a couple of days ago my computer suddenly started acting strange - like it had a mind of its own.

i'd be dragging a window across the screen only to have the cursor suddenly lose its grip on the window. or, i'd try and move icons around and they wouldn't move at all - or they would if they were in a certain area.

i suspected that either the pc was infected or a piece of hardware was about to fail.

after pondering on the doom scenario of the pc dying i eventually thought i better swap the mouse for another. whilst doing that i noticed a thin white hair (must have been a dog hair) covering the lens on the underside of the mouse. i removed it and everything now works perfectly again.

maybe it was coincidence. it does seem a little odd that the hair was effecting mouse clicks but i shall just assume that somehow the camera information the lens picks up was going crazy and some how sent the mouse funny.

moral of the story: keep your mouse clean - even optical ones.

(i know of a util that is similar to what i'm about to describe but it doesn't have the same features. i can't remember the name of it at the moment.)

the general idea for this util is that it would make your desktop/screen larger than the physical output you see on your monitor.

so, if you have a monitor set to 800 x 600 resolution, the actual screen that the operating system is generating could be 1024 x 768 - you simply only see an 800 x 600 section of the larger output at any one time. as i said, i know there are utils that do this already.

the feature i'm suggesting is that the underlying larger screen would be 'draggable' in a similar way to how graphic editing software works with images that are zoomed in.

typically, graphic editing programs allow you to drag the image around the screen via a convenient key toggle. you simply hold down the 'spacebar' and then move the mouse cursor at the same time - this then moves the image in the same direction as the cursor.


what i'd like to be able to do is have a large working area that extends beyond the boundaries of my monitor. i could then arrange my open programs that i'm working with on this large working area - so that nothing overlaps - and then 'drag' the large area around when i needed to view a specific program.

you may suggest i use virtual desktops instead. i've tried but i never quite seem to get on with them. i think that having a large screen i could quickly drag or nudge back and forth would be more intuitive to use. it would require other features like 'reset to center' and 'jump to top' to make it practical but the 'draggable' idea is the important part - as it would be something instantly accessible.

to avoid conflicting with graphic editing programs that also use draggable operation the new util would have to work with certain conditions, maybe only drag if the cursor is over an empty desktop area.

i suspect that this would not be such a simple util to create because of the need to control the graphics card output.

perhaps there is something already out there that does this - any thoughts?