Tuesday, October 7, 2008
It's the tiniest things...
I had a customer ring me the other day in a mad panic. It was a local carnival and lots of extra people around so their small business was very busy. Very early in the morning one of her touch screen POS terminals had started misbehaving.
No matter what she did, the mouse cursor would not move from the bottom right hand corner of the screen. The very tip of the mouse arrow was peeking above the bottom edge, and after a fleeting attempt to break free from its bondage, it would scurry straight back to the same position.
The strange thing was this. When I plugged a USB mouse into the unit, the cursor was happy to roam around the desktop wherever I desired, but as soon as I used my finger, or a stylus, the arrow would duck for cover underneath the bottom edge and I would have to coax it back out with the mouse.
The last time a touch screen customer had a screen problem, I had to replace the LCD unit due to a dead board. This time however, it turned out to be a cheaper solution. A tiny seed had become lodged in between the touch screen surface and the plastic bezel that surrounds the screen. This was placing pressure on the touch surface, causing the mouse cursor to move to that spot. I cleaned the groove out, firstly with a business card, and then with a small paint brush, and the cursor was suddenly happy to recommence its old habits of following a finger across the surface.
Sometimes new technology can be halted by the tiniest thing.
No matter what she did, the mouse cursor would not move from the bottom right hand corner of the screen. The very tip of the mouse arrow was peeking above the bottom edge, and after a fleeting attempt to break free from its bondage, it would scurry straight back to the same position.
The strange thing was this. When I plugged a USB mouse into the unit, the cursor was happy to roam around the desktop wherever I desired, but as soon as I used my finger, or a stylus, the arrow would duck for cover underneath the bottom edge and I would have to coax it back out with the mouse.
The last time a touch screen customer had a screen problem, I had to replace the LCD unit due to a dead board. This time however, it turned out to be a cheaper solution. A tiny seed had become lodged in between the touch screen surface and the plastic bezel that surrounds the screen. This was placing pressure on the touch surface, causing the mouse cursor to move to that spot. I cleaned the groove out, firstly with a business card, and then with a small paint brush, and the cursor was suddenly happy to recommence its old habits of following a finger across the surface.
Sometimes new technology can be halted by the tiniest thing.
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