Well, that's what it seemed like at first...
Symptoms were that keystrokes were getting lost - i.e. I'd type a word, but some of the letters vanished into the ether, and the mouse pointer was erratic and not all of the clicks were recognized.
At first, thought it was just batteries getting tired.
I changed the batteries on the keyboard, which was no big deal, and on the mouse, which is a major hassle since I forgot that the batteries go in the top rather than the bottom. Why should this matter, you wonder? Well, the tabs on the plastic piece that keeps the mouse ball in place are broken, so I have to keep it in place with tape. The tape has to be carefully placed so as to not block the mouse hole. Removing the tape leaves sticky residue from the tape which must be removed or my hand sticks to the mouse and the mouse sticks to the mouse pad. As long as I had the ball out, I cleaned the rollers that track the mouse movement and tend to get gunky after a while. As usual, I forgot that after removing the batteries, a connection with the base must be reestablished, and this is accomplished by pressing a button on the bottom of the mouse - a button that ends up being covered by the tape that holds the mouse ball retainer in place, so I had to remove the tape and reapply it. At least after I did this, I thought to write a note to myself on the tape on the bottom of the mouse reminding me that to replace the batteries, I need only remove the top cover - not the tape.
Anyway, after doing all that, I still had the problem.
Turns out that the culprit wasn't the batteries, but the fact that I had placed my new Blackberry next to the wireless receiver and apparently, the Blackberry was creating interference. I have noticed this when someone sets their blackberry too close to a Polycom conference call unit - you end up with an annoying hum or buzzing.
Moving the Blackberry down one shelf on the stand solved the problem.
While it was a bit of a hassle, and I probably ended up throwing away a set of AAA batteries that weren't quite dead (I did save the AA's), at least I now have a clean mouse and fresh batteries in both the mouse and keyboard. As long as I don't forget and end up placing the Blackberry next to the receiver again, I should have a trouble free keyboard and mouse for a while now.
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Posted by David at February 15, 2008 05:41 PM