Chaos Out of Order
Oct 29
Posted: under Anecdotes.
Tags: chaos, mouse pad, optical mouse
Yesterday I was working with our Customer Service Rep, Carla, on a new enhancement to our system when I noticed that her optical mouse was behaving rather erratically. She said it has been doing that a lot lately, so I began investigating the problem. I checked to connection at the back of the computer and it was securely plugged in. I wiggled the cord while holding the mouse still, but it made no erratic movements. It draws its power from the connection to the computer so it was not a weak battery issue.
Further manipulation of the mouse led me to notice that the problem seemed to occur when moving over certain areas on the mouse pad. I pulled the mouse pad out from under the mouse and used just the bare desk. The mouse behaved. I put the mouse back on the desk and moved the mouse across it and it still behaved. Then I noticed that I put the mouse pad in an orderly position, that is, the edge lined up parallel with the edge of the desk. But before I took it off the desk it was skewed about 20 degrees. So I put it back to a similar position, and the mouse became erratic again. I realigned the pad and the mouse behaved, skewed the pad and the problem came back.
I examined the graphic design on the pad (I had been ignoring it all along). The top two thirds contained a world atlas and the bottom had the company logo, name, and contact information of the vendor that sent the mouse pad as a promotional gift. The atlas image had the longitude and latitude grid. When the optical mouse crossed over the grid crossings it became confused by what appeared to be a sudden change in direction. So the orderly pattern on the skewed mouse pad created the disorderly response. Carla noted that the problem started after she got the new mouse pad. She has switched back to the old one.
Note to the vendor: Thanks anyway. We won’t hold it against you. It works just fine with mechanical mice. You had no way of knowing. Besides, we got a chuckle out of it.
Interestingly, the original optical mice required mouse pads with a grid pattern in order to work. Now it seems we should avoid grid patterns with modern optical mice.
Tracy Henness
