More scroll wheel uses

I've posted before how the scroll wheel on your mouse can be used to open browser links in a new tab, to scroll up and down Word, Excell or PowerPoint pages, or in conjunction with the Control key can zoom in and out of Word, PDF files, etc. Here's another function, perhaps slightly less useful - if you place your cursor on the Ribbon bar in Word or other Microsoft 2007 software, using the wheel will scroll across the various tabs (Home, Insert, View, etc).

The amazing scroll wheel

If you don't have a scroll wheel on your mouse, you are just limping along in your digital world. I've posted before how you can open a web browser link in a new tab by clicking on it with the scroll wheel, and delete a tab in your browser by scroll wheel clicking. I've just discovered you can also close a folder (whether open or minimised) by scroll wheel clicking on its task bar icon. That's so much faster than maximising the window and then closing it.
Inside many documents, you can zoom in or out on the contents by holding down the Control key and rolling the scroll wheel. This trick works for Word documents, pdf documents, even browser windows, and probably many others besides.

Power-up your mouse's scroll wheel

WizMouse is a tiny freeware 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 on it, you get a small dialog with a handful of basic options. I found the default settings to be perfect.

Scroll wheel clicking

Here's a little tip if you have a mouse with a scroll wheel (sorry, most Mac users). If you click on an internet link with the scroll wheel, rather than the left button, it opens the link in a new tab of your browser. This appears to work in Internet Explorer as well as Firefox.