There are many different styles of mouse. Most will fit into your hand
and have a left and right button.
Some are cordless – these need to have a receiver that plugs into
the PC.
The mouses with cables are of two types - normal and USB.
Normal cables have a specific circular plug that goes into the back of
the PC. You are probably using one of those today.
USB cables have a rectangular USB plug at the end, which is more versatile
and can fit onto more machines.
All mouses have at least a left and right button.
Some have a middle button and others have a wheel in the middle of them.
The middle button or the wheel is for scrolling down and up pages. You
cannot get a “left handed mouse”, except for maybe the shape
of it. A mouse can be reset to be left handed. See my Control Panel notes
for how to change this.
The mouse works by moving the cursor arrow on the screen when you move
the mouse. Yours probably uses a ball in the base of the mouse to track
this.
Other designs use a laser which tracks the mouse movement.
Laptops have a little button called a trackerball, or a pad that you move
your finger around to move the cursor.
