Middle Mouse Button

   Most computer users do most of their clicking on the left side of the mouse. Many make good use of the right button too. But only a handful take advantage of the middle button.

   You might be thinking, "My mouse doesn't have a middle button, just a scrollwheel" But that wheel doubles as a button; try pressing it.(Admittedly, on a few older models the wheel really is just a wheel.) You can click and hold that button, and then move the mouse back and forth to scroll in a Web browser. If you want more versatility, though, check out the free X-Mouse Button Control, a utility that modifies mouse button behavior.

   True to its name, this free utility affords considerable control over your mouse's buttons. I'm going to focus solely on the middle one--but once you learn to tweak that, you should have no trouble modifying your mouse's other buttons. Once installed, X-Mouse intercepts clicks of any given button and performs a selected task. For example, you can program the middle button to go back a page in your browser; close the current window; cut or copy selected text; activate Windows 7's Flip 3D mode; lock your workstation; maximize the current window; and so on. My favorite use for the middle mouse button: double-click. In other words, instead of having to manually double-click a desktop icon to launch a program or open a document, I just middle-click it. Once you've made your selection from the drop-down list, simply click Apply to make it start working immediately.

   This is really a handy utility, almost on par with another useful tool, WizMouse.

WizMouse is a tiny free/donationware utility that has a single, simple, function--if you hover your mouse over an inactive window, and use the mouse scroll wheel, it will scroll that window while keeping it inactive. This can be a boon for anyone copying text manually from an inactive window to an active one, or who needs to see data in one window (perhaps one partially obscured) while reading or working in another. It even scrolls applications that don't offer mousewheel support by converting the wheel to clicks on the scroll bars. In other words, if you spin the wheel down, WizMouse will virtually click the "down arrow" for you. WizMouse has a very simple interface. Most of the time, it sits in your system tray as an icon; if you click it, you get a small dialog with a handful of basic options. I found the default settings to be perfect.

Source: pcworld.com