Bruce writes:

> The best mouse I've used is unfortunately not made any longer: the A+
>  Optical Mouse. It's also optical, but uses a special metal mouse pad
>  etched with grid lines. It glides on felt pads, making it just as smooth
>  as the Microsoft mouse, but without the tracking problems -- and without
>  the distracting bright red flash when it's bumped accidentally.

Let me second Bruce's comments. We too use two of these mice on our old
Macintosh Pluses. They're the best mouse design we've ever found. They've
been used so much that the "indestructable" metal pads that they came with
ten years ago have been worn by users' fingernails to the point that only
about 40% of the pads are still usable.

Nonetheless, they still work magnificently well. If they ever do get dirty,
it's only a matter of wiping off their lens surface.

And that brings up a second point about cheap PCs (and their supplies). We
used to invest in the very best standard roller-ball-type mice -- and as a
consequence, we spent a great deal of our time cleaning them, a process that
never seemed to work out as well as you would hope. Eventually, however, I
became smart enough to stop doing that. Instead, we now simply go down to the
nearby OfficeMax and buy a handful of disposable $19 mice and let them work
for as long as they do (for a year or so) -- and then just throw them away.
Life has been enormously simpler ever since.

Wirt Atmar