Wee Shoogle The Mouse Mover – Fact Sheet

Read below for facts and understanding of where and when a mouse jiggler / mover can help you.

The Screen Lock / Screensaver Issue

Your Company ‘lock screen policy’ allows your IT Admin to set the amount of time that your system can remain idle before your screensaver kicks in, locking your system down. Once the screen locks, you need to log in again to regain access, and to be available to the rest of your work colleagues.

Why is this Company Policy?

One reason is due to the increase in working remotely – not just from your home but anywhere of your choosing. This has put employees and their devices outside IT’s direct control. If you were to leave your computer unattended for any reason in, say a coffee shop, (i.e. a taking a call, ordering a drink, visiting the bathroom etc.), it can open the system to attack. Hackers can infect unlocked laptops with malware in just a few clicks. With unrestricted access to your system, they can further exploit the company deeper through accessible network features and applications. Whilst locking the screen after a small period of time might be inconvenient for you, it can help ward off attacks like these.

What do People think about this Lock Screen Policy?

Even Matt Cutts, ex Google, now the Administrator of the United States Digital Service, blogged about it: “I do not wish my screensaver to lock my computer, thank you. In Windows, it really annoys me when my computer idles for a few minutes and then the screen locks. I try to be careful not to leave my laptop lying around, so I prefer my screensaver not to be password-protected. Now just remember not to leave your laptop sitting around at your local den!”

Do You Use Skype, Teams, Outlook, or Slack?

If you do then you want to avoid your status being Away or Idle. Why? Because your boss, or even your colleagues, can have an assumption you’re not working if your light is not green. You may well be sick of constantly keeping an eye on your status.

Here’s an example of what your Status is telling your connected work world.

 Active: You’re online and available to contact.

The status gets set automatically when you first sign in. You’ll remain active on your desktop when your application is running in the background and you’re using your keyboard or mouse.

 Away: You’ve been inactive for a set period of time.

This status gets set automatically when you were last active. The amount of time can vary and it can change from Active to Away after just 2 minutes. Depending on the application, the amount of minutes you’re ‘away’ can be displayed next to the icon.

  Busy: You’re in a meeting and your status changes to busy.

You can set your status to busy to let people know you don’t want to be interrupted. If you want to prevent people from contacting you then select Do Not Disturb.

Invisible: Your presence status is hidden so that you appear to be offline.

To your contacts, the last time your status was set to active or busy is shown as ‘Away or Last Seen – days, hours, or minutes’ ago e.g. ‘Away 20 mins’. You can set your status to invisible anytime you want.

What do People think about the Away Status?

Here is one internet thread excerpt from people talking about Microsoft Teams status on Reddit

User: With the new Teams update, my status is changed to away after ONLY five minutes of no mouse movement!!!! Is there any way to change this?

  • Comments
    I noticed that too, I would like to change it as well not because I’m not working, but I have been watching research videos and need to show as available so people know I’m reachable
  • Likewise! My work involves reading from physical documents to the laptop and back and forth. It’s quite easy to let five minutes pass while reading the physical documents and not needing the computer.
  • So annoying!!!! People think I’m away so they won’t ping me. When in fact I’m just on a zoom call. It will go from busy to away.
  • Has anyone found a solution? I also have to be reachable but sometimes am working on other items not in Teams!

Watching Out For Shortcut Hacks

There are various hacks possible you may come across to fool your status as being active. They can come with a warning though and might not be as ingenious as you think. Remote employee monitoring is on the rise. Don’t give your Company any reason to start asking your awkward questions.

For example, here is another thread:

User: I go on YouTube and put on a long classical music video of like 10 hours on mute. If I’m using only one monitor I just make sure that the YouTube page is the active window, if I’m using two monitors I just make sure the YouTube video is on the second monitor ‘active’ as well. Used it with Skype in the past and now Microsoft Teams.

  • Comments:
    I would not recommend this. Your company can easily identify someone at their company is watching 10 hours of YouTube every day (and they will be able to tell that it is you) and then you have a much harder question to answer rather than why are you away a lot? We fired a girl at my company for streaming Netflix on her phone all day. It wasn’t even a company phone but she connected to the WiFi and IT was able to see that someone was watching Netflix 8 hours a day at the office and somehow could identify that it was her.
  • When I worked at the FAA, they had a policy in place that forced your computer into sleep mode after 15 minutes of inactivity. Very irritating. For a while, the workaround was to run Windows Media Player in the background, looping – that was enough to keep Windows from going to sleep (this was Windows XP, as of 2012). Then IT caught on and patched that loophole.

Perhaps your hack might be a software solution if you have Admin rights.

User Comment:
Some of us then downloaded a program and used it until they came out with a very harsh statement threatening termination for anyone caught defeating the power management policies. Then they made it even worse by requiring us to not only enter our password to wake up the computer, but also stick our key card into the computer. I ended up buying a small fan and zip-tying an extra mouse to it, and keeping it under my desk.

The Good News: You Don’t Need Hacks

To keep your screen active all you need is Wee Shoogle, the Mouse Mover: a small compact unit onto which you place your mouse. It’s completely Mac and PC compatible, it simply draws power from the USB port. There’s no mouse drivers or any software applications to install, plus it’s completely undetectable. So no need to create an elaborate DIY solution to avoid falling foul of your Company IT Policy. Rest assured then, you can forget about tying your mouse to a fan or building any other madcap solutions. All you have to do is place your mouse on the Wee Shoogle and carry on with your day.

Hopefully our Wee Shoogle fact sheet has covered everyhting you need to know. Read some of our customer reviews as well to see how they’ve been using it.

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