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Do you often find that moving the mouse cursor across the screen causes you
mouse to roll off your mouse pad? When you pick up the mouse and recenter
it on the mousepad, you are "rowing" your mouse. Most likely,
moving the cursor back to the other end of the screen will require
mouse rowing when run off the other side of the mouse pad.
Changing the sensitivity, or speed, of your mouse will allow full movement
about the screen without mouse rowing. However, this can cause problems when
you need to do small cursor moves. The mouse cursor will seem to jump when
you make the smallest mouse movement. The mouse will seem "twitchy" and
you may find it hard to accurately hit small targets.
This problem can be solved by using mouse acceleration. An accelerated mouse
responds differently depending on how fast you move it. Fast mouse movements
cause the cursor to move farther across the screen than an equal slow mouse
movement. You can set your mouse sensitivity low so that you get accurate response
to small slow mouse movements, but you can send the cursor flying across the
screen by making a quick flick of the mouse.
 The default configuration of Microsoft Windows is for an unaccelerated
mouse.
Changing to an acclerated mouse is easy. Open the 'Start' menu and choose the
'Settings' item to open that submenu and then choose the 'Control Panel' item
to open the Windows Control Panel. Find the 'Mouse' icon in the control panel
and double click on it to open the 'Mouse Properties' applet. Notice the row
of tabs across the top of the applet window and click on the 'Motion' tab.
If
you are using a standard Microsoft mouse driver, the applet window will look
like Figure 1. If you are using a mouse driver for some other brand of mouse,
including trackballs, the window may look different. There may be more tabs
or tabs with different names, but the concepts should be the same. You need
to find the tab which deals with motion settings.
The sensitivity of the mouse can be changed by the moving the 'Speed' slider.
When your mouse is accelerated, you may find that a lower speed is okay. The
lower the speed, the easier it will be to make fine movements of the mouse
cursor. The acceleration is set by choosing one of a set of radio buttons.
Higher acceleration means the mouse cursor will move farther when you make
a quick mouse movement.
If you click the 'Apply' button, any changes will be made effective, but the
applet window will stay open. You may wish to experiment with the speed and
acceleration settings to find the proper mix for your work. Once you have a
good setting, just click the 'Ok' button to exit the applet and then close
the control panel window.
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