I’ve been experiencing some weird mouse trouble with the new PowerMac lately. And no, I don’t mean being unable to find the right mouse button, though that is also puzzling. My problem was a little more frustrating.

Occasionally, when moving the mouse around, and especially when dragging, I would get “phantom” clicks. The mouse would suddenly click or let go of what I was dragging, even though I clearly hadn’t clicked. You can imagine how much trouble that caused when moving files around — they were suddenly dropped into some folder my mouse was moving over, but I had no idea which one!

Then inspiration hit me. My mouse was plugged into the keyboard hub, which was then plugged into an external USB hub, and that was plugged into the computer. Perhaps if I knew more about USB communication, I would have realized that was a bad idea, but I eventually got it. Plug the keyboard directly into the computer, and bam! No more problems. Weird, but I’m much happier now.