Look at the computer mouse sitting there beside your desktop. More like a giant slug, really. Who designed that thing? Does it have to be that size and shape? Must it have that wire coming out of it? Are you stuck with it until the end of time?

Suppose there were a mouse that looked and felt like a dear and trusted workplace object, one that required less arm movement and more wrist action. Suppose it had built-in functions that allowed you to use your mouse the way a teacher uses a blackboard.

Surely such a device would add meaning to your dead-end job-ette! Surely it would lead you to your inner truth!

So check out the Freepen, from Denmark. It looks like a pen, but it has its own mini-transmitter, a radio receiver which is plugged into the COM port of your computer. As you move the pen around on any surface, the ballpoint will rotate and the pen transmits this to the cursor on your screen.

You can mark areas on the screen by pressing the pen briefly against the surface, and programme three buttons on its side to perform special functions.

The Freepen is available from www.kanitech.dk - the company charges £30 sterling, but, strangely, £60 in the Republic, to ship the device.

Gizmo suggestions welcome smaccarthaigh@irish-times.ie