The no rail rule for 8 ball goes like this: On break 4 balls must hit the rail or it's a foul, so when you break make sure 4 balls hit rail and you should be alright.

I hate this rule :p I have to use a fiddly thing on my laptop as a mouse and sometimes it's difficult to get power using it, so the balls end up still lumped together often ending in me getting abuse off the other player :)

Same problem here. The optical mouse just could not respond fast enough to generate the power. Almost 95% of my break no rail. Any suggestion to counter this problem?

i get lots of power on my laptop, lol

Ibeatu go onto control panel then to printers and other hardware then click mouse. Then go onto pointer options and change the pointer speed up. That should help although it may take some time to get used to. 

Changing the speed of your mouse will help your break and aslo go to top view to break harder. To me it seems  you can hit the balls harder from top view rather than 3d view.

hope that helps