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• Middle Finger Cursor

  Tired of that same old index finger pointing at your links? Mike thinks he knows a better digit for the job. [05.31.2005 12:21 AM EST]

Traffic for squarehappy historically has been a trickle. According to the referrers page there's pretty much only one reason people come here, and that's to marvel at the eighth wonder of the world, the Middle Finger Cursor. Since I posted the middle finger cursor some three years ago, I have yet to see anything like it on the internet to this day. I have little explanation for such an obvious hack, as they call pretty much every DIY project these days, not proliferating anywhere else, but my exclusive hold ensures that this site will continue to get a few hits a day until the middle finger loses all meaning and gets relegated to G-rated insult sometime in the not too distant future.

WHAT IS THE MIDDLE FINGER CURSOR?

I don't think this could possibly be any more obvious but I must consider that not everyone has as much computer experience as I have. Traditionally when a user hovers their mouse cursor over a link it changes into a white hand pointing its index finger at the link. The middle finger cursor uses this same hand and instead extends the middle finger towards the link. All right, there's the thesis statement. Let's move on to the Windows installation of the middle finger cursor. The rest of you are on your own.

WINDOWS INSTALLATION

1. Download the zip file containing the cursor, and then extract the cursor. Please be sure to note the location the cursor is extracted to.
2. Click the Start button, then Settings, then Control Panel. In the control panel, double-click on the Mouse icon.
3. At the top of the window that comes up, click the Pointers tab. A list of all your assigned cursors should show. Scroll down the list until you find the one called "Link Select" and double-click on it.
4. Now you must find the cursor on your hard drive. I can't walk you through this one. Double-click on it when you find it though. It should be named "finger".
5. The middle finger cursor should now appear in the list in the Pointers tab. Click the OK button at the bottom of the window to complete the switch.
6. YOU ARE SUCCESS!

These are the instructions for Windows XP but the journey should be similar for other versions of Windows. Any computer geek out there should've stopped reading awhile ago, unless they enjoy mentally critiquing my technical writing.

With any luck, you should have the middle finger cursor up and running by now. If not, that's what the comments are for. But you're not having any problems. You've got an almost subliminally wonderful mouse cursor that finally has something to say, and that something is "Fuck You!"

Posted in Personal Computing

Older Articles

Older articles can be found in the archives. At the moment they are organized by subject matter but that matter is subject to change. That was just my convoluted way of saying that eventually you'll see a better form of chronological organization for the Squarehappy archive. I just ain't that great of a PHP programmer yet.