How to Make a Glass Desk Mouse Friendly

Ever since Ikea made glass desks really affordable, they have been popping around everywhere. We bet that you know quite a few people who have glass desks. Do they like them much? One thing is for sure, if you are using a glass desk as you computer desk, you may hit a problem or two when you try activating your mouse. Modern optical mice work almost anywhere. It’s kind of strange to realize that they don’t work on glass.

The thing is that glass desks look so good. Even though they are magnets for fingerprints, they look incredibly good, especially if they have the latest computers sitting on them. So there is no real way of avoiding this problem. It’s going to come up sooner or later. The problem can be easily resolved by simply using a mouse pad, but you know that mouse pads are so cliché, so maybe there is another way of making an optical mouse work on glass. This clean and surprising way to resolve this issue involves a cheap roll of automotive window tint.

With a $10 5% tint, which is less reflective than other tints in the auto parts store, you can easily customize your own mousepad on a glass desk. You have to cut out the section that you want to cover and then you’ll have a surface on which your optical mouse will work. The window tint can be cut into any shape or form and then put onto the glass desk. Sean, the man behind this idea, admits that the window tint only worked with his Bluetooth Mighty Mouse. Also, after a while, parts of the tint get scratched or peeled off. However, this is easily solved since the material is so cheap to buy. After searching around a bit, it seems like if the tint is dark enough, it will work on the under side of the glass desk, thus making sure that you won’t have to replace it any time soon. [via Lifehacker]