Teksoft BlueMouse 1.2 Review
Pretty novel idea I thought, using a mouse with my axim x51, and something I really wanted to try out. Not to mention the fact that it saves the cost of screen protectors. Now BlueMouse has been around for a while so I’m assuming quite a few people have tried out the earlier versions and either liked it or not. This latest revision has added in support for a lot more devices from major mouse manufacturers, so a mouse you tried before may be compatible with BlueMouse now, and worth another try.
Now claims in the original email I got about BlueMouse stated,
“And the good news is that starting with version 1.2, the Bluetooth keyboards are also compatible with BlueMouse!
Now you can use your Bluetooth Mouse and your Bluetooth Keyboard with your Pocket PC at the same time.”
And that struck me as a big claim, two Bluetooth devices connected to my device at once, really got to have a look at that, but I don’t have a BT keyboard, more about that later.
Install and Manual
Teksoft have 3 installation methods for BlueMouse, PC and PPC installer and of course cab install. I tried the desktop install and it was easy, then uninstalled to try the PPC installer to see if it was any different. Of course this worked fine as well, and launches you straight into the manual, getting started guide. One thing to note here is that once installed, BlueMouse runs at startup and offers you a quick start Icon in the system tray.
For the purposes of this review I bought a $40 AU generic mini bluetooth mouse, branded Porto. Made in China and amusingly, a manual in English and Russian.
The procedure for setting up the program is incredibly straightforward; firstly pair the mouse with your device through the WM Btmanager, select input device in pairing process,
then using the quick start Icon open BlueMouse and tap on connect.
Once this initial process is complete it is as easy as, turn on device, turn on BT, turn on mouse and you’re connected and ready to roll. Another thing to mention is the great help file/manual that comes with BlueMouse well written with plenty of screenshots, really a step-by-step guide for the setup. You can have a look at it
Here.
Configuration
Just like your PC mouse, BlueMouse allows you to customize speed of cursor movement, includes 10 different cursors, some novelty like a lightning bolt, and lets you assign mouse button functions.
Cursor speed is a really important adjustment, the faster the speed the less real estate you have to cover to move the mouse from one edge of the screen to the other. This frees you from a desk or any other large flat surface, enabling you to use the top of your leg whilst seated for a mouse pad. Button assignment is also a great inclusion; let’s face it a right click on the PC is useful, on the axim it does squat. Logically I was able to assign “Tap and Hold” to the right mouse button. You can even assign buttons to .exe files to start up your most frequently used programs, soft reset, suspend, rotate screen, show desktop and switch tasks.
Now what about the keyboard and mouse working together, as I mentioned earlier I don’t own a BT keyboard so how could I demonstrate something similar. Blue tooth dial up networking, is my main way of surfing the net with my axim and I thought if that worked whilst using BlueMouse, it was a fairly good example of two BT devices connected and functioning on one device. I am using a Nokia 6288 for this; needless to say Teksofts claims were well founded.
So what do I really think?
This program fits my criteria for a good app, it does one thing and it does it well. I never thought I’d have a mouse for my axim and now I’m enamored with this little curiosity. There are still some glitches, the cursor leaves little reminders of itself on the screen sometimes (evidenced in some of the screenshots) and lots of programs for WM do not include mouse wheel scrolling functionality. These issues are being addressed, and evidence of that can be seen in
Teksoftcos user forums. All in all I’d recommend that you at least give it a go, because it’ll only get better, and you’ll never have to buy screen protectors again.
BlueMouse is compatible with Pocket PC with Microsoft Bluetooth Stack / WM5.0 and WM6.0
BT Mouse and Keyboard compatible
Supported Screen Size
: 240x240, 320x320, 480x480, QVGA (320x240), VGA (640x480) and retails for Euro 14.95.
Thanks to Raul Tinca for supplying the software
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