Dude, Where’s My Mouse?

Monitor size is increasing, and so is the amount of stuff displayed on the monitor at any given time. With all that cluttered space, I often lose track of my mouse pointer and end up flailing the mouse around wildly until I happen to catch sight of the little arrow flying through my peripheral vision. Frustrating, but easily solvable with a handy little application from 2Point5Fish.com called Mouse Locator.

The function is simple, but valuable. After installing Mouse Locator, press a key combination chosen in the preferences (the default is Control-Space), and a huge, easy to spot, green circle flashes on the screen to show you where the pointer is hiding.

You can set the indicator to be on all the time, or just when you press the keystroke. Another option is to set it so that the first time you move the mouse after it has been stationary for a pre-determined amount of time, the circle shows up automatically. Very useful when sitting back down at the computer after a coffee break!

The preferences can be changed at any time through an icon in the System Preferences window that appears when you install Mouse Locator. If you decide you don’t like the pre-set green circle locator, 2Point5Fish even gives instructions on how to replace it with a different cursor from their site, or one of your own design.