IN the past, you have written about various alternatives to mice. I travel often and have used everything from a standard mouse (very troublesome in airline seats) to trackballs and even a stylus-like pointing device that came with a Digital notebook I owned.
These all leave much to be desired. What are the latest gadgets that are supposed to make it easier for people like me who work on the go? PETER CHAN Central You could try a gadget called PortaPoint, a 4.6-centimetre by 6.6 cm pointing device from Interlink Electronics in the US.
With both serial and PS/2 connections, the PortaPoint works in much the same way as the Trackpoint pointing device used in new IBM notebooks. It comprises a circular rubber pressure pad set in plastic casing with the two mouse clickers beside it. All youneed do is put your fingertip on the rubber pointer and press it in the direction you want the cursor to move. The harder you press, the faster the cursor moves.
In addition to letting you work in tight confines, PortaPoint can easily be used with a desktop computer. It comes with a ''desktop cradle'' the shape and size of a regular mouse into which it slips. This gives you the same feel as a regular mouse, except it is fixed to the spot.
PortaPoint is distributed in Hong Kong by Kingsfield Technology. For more information call (tel) 889-3266 or (fax) 558-4408.
I NEED to buy Microsoft Windows for a small two-PC, two-printer environment. Later on, I want to connect the two PCs as a 10Base-T or 10Base-5 peer-to-peer local area network possibly linked via router to a wide area network.
I must decide between Windows for Workgroups 3.11, Windows NT and Windows 3.1/NetWare Lite. It seems having one package to act as both the disk operating system and network operating system would be better.