The amazing scroll wheel

If you don't have a scroll wheel on your mouse, you are just limping along in your digital world. I've posted before how you can open a web browser link in a new tab by clicking on it with the scroll wheel, and delete a tab in your browser by scroll wheel clicking. I've just discovered you can also close a folder (whether open or minimised) by scroll wheel clicking on its task bar icon. That's so much faster than maximising the window and then closing it.
Inside many documents, you can zoom in or out on the contents by holding down the Control key and rolling the scroll wheel. This trick works for Word documents, pdf documents, even browser windows, and probably many others besides.

To Twitter or not to Twitter?

Madeleine, one of my co-contributors, is a Twitter fan, and in a previous post she explained how to get involved. Although I have read a fair bit about this new form of communication, I have struggled to get the point, and to see why I should join in.
Twitter is a short message service -- messages are limited to a maximum of 140 characters. This length restriction makes "tweets" (as Twitter messages are called) equivalent to cell phone "texts" (properly called Short Message Service or SMS messages) but with a difference: Text messages are essentially one-to-one whereas tweets are essentially one-to-many.
If you're also wondering, Mark Gibbs in this PC World article provides about the best short introduction I've so far seen.
(But I'm still not sure I'm convinced it's for me.)

Tiny apps

Bigger is not always best. Even though hard drives are becoming humungous, sometimes a tiny application is just the ticket. Usually such applications do only one thing, but do it very well. Actually, you can get rather hooked on finding these useful little gizmos - it's rather addictive, like collecting miniatures. A site that lists some neat ones is here. One I have downloaded, and like, is Winroll, which makes an open window roll into its title bar when you right click the bar.
I tried to also download GhostIt, but the author's website now appears to have gone AWOL.

Medieval help desk

If you thought coping with modern technology is hard, how about when the world converted from scrolls to books? This is one of the funniest YouTube videos I have ever seen.

Meanwhile, if you are confused about analogue and digital television, perhaps you can empathise with this lady.