Evoluent VerticalMouse

What is going on with this computer mouse? It is Evoluent's Vertical mouse, that has been engineered to put the three buttons and scroll wheel on the side of the mouse. This way you break the rule of several decades of mouse makers that put the buttons on top of a mouse, forcing your hand to twist in a very unnatural manner.

As much as I like the concept of wireless mouses, the VerticalMouse happily has me re-adopting wired mouses. You may want to get a mouse pad with a wrist rest built into it, but be careful because this is an optical mouse so typical mousepads will not work.

The price? Well, you will invest about US$75.00 for this unit. Consider it a medical device to save you some pain, and the price is insignificant. I have an issue with charging an extra $30.00 for the left-handed version. Other mouses, simply have you click a setting button to reverse the right and left mouse click buttons. True, they have to manufacture them specially since it is a physical thing. Again, the medical device analogy kicks in. You cannot get repetitive stress injuries fixed for 100 bucks.

The software rocks, too, provided you are on Windows (the unit works with Linux is a limited fashion). A welcome middle-button becomes whatever you wish (defaults to a very useful double-click).