A very simple tip and a bit of fun

A very simple tip first – something that occurred to me the other day.

If you’re ever having trouble with connecting any equipment because the cable isn’t long enough, you can almost certainly get an extension.

It doesn’t matter what type of cable it is – obviously for power cables you can use a normal power extension cable but if you want to plug in (say) a printer that uses a USB cable, you can get a USB cable extension. Or if you want to plug in headphones but the cable on your headphones won’t reach the PC without you leaning your head towards the PC you can get a headphone extension.

I had exactly that the other day with my headphones and my work PC, so I ordered an extension cable for about £2 and that sorted it.

And I thought it was worth mentioning – not everyone knows you can get extensions for almost any type of cable.

If you want to do this to make a cable longer, just check what type of cable it is and either go to a big PC shop or look online – I found the one I wanted on www.amazon.co.uk

And a bit of fun…
Do you know what a “selfie” is? All it means is a photo you take of yourself – maybe with something interesting in the background or with some friends in the picture as well.

You might take one of yourself when you’re on holiday, to show yourself in Paris with the Eiffel Tower behind. Or you might take a quick snap of you and a family member out on some significant event – a meal out on a wedding anniversary or at a graduation with the new graduate. Or just on a meal out with some friends.

Of course, with a normal camera it’s slightly tricky to see exactly where you’re pointing it, so you might end up chopping the top of your head off in the photo. But most modern smartphones have a camera pointing towards you when you look at the screen (designed so you can use it for video calls), which makes it easier because you can see what the photo will look like as you take it… so you can make sure the top isn’t chopped off.

Anyway, we were talking about them in the office and thought it might be fun to run a little competition for newsletter readers – if you like, you can email us a “selfie” of yourself, ideally with your tablet or PC in the photo too… or of you holding one of our books… or just of you if that’s a bit too tricky to do. It’d be great if you can say something you learned from the books or how they helped you, too.

We’d love to be able to use them in materials we put together about the books – if you really don’t want us to do that with your entry, you can still enter, just make sure you say “Don’t use it in any promotional materials” or something similar in the email.

As I said, we’re doing it as a competition. So once they’re all in (let’s say in a week’s time – we’ll make it Monday the 18th April), we’ll put them all in a hat and draw one out – and the winner will get to choose a free copy of any of our books. I’ll even sign it, just to make it a bit different!

If you fancy entering, take your selfie and email it to us at [email protected] – don’t forget to include any comments you have about how the books helped you or what you learnt from them. And don’t forget to say who you are in case you’re the lucky winner!