What About A Lamborghini Mouse Or A Rat Pad?
The Age
Tuesday December 7, 1993
WITH Christmas just around the corner, finding suitable gifts may prove a challenge, especially if you are shopping for computer buffs.
Here then are some gift suggestions.
Starting at the bottom end of the price scale, what about an innovative mouse mat? For $19.95, you have a choice of four ``rat pads". A rat pad is nothing more than a mouse pad, and it comes in four patterns. There is one with a mouse-trap pattern, suitable perhaps for reluctant mouse users. For those who like a quick thrill, what about the bungee-jumping mouse pattern. And, for those who like to make a social comment, there is a mouse-at-work pattern that features a road-gang mouse leaning on a shovel having a smoko break.
These are ideal gifts for computer buffs who keep their desks tidy enough to be able to actually sight the mouse pad under a collection of computer magazines and manuals.
If you wish to spend more than $19.95, you could consider the Motor Mouse, a Lamborghini-shaped mouse that converts the cursor to a car.
This will set you back $55 butcould prove quite a conversation piece.
Both the rat pads and the Motor Mouse can be found at Ozzie Discount Software in the city, and possibly at other computer stores as well.
Books are another welcome gift and there arenumber of computer books from Dymocks and the Technical Bookshop listed in `Computer Age' each week.
Two well recommended computer texts are `Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution', by Michael Hammer (not the detective, this one is a Boston US consultant) and James Champy, and `2020 Vision', by Stan Davis and Bill Davidson. Both these books give innovative examples of the ways in which IT can add real business value to organisations and encourage the rethinking of existing business processes, rather than the automation of existing processes.
If these two books seem a little heavy for the festive season, there is Clifford Stoll's thriller, `The Cuckoo's Egg', which is a spell- binding read about tracking a hacker through international networks.
If you want to spend more on a Christmas gift, what about a subscription to CompuServe, or perhaps a colour printer. I'm sure someone would love Visual Basic to play with over the Christmas holiday period. Trying to pick software for someone is difficult soperhaps you should consult with them first.
If the person you are buying the gift for already spends too much time on the computer then perhaps you should could get them a gift voucher to see Jurassic Park, a movie that unfortunately portrays the computer person as anti-social and irresponsible.
The best part of Jurassic Park is when the day is saved by a woman who manages to fix a Unix system using an Apple Mac.
© 1993 The Age