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Last night, I read about Anatoly Zenkov’s mouse tracking java applet and decided to run it on my own computer to see where exactly my cursor goes in the span of a few hours on the computer. The thin lines you see above layered over a general screenshot of my desktop shows the path of my mouse cursor over the course of 3 hours. In this time, I updated Doobybrain, made playlists in iTunes, shuffled some files around in Finder, and Tweeted like a mad man. The large dark circles you see are the points in time when my cursor remained stationary — usually because I was watching a YouTube video or simply away from my desk.

It turns out that I like most of my windows and apps to be centered on my monitor. Even though my 23″ screen can handle multiple apps side by side, I still prefer to only see one window/app at a time and to work within the constraints of that window until I choose to switch applications.

If you want to give the free java applet a go, you can download it for PC or for Mac. Be sure to check out Antoly’s own tests on his Flickr account.

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