The Fount of Knowledge Part III

An excerpt from my upcoming book, "Fleiger and The Art of Computer Maintenance". This chapter shows how maintenance your computer is necessary to your public (or rather, web) image.

So, you have got yourself a new computer, a new blog, registered on a public forum and are ready to make an impact in today's world of Web 2.0? But keep in mind that as with any other profession/hobby, the tools of the trade must be top-notch if you want to impress other or simply get the maximum profit or fun out of the activity. Towards that end, keeping your computer spic and span is the most important thing you will do in your web experience.

Let's start with the keyboard, your "mouthpiece" on the web. As you have heard the importance of "oral hygiene" many times, I think it should not come as a surprise that I am going to talk about keeping your keys clean...

1. Caps Lock: A quite big key (mostly) placed on the left hand side, near the alphabet "A". All this makes it the key which is most likely to get stuck (how many times have you found out that you are typing something which involves "A", and find suddenly that everything you type is coming up in upper-case?). But remember, when somebody sees you comment/write something all in upper-case, they are going to be as impressed as when you stand on a podium with a large green spinach leaf in your front teeth.


2. Shift: The key below "Caps Lock", so it is often the one key which is most ignored. The key makes it possible to insert punctuation marks (see below) and make "selected" letters upper-case (key word being "selected"). This makes this key one of the most important to be used for the correct and grammatical writing. Now I am not the first person to talk about the importance of grammar, and I will not be the last. Well, just think of the difference between "he" and "He" (Hint: the same as calling the President of a company clerk).


3. Punctuation Keys: These keys (including full stop, comma, exclamation mark etc.) are spread throughout the keyboard, which makes it very hard to use if you want to type something quickly (and some of these need Shift key, making it doubly hard). But of course, as I said before, they make it easier for others to understand what you are saying, don't they? So, as much as I like the convenience of fast writing (smsese, as I have heard some people call it), doesn't somebody saying, "paneermutteraloomuttergobimutter" make you long for a menu card which tells you, "Paneer Mutter, Aloo Mutter, Gobi Mutter"?

Of course, Shift and Punctuation keys are also prone to get stuck with overuse, so it is also important to clean the keys as much as it is to use it.

Next chapter: "Grammar and Spelling: When It Is OK to Ignore Them?"

Know anything I have missed? Want me to include any more chapters/parts in the chapter? Any comments on this chapter (or any mistakes I have made)?

The book will be published as soon as my keyboard stops putting ellipsis in place of every other full-stop (which is making the book trifle long than my publishers want to pay for)...