Of Mice and...'Human Interface Devices'

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

I meet so many laptops in my travels. Well, of course, the modern laptop is ten times faster, larger in memory and more powerful than the lumpy PC I first had back at the turn of the century.

Ten times? At least......!

And I suspect fewer and fewer are actually carried around on the train now. More and more are "the home computer" - you don't need a dedicated desk or table and they're easy to stow away in a drawer.

But...oh dear, the touch-pad. I'm sure that most of the frustration experienced by my clients, those new to computers, is caused by the touch-pad.

It is so "touchy"!

If you're beginning to find your way around a laptop, you are understandably cautious, tentative...dare I say nervous? So I find that my beginners are tickling the touch-pad to move the pointer - effectively tapping on it. And if you're not sure where the pointer is at the time...and you're gently tickling/tapping the touchy touch-pad...ANYTHING can happen!

A tap on the pad can be interpreted as a left click and this causes all kinds of unintended interruptions. So on Tuesday I sold a mouse to a client. I've been carrying a mouse around with me in my bag for many months now, and it's been very useful to plug it in and give the client the opportunity to try it. This time, the lady was so pleased with it I said she could keep it. I'd bought it from a very well-known PC emporium when it was just under £10 and she was happy to re-imburse me for it.

So I came home mouse-less, but determined to have one with me at all times - a travelling mouse. I have now placed an order with another well-known company (named after a South American river) for three mice. Suffice to say that this company is a lot cheaper than the one up the road....and free P&P too.

You can pay ridiculous prices for mices but I give my clients these recommendations:

• Get a mouse that's big enough to fit your hand. Small might be beautiful but it's not always comfortable!


• Get a mouse with a "tail". A wireless mouse is cause for one more frustration, apart from the extra expense - the battery always runs out when you're in the middle of something really important!


• Make sure that it has a scroll-wheel. Scrolling is fiddly on a touch-pad and demands two hands - unless you're very dextrous (or sinister!!).


• Make sure that it has a right button, a left button, the aforementioned scroll-wheel....and nothing else! You can get all kinds of extra things to squeeze and push, but it's all unnecessary clutter unless you're a manic gamer.

Price for a simple mouse?

Up the road now: ~£15
Online: £6-7

Colin

HMRC

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

Forgot to mention that January ended with a frantic dash against the clock to get my tax return in. I was quite happy to watch October 31st come and go - the deadline for your return "on paper" - because, I told myself, I'm a computer guy and quite capable of doing my return online, for which the date is 31st January. And of course I told myself I had plenty of time....

But then Christmas comes upon us and then New Year....and suddenly you realise that you've only got the month of January to get all those figures together. Actually, I did tot things up a bit at a time over the New Year. I keep accounts on an Excel spreadsheet and itemise expenses throughout the year as "Advertising", "Travel", "Office" etc. etc. so it was quite easy to add these up. But the HMRC form is so long, and few of their categories match up with mine, so I spend a disproportionate amount of time wondering where to put my totals.

My friendly accountant solved the problem for me at the eleventh hour! She advised me that it's best - for a small business - to lump all your expenses together. The HMRC people have a good idea what your reasonable expenses would be, so as long as you have a breakdown of the expenses on your own records (just in case you get investigated!) it's quite OK to stick it all down as one lump. So I did.

The scary thing about an online submission is that "The Answer" - how much you owe them - is instantaneous! There's no settling back in your chair, swigging the last of the cocoa before flopping exhausted into bed. There's no period of time in which you can prepare yourself for the bill to arrive a few days later. You click on Send or Submit or whatever...and there's the bill:

YOU OWE US £££

It's amazing how much we still need to pay to cover the cost of the Napoleonic Wars! I think that was the original reason for the Income Tax, introduced as "a temporary measure". Hey ho!

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Birds Stop Press!

On my way back from work today I noticed a small group of birds eating berries. Thought they were starlings at first glance, then fieldfares...but not big enough for that...then noticed crests...and realised that these were waxwings.

They were only just round the corner from my home, so came back with the binos to have a better look. Very pleased to see them - my first.

Colin

January

by Colin MY COMPUTER TUTOR

January has been and gone - just like that! And what a busy month it's been. One of the best months I've had, with 42 teaching sessions, some updating work on a client's website and now a new website design commission to keep me busy through February

And it's February now - the clock is ticking, since I promised to have the website at least "blocked out" by 1st March. This is going to be another website for a group of musicians who want it to include samples of their music. That's going to be a new technique for me to learn.

Up until now, my work on website design has been sporadic, so each time I have to do some web-work I need a lot of revision. But over Christmas I met two people - both artists - who each expressed an interest in having a website, so if I chased them up over the next couple of months I could keep myself busy with web design to the extent that all the HTML and CSS stuff might sink in and stick more permanently. When I say keep myself busy I mean fill up my evenings and weekends, of course!

January is the Month of Marmalade, and after two attempts to get the stuff to set I now have 7 jars of it. Not nearly enough to last me the year, so I managed to get the last net of Seville oranges from my local supermarket - you know, the orange one! - and am currently chopping up the peel ready for yet another boil-up.

Incidentally, a currently popular topic for my clients is 'How To Print Labels'...for marmalade! Main problem is identifying the correct size of label; there is a vast selection of 'Avery' and other types of labels. I now carry a pack of A4 7x2 for addresses and 7x3 for jam-pots!

Charity for the Month

I waited and waited for a charity to suggest itself for January, and, right at the very end of the month, one did. One of my colleagues, Tim, has MS and so the Multiple Sclerosis Trust is my charity for January.

Colin