I never could remember what I’d programmed the extra buttons to do anyway. Right now I’m getting used to using the two upper buttons around the ball for “back” and “forward” page browsing buttons. Once I’m used to those I’ll deal with the numeric ones at the top. I’m also adjusting to having a scrolly wheel on my mouse which is weird because I inevitably accidentally click the little fucker and pull up the stupid slow scrolling option.

The ball itself is actually bigger than mr trackman’s! But it’s not an optical and I can already see I’m going to need to find an easier way to clean the mechanical bits under the ball. And it makes it kind of ‘jump’ just a little bit or ’stick’ a little at a certain place which is annoying. But for the most part I’m pretty happy with it.

I haven’t ripped it out of the tower and plugged my good old trackman back in so that’s a good sign right?