Laptop Users
Using only the touchpad on your laptop is convenient, but don’t miss out on the power of adding an external mouse to your laptop.  A real mouse adds precise control of the pointer for faster, more accurate navigation.  Don’t believe me?  Try it.

What to Buy
By far, the best options in a mouse is a wireless mouse that offers laser sensing.  Most come standard with a wheel, and this is great for scrolling on pages.  If you can add Bluetooth to your laptop, or purchase with it pre-installed, look for a Bluetooth mouse – no extra hardware to plug-in!

Problems
Does your mouse “stick” as you move it across the screen?  If you have an older mouse with a ball, it needs cleaning.  The rollers inside collects trash fast.  If it’s wireless, try changing the batteries, or moving it closer to the wireless adapter.

The Future
How much longer will we need the basic mouse, or keyboard?  These are simply input devices we use to communicate and control with.  There are other input devices.  Speech recognition is improving rapidly.  Microsoft’s Surface technology is a multi-touch desktop that is amazing.  Check out the videos here.

Shortcuts
Did you catch our previous tip on keyboard shortcuts?  While using my laptop, my right hand is on my mouse, but my left hand rests between the CTRL button and the space bar with my fingers stretching up to the home keys (ASDF).  You can copy, cut, paste, undo, switch windows, exit, minimize, and tons more in less than a second.  Learn keyboard shortcuts here.

In the news…
MS Office 2007′s latest update, Service Pack 2, is ready for download.  Visit windowsupdate.com or download directly here.  Most claim performance increase, but you can see all improvements here.

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