Computer User Efficiency

If you do a search on google for USING a computer more efficiently or faster, you will find tons of things on speeding up your computer.

I think that most computer users do not need to speed up their computers. True, they need to reduce the CRAP on their computers, in particular in the boot-up of their computers, but that is something you can google and learn how to do already.

What I am speaking of is improving the way that the user interfaces the computer.

Most people like their fancy mice. They love to move their arm all around to move the pointer on the screen through its mickeys (not the mouse, in this case mickey is a single pixel movement of the mouse, basically).

I personally, when required, use a trackball mouse.

It is much more efficient, however, to use keyboard shortcuts.

Programmers include these in the software they write. Shortcuts are a much faster way to achieve a given command. Linux users typically know more shortcuts than Windows users.

If everyone working for a company using a computer used shortcuts instead of mousing, the company would save a very large amount of man hours every year just from that one change.

I recently had an interview that required I make a presentation so I decided to make my presentation on the basic shortcuts that can be used in Firefox (and Internet Explorer).

When I see people wasting energy using a mouse, moving their arm alllllll around to click something, then they double click when a single click is all they needed. . . well I just want to shout at them.

Because of things like that, people think that I'm really fast on a computer. I'm faster than most, but I have met a few people who are much faster than me. I'll admit this.

However, I think that with a little work, anyone could improve and seem like a "whiz" that they may or may not be. I have seen some people who know a lot about computers who still STILL insist on making the mouse their primary interface, and wasting a lot of energy and TIME in the process.

Maybe I should write a book on Computer USER Efficiency. I can call it C.U.E. or something like that.

Seriously.