For the curious, the name of this blog comes from something my Grandmother used to say.
I'd ask "Nanny, what's for supper?" and she would often reply, "oh I don't know, maybe fried farts and vinegar." It seemed like a pretty random and curious combination of things.
I hope this blog will live up to those standards...

Monday, August 17, 2009

Not so Mighty Mouse


As any Mac owner knows, Apple makes some of the best hardware out there but even Apple gear has problems occasionally. Behold the Mighty Mouse! This otherwise excellent mouse has a tiny little scroll nub that is probably the best and worst designed scroll wheel I have ever used. It is small, it is placed exactly where you want it, it scrolls in all directions and most of the time it just works. Until it doesn't. Today it didn't.


This is a fairly common problem from what I am hearing. Seems dirt eventually gets in around that tiny little rubber ball and gums up the works. Thankfully there is a really simple and inexpensive fix and it restores this mouse to "like-new" functionality.

You need:
Rubbing Alcohol, cotton swabs, a sheet of clean paper and a hard surface

  1. Unplug your Mighty Mouse.
  2. Dip the swab in the alcohol
  3. Soak that little rubber ball with alcohol using the swab to roll it around. Get it good and wet.
  4. Lay the piece of paper on a smooth hard surface
  5. Turn your mouse upside down on the paper & apply pressure so that the scroll ball pushes in.
  6. Roll it around for a while on the paper. Really give it a good roll in all directions.

That's it. Your Mighty Mouse should be scrolling again! If not, you may still have some dirt in there. Just repeat the above steps.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm going to try this right now! Mine still doesn't work properly. I'll let you know how it goes, thanks for the tip.

Anonymous said...

OMG.... it works like a new one! Plus since I had the alcohol out, I got a kleenex out and cleaned the whole surface of the mouse, now it is shining too!

Dale McKie said...

Glad to hear it worked for you too! I also used the alcohol to clean the surface of the mouse and it works great on Apple's white keyboards!