During the holidays I watched several movies on my laptop by dowloading them from Netflix. I would get so engrossed in the movie that I would forget to jiggle my mouse, and the next thing thing I knew the screen was dark. Of course, as soon as I jiggled the mouse, the movie was again visible but it would take a second or two and sometimes I missed seeing something, especially in the thrillers.

This also happens to me when I’m giving a PowerPoint presentation. Most of the time, I’m moving the mouse at regular intervals as I advance the slides. But every once in a while, a good discussion will start and suddenly the screen is dark. You know this has happened because everyone stops looking at you and glances toward the screen.

And yes, I know I can disconnect this feature, but I don’t actually want it disconnected all the time, just sometimes.

I recently learned of a cool way to fix this. Mouse Jiggler is a tiny, handy utility whose sole purpose in life is to jiggle the mouse cursor for you, so that the screensaver doesn’t kick in. It also has a feature called “Zen jiggle.” I love that name!

Anyway, its purpose is to jiggle the mouse “invisibly” so that your computer thinks the mouse is moving without the cursor actually having to move.

Check it out at http://mousejiggler.codeplex.com/.