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A friend has sent you a link to the following article: http://pixobebo.com/index.php/pixonomy/articles/32/ My mouse pad died. Wherever old mouse pads go when they stop doing their job, mine went there. I’ve had my smiley face mouse pad for four or five years and it was showing it’s age with spastic, sporadic, almost arthritic like convulsions when tracking the mouse pointer across my Mac’s screen. I buried the old pad and went to search for another. It’s Personal Mouse pads are a reflection of a Mac user’s personality. Mine was a smiley face pad, with some kind of soft nylon on top, and a spongy backing material to keep the pad in place. My pad’s aging problems were evident on both top and bottom. The top had frayed so my Mac’s Mighty Mouse would no longer track straight or smoothly. The bottom had worn so smooth that as I moused on screen, the mouse pad kept moving away from my hand. Time for a new mouse pad, right? First, just to check to make sure that the tracking problem belonged to the pad and not the mouse, I taped a piece of paper to my desk. It’s the ultimate skinflint’s mouse pad. Mighty Mouse was back to normal. In An Age Of Change Time for a new mouse pad, right? Do you have any idea how many kinds of mouse pads there are in the universe? How do you know which one is good and which is not? After all, I got almost five years out of the last ones—at a mere $1.99 each. After stomping through various online and neighborhood stores, I set my criteria, did some research, found a few pads to test, and settled on something different. The Wow! Pad. All I can say is Wow! The Wow!, like any other kind of mouse pad, Mac or Windows, comes in a variety of shapes, colors, sizes. What I wanted was a smoother top surface not prone to fraying or pitting, and a stickier backing that wouldn’t begin to drift away from my frequently furious and frenzied mousing habits. For $7.99, easily the most expensive mouse pad I’ve ever owned, I got a circular, mostly translucent, ultra thin pad with a very smooth and fast surface, a mildly sticky non-moving backing, and thinnovation. It’s thin. Made from a single ply of PVC. So thin only your mouse will know it’s there. Clean with soapy water. Patented renewable non-slip bottom. No absorbent. Precision tracking. Out with the old, in with the new. Out with the bad habit of grabbing the mouse pad and pulling it back toward me, in with the new habit of trying to control my Mac’s mouse pointer’s new ability to scurry across the screen. This is one fast mouse pad. In other words, it took a little getting used to. Something new, and something different usually takes a few adjustments and a little time. Two things happened. I actually had to slow down my Mac’s mouse tracking. The Wow! Pad’s surface is smooth, which means the mouse scurries across the top of the pad. My mouse handling habit needed adjustment. The Past and the Present The old pad slipped and slid across the desk as I used it, so much so that every couple of minutes I’d pause and pull it back toward the keyboard. It had become an unconscious effort. With the new pad securely in place, I found that every few minutes I was pulling it back toward me, but it hadn’t gone anywhere. After a few days of use I can honestly say that the Wow! Pad is the best mouse pad I’ve every had. The slow decay and degeneration of the previous pad had begun to interfere with good mousing habits so I had to learn not to fight, but to take control again. Wow! Pad details and background are available online, and it can be purchased at The Mac360 Store (it’s really Amazon), highlighted by the round image next to the MacBook Air. I’m impressed with how much difference there is between a really good mouse pad experience and dealing with an aging, senile, fraying pad that couldn’t remember to stay put. Update Reader ‘Dave’ says he likes the Pro|Solutions Pro|Pad on Razer. $30. Ouch! From Dave: I’m not affiliated with them - I’m just a software developer who spends way too much time in front of his Mac, and appreciates a decent mousing surface Outside of my experience with the Wow! Pad, the Pro|Pad is the only mouse pad I know of with customer testimonials, a photo gallery, and technical specifications. I found the Razer Destructor Gaming Mouse Pad on the Mac360 Store. $39 is serious money for a mouse pad, no?