It has me grinning every time. Who was the idiot who made that application? Think about the absurdity of it for a moment: The user is struggling with either mouse or keyboard to type in his calculation into a graphical user interface that uses more of the processor than the whole calculation will. Its completely daft. Nothing adds, divides or whatever else you might want better, more conveniently or faster than a standard scientific calculator.

Now of course spreadsheets (like Corel's elegant Quattro Pro which I must say is a superior product to Microsoft's bulky Excel) are very useful for repetitive or involved calculations. Science wouldn't be where it is today without computers to do long bits of maths, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the every day quick calculation like figuring out the fat content in your yoghurt or the tax on a book from Amazon.com etc.

Quick and easy it was it needs to be and a calculator has become a damn near perfect interface for that. Sticking the same interface on the computer with the need of a mouse just doesn't work the same, does it?

The moral of the lesson: user interfaces are non-transferable, with calculators at least and don't forget it!

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by Jason P. Kitcat [e-mail him]