Anyone remember mouse mats?
A mate of mine phoned up to ask where to buy a new mouse mat, nothing special, just a basic mouse mat, and I ran off a few obvious places (the computer shop in town, Tescos, Asda, etc), and he'd tried most of the places I mentioned, but said they no longer sold them. So I tried in my works dinner hour, no joy, then a few days later I went all over town, and found that Tesco did do them, but only the print-your-own-photo-on-the-mat £10 ones, and the local computer shop had some basic ones for a fiver, but hadn't sold one in ages.
Turns out that almost nowhere sells mouse mats anymore, when a few years back they were everywhere. Granted you don't really need one, with optical mice being such high quality now, but I always use a mouse mat for my desktop and laptop ((one has my fat moggy's photo on it, the other has Perfect Dark artwork). So are mouse mats going the way of the Dodo, or has Mouse-Mats-R-US opened up without telling me, and destroyed the market for everyone else? Or maybe they're all invisible now (made of a revolutionary new material), and good looking, really intelligent people (like me, ahem!) can't see them. Yep, that'll be it. ;)
Turns out that almost nowhere sells mouse mats anymore, when a few years back they were everywhere. Granted you don't really need one, with optical mice being such high quality now, but I always use a mouse mat for my desktop and laptop ((one has my fat moggy's photo on it, the other has Perfect Dark artwork). So are mouse mats going the way of the Dodo, or has Mouse-Mats-R-US opened up without telling me, and destroyed the market for everyone else? Or maybe they're all invisible now (made of a revolutionary new material), and good looking, really intelligent people (like me, ahem!) can't see them. Yep, that'll be it. ;)
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Why do people waste time by pointlessly running around town?
Why do people even use mouse mats anymore? Mice these days work better without them...
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The last mouse mat I bought was with a Lion King image on it, flexible plastic coated and lasted for years until a mate sat on the mat and somehow folded it, the plastic cracked along the middle.
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I have one of those laptop desks (best life upgrade ever), and I covered the mouse flap with thin spongey foam so the mouse doesn't slip off when I have it at an angle on my knees.
SevenFFF / Threetwosevensixseven / colonel32
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Usually have to get a piece of paper to run the mouse over, but that keeps slipping, so I have to wedge one side under the feet of the laptop to keep it still, which leaves a rather small area to work on.
What I really need is a mouse mat...! :P
My desk at work is polished wood, and the surface has a very faint natural pattern of horizontal lines. Because it's natural, the lines aren't perfectly parallel or uniform. Using an optical mouse on that sees the pointer skip and stutter all over the place. All the desks are the same and we all use mouse mats. :)
I've also got a Football Manager 2011 one lying around as backup.
At work I use a trackball, so no mousemat.
That sounds like a line from a bad American sitcom! You've been living over there for too long, mate.
Some people prefer shopping manually, or like to see what they're buying, I suppose. Myself I don't care unless it's something that might arrived damaged (a PC part, a movie DVD, a TV, etc) in which case I'd rather buy it from a local shop (but not the one in Royston Vasey! $-) ) so I can take it back quickly if it's broken or the wrong item, though then you have to take into consideration the money saved by buying it online, if it's a fairly expensive item.
Social inertia, maybe. Or maybe non-techy people often don't know that modern mice mostly don't need a flat, consistent surface. Mind you, you almost never see a screen-saver any more, so maybe mouse mats will one day be considered unnecessary too.
I've always wanted a good trackball, but every one I've tried since the year began with '20' has been too sensitive even after setting the mouse options in Windows and the games. A good one that slotted in to the side of a laptop would be great for games (well, as good as gaming on a laptop can be without using an external keyboard and mouse, or a joypad) or using MS Office when commuting to work. These did exist on some 486 laptops in the 90s, but I've never seen them on anything more modern.
SevenFFF / Threetwosevensixseven / colonel32
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Maybe they're happier shopping somewhere that doesn't exploit their workers?
SevenFFF / Threetwosevensixseven / colonel32
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Ha I thought that was a laptop for a minute. That would be the ultimate anti-hipster thing - going into Starbucks with a beatup old 90s Thinkpad, and apparently using your top-of-the-range MacBook as a mouse mat.
OR...
Maybe it would actually be peak hipster. I'm so confused...
SevenFFF / Threetwosevensixseven / colonel32
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Like with Nazis (I live in Charlottesville btw - our new slogan is "Charlottesville - More Than Just Nazis").
SevenFFF / Threetwosevensixseven / colonel32
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My old job involved purchasing office stationery so I tended to pick up 'spare' stuff for my own use anyway. I can't remember ever buying one.