Quite a few years ago I worked on Sun workstations with optical mice that needed to be operated on special
mouse pads with reflective grids on them. The thing I remember about those mice is that they worked extremely
well and never got gummed up like ball mice seem to. Optical mice have come a long way since then.
Although my Thinkpad has a trackpoint built in and it is great for most work, when I'm playing games it makes for pretty sore fingers. The Logitech Wheel Mouse Optical seemed like a good solution to this problem. Mine is bright red, gives off a cool glow when it is on, and works great on any surface (one of the distinct benefits of optical mice.)
Getting the scroller to work meant replacing the MOUSE2.SYS driver that makes the extra buttons on the trackpoint work, with the standard scrolling MOUSE.SYS driver. I could have set up an extra boot menu option to select which mouse driver to use, but it isn't didn't seem to be worth the effort.
This mouse supports both Windows or Mac and there is a CD of mouse software for those OS' that comes with it. If you have a PS/2 connector on your PC, there is a USB to PS/2 adaptor in the box.
One major plus is that it doesn't need to have a flat surface like ball mice do. I'm operating it on my couch right now, and it doesn't make one whit of difference. It works great on carpet too. I have found that the mouse gets somewhat unresponsive and jerky if you attempt to use it on a shiny surface such as a coffee table.
The feel of the mouse is good, it fits my hand nicely, isn't too heavy or light, needs a minimal effort to press the buttons while still offering good audible feedback, the scroll wheel also works as a third mouse button, but it requires quite a good push to get it so you won't be clicking it accidentally all the time when you want to scroll.
This article is courtesy of www.os2ezine.com. You can view it online at http://www.os2ezine.com/20011116/page_2.html.