I’m a Mac convert. I have been working with Windows since 2003, and was always the Windows guy blah blah blah. Until I started using Linux more and more for my previous job and reluctantly signing up for an iPhone, that is. So I bought a MacBook Pro about 3 months ago, and now I’m all about the Mac. They are the bomb diggidy. I love it. It rocks my socks.

Except for this one little problem… I love the MacBook’s trackpad, I really do, it’s bloody amazing… But occassionally I have the urge to use a REAL mouse (such as those epic moments where I want to run CounterStrike virtually using VMWare Fusion)…

Here’s the kicker. I love Microsoft mice. Therein lies a rather odd combination of hardware, a MacBook with a Microsoft mouse… One would think, that it’s just a regular mouse, and you can plug it in and away you go. Sure. You can do that… But… Not without a world of pain. Seriously, I totally turned off the idea of plugging in a mouse and using it, when I realised that I have to literally push the mouse from one side of the dinner table to the other, just to move across half the screen!!! The response to moving the mouse and what happens on screen is just ridiculous!!!

Until now… So I got fed up with it and decided to Google the issue. Low and behold, I’m not the only one. Turns out it’s a problem with Microsoft mice, and it can be fixed.

So I went off to Microsoft’s website, and headed to the mouse and keyboard section, and proceeded to download IntelliPoint for MacOSX 10.4-10.6 (http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/download/download.aspx?category=MK&type=Mouse&sku=BX4-00003). Installation was simple, just your normal next next next next… The restart.

After restarting, it didn’t seem to do anything. So I headed to System Preferences and noticed the Microsoft Mouse icon at the bottom. Under the Pointer Options tab, I ticked “IntelliPoint pointer speed” and wound it allllll the way up. Low and behold, my mouse is working like a REAL mouse again. Thank you Microsoft, I guess…