A Gartner report - which has been picked up by various news outlets - reckons that the computer mouse’s days are numbered. Apparently, the fact that we’re all into new kinds of human-computer interfaces means that we’ll be getting rid of our mice within three to five years. Instead, we’ll all be using motion sensors (like the Nintendo Wiimote) or touchscreens (like the one in Apple’s iPhone) or even devices designed to interpret facial expressions and eye movements. But I have my doubts about this. I don’t think we’re ready to give up our mice just yet - or at least, I don’t think I am.

If you’ve got a laptop, do you use the built-in touchpad for mouse functions? Or, like me, do you just plug in a mouse and use that instead? I’m used to mice; using one is intuitive now, though I’ve re-taught myself to use various designs of trackball mice over the years before eventually reverting back to the tried-and-trusted model. (Though admittedly I have a rather nice ergonomic laser one, which is miles better than the ancient ones I learned to use at school, which had balls in the bottom that kids would routinely steal. That wasn’t just my school, was it?)

Obviously, innovation is great, and I love playing with all the new sci-fi-esque interfaces that seem to get invented on a daily basis, but I don’t think three to five years is long enough for us to change the way we use computers.

Cue an embarrassed blog post in 2011 when we’re all wiggling our fingers at sensors and blinking to scroll down..!

I’m sure my attention span is getting shorter. Any film that clocks in at over 90 minutes (or, heaven forbid, longer than 120 minutes) will start to try my patience, and I’m only willing to give new TV shows a couple of episodes to prove themselves before I’ll move on to something else. The whole “instant gratification generation” thing definitely applies to me. So Joss Whedon’s newest project - an online series entitled Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog - couldn’t be more perfect. There are only three episodes, and the first one, which went live today, clocks in at under 14 minutes.

Starring Neil Patrick Harris and Nathan Fillion, Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is pretty much what the title suggests - the musical adventures of a would-be supervillain. Er, so why am I writing about this on an IT-related blog? Well, it’s interesting because of the method of distribution. Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog owes its existence to the Writers Guild of America strike; Whedon decided to produce something completely independently of the studios, and distribute it over the Internet himself. But unlike, say, LonelyGirl15, Whedon has a plan for turning Dr Horrible into a legitimate commercial entity - the three episodes will be published over the course of this week, and will stay available until July 20th. Then they’ll be removed from the free site, but you’ll be able to pay to download the episodes from iTunes, and a DVD containing all the episodes plus extras will be available shortly too. The Dr Horrible website seems to be suggesting that there’s merchandise on the way, too, and there’s a Captain Hammer tie-in comic available through Dark Horse.

Obviously, the difference between Whedon’s project and other Internet dramas like LonelyGirl15 is that Whedon has already been around the block - he’s worked in TV and film, he knows how that works, and with Firefly, he knows what the power of a loyal fanbase can do. So it’s not surprising that this seems to be a much more professional enterprise. But it’s maybe the first indication that the Internet might become a really and truly viable distribution method for entertainment in the future, and that’s really exciting.

(Doesn’t hurt that Dr Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is also really, really good, of course.)

I was all set to write a blog post this morning… and then, in the course of my catching up with the Internet, noticed that Mike Skuse had pretty much done it for me. Actually, I’ve written about something similar before too, but I’m going to add another post to the pile anyway. Last week, I took some time off work - and banned myself from my laptop as well. I set up away messages on Facebook, in my Gmail account and in my work e-mail account, letting people know that if they needed me, they could call my mobile but that I wouldn’t be checking any online messages at all. Then I powered down my laptop, closed the lid, and left it alone.

I did consider locking it in the back of my wardrobe or something, just to put the temptation well and truly away, but didn’t bother in the end. Which is probably why I ended up cheating a couple of times.

Monday felt really odd. Usually, getting up and eating breakfast sitting at my desk is part of my morning routine, but Internet access was banned, so instead of switching on the computer I switched on the TV and watched the news. I had planned to walk into town or do some exploring (shamefully, since I moved house in March I really haven’t explored enough of the local countryside) but the weather had other ideas, so I spent most of Monday curled up on my sofa reading a book with obnoxious pop music playing in the background and rain battering against the windows. Which isn’t all that far away from my idea of the perfect day, actually.

By Tuesday, I’d more or less acquired the knack of not sitting at a computer all day, and since the sun was shining I went out and explored. Wednesday was another rainy day, but I was better prepared this time and spent the day baking cupcakes, and on Thursday… well, I did some backsliding. My boyfriend called from Euston to say that all the trains were cancelled, and I wanted to find an alternate way for him to get home, which naturally meant hopping onto Google. I’m not proud - but how on Earth did people cope before there was Google, anyway?

While I was online, I took the opportunity to clear the 500-odd post backlog on my RSS reader, and to read/delete the 50 e-mails sitting in my inbox. I spent about an hour on the computer before forcibly prying myself away and moving into the kitchen to cook, and then settling down with a book again.

Friday and the weekend were mostly taken up with social engagements, but I did let myself back on the computer to reply to e-mails and to clear my RSS feed again (er, and to look up a recipe. Oops). I didn’t check my work e-mail addresses, though, so this morning has involved yet more ploughing through - it’s odd, because I generally deal with e-mail as and when I recieve it, to see a week’s worth of mail all piled up like that. I use the Internet for absolutely bloody everything, from planning travel arrangements to keeping in touch with friends to planning shopping trips and finding recipes and playing games and generally keeping myself entertained and up to date with the world, and I’m not entirely sure that I even accomplished much in my week away from the ‘net, apart from lots and lots of cooking and ploughing through three novels, but somehow, it felt good to cut the strings for a little while, to liberate myself from the constantly-in-touch world and just … relax.

Still, it’s 11:24 right now and time for a nice big coffee, I think. Lots to do, lots to do…

I’m a great believer in complaining. If something’s not good enough, I’ll generally find a way to make a complaint and try to get it fixed. Working in journalism, I’m well aware that I’m not the only one: if there’s something in the magazine or on the website that people don’t like, I’ll hear about it via the forums, comments field, editorial e-mail address, or whathaveyou.

Somewhere along the line, though, I’d come to believe that making complaints online isn’t very effective; half-memories of e-mailing people about problems only to never, ever hear back until I got on the phone or sent in a physical letter bubbled away in the back of my mind, convincing me that there was no point in complaining electronically.

Until recently.

Obviously, the only time I had an opportunity to complain was when something was actually wrong, but since I’m plagued with preternaturally bad luck, that didn’t really hold me back.

My first e-mail complaint came about after I bought a food item from Sainsbury’s that, despite having been refridgerated carefully and being well within its use-by date, had gone off. Emphatically, stinkily off. Diligently noting down the tracking codes, purchase date, sell-by date, and everything else I thought might be relevant, I used the complaint form on Sainsbury’s website to fire off an account of my displeasure. I got an automated message back, and then, the very next morning, an e-mail from a human being apologising and asking for more details. Since I’d thrown out the offending item (well, would you fancy having rancid meat hanging around your kitchen?) I couldn’t give her the barcode number (… there’s a tip, there, for anyone else who might have cause to similarly complain) and so the incident couldn’t be investigated any further, but I was offered a Sainsbury’s voucher in compensation. It arrived in the post 2 days later. Bravo, Sainsbury’s!

My next complaint was slightly more trivial. I’d ordered some DVDs from Amazon, and when one of them arrived it was packaged, not in Amazon’s usual ultra-thick cardboard packing, but in a thin card envelope, bereft of any bubble-wrap. I actually, stupidly, thought it looked a lot tidier, and would be easier to recycle (plus the Amazon logo was far less apparent, making the package less obviously attractive to thieves), but once I opened it, quickly changed my mind, since the DVD box inside was broken. One end had completely shattered.

Buoyed by my success with Sainsbury’s, I headed to the Amazon website to have a moan, but discovered that Amazon’s complaints process was rather more streamlined than any others I’d come across - perhaps too streamlined, since all the complaint headers were pre-defined and there weren’t any that exactly fitted my problem. I’d received the item, it hadn’t gone missing, it wasn’t the wrong item, it wasn’t irredeemably broken (the DVD itself was fine) but I wanted to moan about the rubbish packaging and the broken box. I ended up using the wrong header, explaining thoroughly in the text of my complaint, and sending it anyway. Again, I got an automated acknowledgement of my e-mail, and then a real person the next day. I declined their offer of a replacement, mostly due to laziness and not wanting to send back the DVD that did, after all, work, so they refunded my postage costs instead. Hurrah!

Less recently, I had to complain to Play.com when they sent me the wrong item. That involved getting a complaint reference, sending back the wrong thing by recorded delivery, and then receiving a refund to my credit card and the correct item in the post the week after. In all three cases, I’ve found that response is quick - instantaneous, actually, since the auto-response is triggered first - and efficient, with customer service types happy to help. It’s actually nicer than having to return things to most bricks-and-mortar shops!

To balance out the relentless tide of negativity, I’ve been making an effort to also contact companies if they’ve done something especially worthy of praise - or, y’know, if I just really liked something they sell. This has been less successful, which is either weird or to be expected; after all, I’m not actually asking anyone to do anything, just e-mailing to say “hi, you’re ace, please keep doing what you do!” Of three e-mails, I received no response whatsoever to the first one (and that’s after I found the correct e-mail address, since the one on the product bounced back!); got a confused and confusing response to another, advising me to ask their in-store staff for help (um…); and got a lovely e-mail from the last, even if I did get the vague feeling they thought I was a bit mad for e-mailing them just to say I was especially happy with one of their products.

In summary, then - complaints via e-mail seem to work wonders, but if you’ve got compliments, might be best to deliver them in person.

It’s funny how far the Internet has come in the last few years. Web 2.0 is now practically old hat, so ubiquitous are its features, and most websites nowdays even seem to look the same, or at least conform to the same styles - clean lines, tabs, slickly integrated advertising and plenty of space for users’ comments (think Amazon’s latest makeover, for example). But while I was researching an article for Micro Mart this week, I came across several corners of the Internet I’d almost forgotten existed.

Like Usenet newsgroups, for one thing. Nowadays, they’re hosted by Google Groups (which has archives dating back to around 1981) so they’ve been slightly updated, but essentially, they’re still out there - and thriving. Since the advent of social networking and, actually, before that, the arrival of cheap and easy-to-use forum software, I’d imagined that newsgroups would have been abandoned; mere ghost-towns now, with tumbleweed whistling through them. But I was wrong. They’re alive and well.

Less alive and less well but nonetheless present and accessible are all sorts of ancient websites, built during the 1990s when services like Homestead, Angelfire and GeoCities let anyone and everyone create their own personal homepages. Imagine the absolute worst MySpace profile layout you’ve ever seen - it’s a delight compared to what most of these sites used to look like. (And I should know; I built several, and they were all embarrassingly terrible.) The templates provided by Homestead et al were pretty awful, but they were nothing compared with the monstrosities that people with the barest knowledge of HTML could come up with. The old adage of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing definitely applies here; we’re talking animated blinking gifs, pop-ups, frames, tinkling wav music files, hit counters and garish background images. The text usually came in colours specifically selected to hurt your eyes most when viewed against the patterned backgrounds, with line breaks in odd places and hyperlinks in yet another contrasting colour.

Shudder.

Say what you like about social media and user generated content, but at least the Internet looks nicer nowadays. And though some of the worst sartorial fashions of the last few decades seem to be making a comeback (neon legwarmers? Really?) we can at least be grateful that Facebook maintains its nice, calming blue template no matter what.

It makes you wonder, though, doesn’t it? In another 10 years, what will still be around, and what will we look back on and cringe?

(Edited: how did I manage to type “days” instead of “years”? Oops!)

Since I began writing this blog, I’ve started using two new computers - one at home, and now one at work. My home computer, a Vista-running laptop, has now become completely integrated into my life, but my work computer is still taking some getting used to.

On the plus side, it’s a hell of a lot zippier and reliable than my old one (which seemed to manage to run into errors if I hit more than two keys in quick succession; not ideal, really). But it seems to be taking me an age to get things set up the way I want them. Every time I think I’ve got everything sorted out, I run into another program I need that I haven’t got, or another folder or e-mail account that I need to access and can’t, or, worst of all, another Internet account that I can’t remember the password for, because it had been saved in Firefox on my old computer a year ago and I’ve since completely forgotten it. Nrghhhh.

More trivially, I’d completely forgotten how hideously ugly XP is with all its default settings in place. Changing the colour scheme and desktop background was the first thing I did. I’m getting there; before long, this computer too will be like an old pair of socks, familiar and comfortable and easy to slip into, and I’ll stop thinking about it. But before that happens, I should probably just appreciate that super-fast loading time. Ahhh.