If you have a USB (or serial) port handy, an excellent solution is to go get the Wacom Graphire pen plus mouse combo. It's the size of a mouse pad, has a tracing layer, a wheel mouse that just works on the tablet, and a pen with thumb-switches and an eraser. All for about $170. i have one of the medium sized Wacom tablets here at work, and my little ol' Graphire works just as well, for hundreds of dollars less! For selection, such as used in surfing the web or in text programs, use the mouse. For drawing and painting in Photoshop (etc.) use the tablet. There's no substitute.