Seriously. Ow (Redux)

Fingertip pain! Xoom, MacAir, Galaxy, the unused touchpad for his iMac, the corrugated touchpad on his work Lenovo ThinkPad. Swipe, slide, stretch, swype. His fingertip is wearing through to the bone, E@L swears.

Obviously E@L is not the only person with this affliction and, pain being the mother of tools of relief, a heap of people have come with a solution. Well not a solution as in a liquid, but as in a solid thing that works.

Capacitance pens. There are lots of them nowadays.

You all know how touchpads and touchscreens work, ya? There is slight charge held on the screen by lots of tiny capacitors, a technology called mutual capacitance, at least that's what E@L gathers from this Wiki would work well in those wonderful smart-phones, computers and tablets and that require multi-touch gestures. When you touch the screen your large body gives a slight 'earthing' effect (electrons surge into you seeking safety and solace) which can be localised by the changing of the charge at the Cartesian coordinates of the capacitors co-affected (at the court of King Caractacus). Completely correct.

Or not. Expert opinion sought, if people can be bothered.

Point being (ha!), you can't use a normal pen (duh!) with a plastic case or a even wooden pencil as these don't carry charge and there is none of that earthing to your body. So you can get a capacitance pen, one with a metal body and little (doped) rubber doovey-whacker at the end, which replaces and therefore protects your finger! And when E@L says you, he means him.

E@L bought a cheap (S$14.95) one in Tampines Mall, called iTap (which is odd, because he wants to use it to slide, primarily, tapping not being a problem) because it has a normal pen at the other end.

(The top one,)

All E@L has to do now is not lose it. If he doesn't, no doubt it will fall apart.

E@L