Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 06:52 PM

Yeah,

When we first installed Win95 (upgraded from Win 3.1 WFW) at work, everybody's PC was making wonderful 'whizz bang pop whoosh thud' sounds with virtually every mouse click to open/close files, etc. It was like living in a zoo or jungle...

I rapidly also discovered that when the sound files started to play, the whole damn PC (385/486 vintage boxes!) hung doing whatever it was supposed to be doing to play the sound before it would proceed. Disconnected almost all the sounds, and to this day, I have very few sound 'cute things' - just alerts for sounds (I have a nice female voice saying 'you have mail'!), no background image, (grey or slight off cream), no 'web folders' crap, etc. Even just have a standard style pointer, etc.

You can have too much of a good thing, and what is worse, when you change to a PC set up wildly different, your productivity drops enormously for a while...

'Standards' have their uses...

Robin

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 02:16 PM

You can usually choose from several "standard" icons, or "icon sets" inside the program/driver that controls a given device, although the usual settings there are just for pointer size. Windows lets you select from a variety of "desktop themes" that will change all your icons to "real cute stuff."

That's just one of the problems with figuring out "funny stuff that pops up," since you never know what options the person with the problem is using.

There are also lots of different mouse makers, conventional and trackball (and a few other variants) and each has its own variations on icons that come with the drivers. Sometimes a different screen resolution also will change the appearance quite a bit, if you stray too far from the "usual" settings.

I seldom see too many variants, since I've never found that the "real cute stuff" contributes to getting more work done - but it is there if you want it.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 08:29 AM

Maybe the trackball icon is slightly different form the mouse wheel icon. I though it sounded a bit like that.

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 03 Dec 04 - 07:37 AM

B&J -

It's real cool until the wheel switch picks up a little crud and your pages start to jump around when you DON'T want them too. I do use it, but rarely. Seems like I stay familiar with it more because it works when it shouldn't than from using it intentionally.

Of course, maybe it's just that my mouse doesn't digest the coffee spills and cookies crumbs it eats rolling around my (only slightly cluttered) workspace. I suppose a good (well fed) mouse deserves to retire after a dozen years or so, but...

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: Bev and Jerry
Date: 02 Dec 04 - 05:20 PM

John:

Thanks for the tip about the anchor. We've had a trackball with a wheel for more that two years and we never knew it would do that. That's very cool.

Bev and Jerry

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:46 PM

I can't swear to this, but I think I solved it.

Because two or three people above mentioned it might be connected with the mouse (or trackball in my case) I did what I suppose I should have done earlier: I removed the ball (real easy on mine) and looked in. Sure enough, the light sensors that "read" the ball's motion were surrounded with lint. I wiped it away.

As I say, I suspect this will fix my problem. I'll have to wait a few days to be sure.

Thanx, allabody, for your input.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 09:50 AM

The "eye" is black and white circle, with a center that is "eye-shaped", athat is, an upper convex curve and a lower convex curve.   No triangle.

I will try the site given above, for whatever it may be worth. I'll also try the resetting PnP thing, and also switch trackballs with my other computer, to see if the "eye" follows the trackball to the other computer.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 04:22 AM

Dave -

The "eyeball" you describe does sound somewhat like the "anchor" icon that appears when you click the wheel switch (press down on the wheel) on a "wheelmouse." It looks like a "fuzzy circle," with a "dot" in the center, a triangle pointing up above the dot, and a triangle pointing down below it.

The intended use is - you click the wheel to "place" the anchor, and then the screen scrolls when you move the mouse off the anchor. (Scrolling can be very, very, very fast this way.) You click the wheel again, or hit any key, to "erase" the anchor.

The "anchor" can be placed with some 3-button (or more button) mouse kinds using an assigned button and/or some "combination" of buttons.

If you have a "wheel" on a two-button mouse, a fault in the switch that senses a "wheel click" can turn on the anchor pretty randomly. It's also possible that a keyboard with a "sticky key" can supply the "bucky-bit" to make your computer think you've pressed a wheel when you click one of the other mouse buttons.

If you DON'T have a wheel on your mouse, you need to go to Control Panel and double-click on your Mouse and make sure that PnP has sensed your mouse as a "no-wheel" type. If you see a tab for setting what the wheel does, you've probably got the wrong mouse driver installed.

If you do have a wheel on your mouse, I'd suggest a thorough cleaning of the mouse, although it can be extremely difficult to get crud out of this switch on many of them. You could also try temporarily using a different keyboard to see if you're getting problems from a sticky key there.

A "hanging" switch, either in the mouse or in the keyboard could cause the disabling of keyboard and/or mouse functions, since the machine is waiting for you to "finish the click."

On the other hand, if this is a different kind of eyeball (bloodshot?, crying?, winking?) we'll need another SWAG.

John

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 03:35 AM

It could have been a worm or trojan or some other non-virus pest. But the opening eye symptom was part of it.

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: Bonnie Shaljean
Date: 01 Dec 04 - 03:33 AM

I heard of a virus with that symptom a year or so back. It might be an idea to go to f-secure.com and check. But it's pretty old so I'm sure there are fixit tools available The link is: http://www.f-secure.com/

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 08:31 PM

The "eye" appears wherever the cursor is at the moment I click. It does not become a substitute cursor, scrolling around, but stays there, and all the buttons and keys are inoperative. Sometimes the ESCAPE button will work and clear it, but not always. Usually I have to get out by Control-Alt-Del, and from the drop down menu that appears clearing the current operating program, Netscape or Paltalk.

I do not have a middle button on the trackball.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: Jeri
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 04:20 PM

Dave, you got a middle mouse button you might be hitting by accident? If something isn't screwed up, it may be your mouse or mouseware (is that a word?).

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: Bill D
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 04:04 PM

can you right click on the icon to see if you can read 'properties' about it?

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: GUEST,MCP
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 03:58 PM

Where does the 'eye' appear? If it's in the lower right corner it might indicate a variant of the Navidad virus, though if your Norton's up to date that seems unlikely.

Mick

Subject: RE: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 03:35 PM

"Eye" would add that Norton gives me a clean bill of health for viruses, and Ad-Aware shows no infestation from their point of view.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: Tech: Appearing 'eye' icon, keyboard locks
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 30 Nov 04 - 02:41 PM

I'm having repetitive trouble, which baffles me, even to the extent that I can't figure what support organization to speak to.

I'm on XP Pro, and using Netscape, if that makes a difference.

Increasingly lately, when I left click on screen I get a black and white icon which looks like a stylized eye. While it's there, no clicks or keystrokes are honored. Sometimes ESCAPE will remove it, temporarily, but even if it does go away, it will come back in just a little whille.

I get this using Netscape on Mudcat, for example, but also on Paltalk, where Netscape is not involved.

Sometimes completely closing down the computer and rebooting will take care of it, but it shows up later again.

Of course I don't know if it's my computer, my operating system, my trackball, or Netscape, so I don't even know what support number to call.

Anybody got experience or knowledge of something like this?

Dave Oesterreich