Written by Simon Bailey

I use an ergonomic mouse (Evoluent VerticalMouse) which doesn’t function to it’s full potential on Mac OSX. I then discovered a USB driver called SteerMouse which recognises my mouse fine but comes with some extra functionality which proved to be both useful and time saviing (an alternative driver company is USBOverdrive).

In a nutshell there are configurable commands that can be triggered by any button on your mouse:

As an example, I have configured one button to run the command I have in Eclipse/IntelliJ that runs a Debug Build for my ActionScript/Flex project. I also have a button that runs the shortcut for auto filling in and submitting a login using 1Password (which is another awesome time saver). These are just a couple of simple examples of what is possible but essentially you can configure pretty much whatever you want for your mouse, sweet!

Whilst on the subject of time saving, I have recently switch to Alfred from Quick Silver. The reason for the switch is because I found the only real functionality I wanted was a quick application launcher or file finder and Quick Silver seemed to be overkill for this simple need (?more bloated). Alfred is simple, light weight, lightening quick and mega simple and I can totally recommend trying it, I have now uninstalled Quick Silver and am using Alfred 24/7. It is free but is still in Beta.