My mouse pointer frequently changes to being solid black which then makes it almost invisible on a dark background. Two application that I know ofthat make this happen are gvim and mutt. These both make the cursor disappear
when you are typing on the keyboard. Then when I move the mouse the pointer will be solid black. Interestingly, if I put the mouse pointer in a remote gvim window it will return the pointer to being white with a black outline so that it is visible on any background. Ross