Sometimes a bit of detective work is called for in order to figure out how a particular situation developed. Why, for instance, do I sometimes find a shortcut to a folder inside the folder that's been shortcutted (and sometimes yet another shortcut yet further inside)? The answer apparently stems from shaky fingers - a right-click made with the intention of choosing "rename", let's say, but with the click released when the menu item highlighted is "create shortcut". I've found numerous items inside folders which most definitely weren't intended to hold those items, and again, the explanation seems to be a click-and-drag that was aborted too early, or that got dragged to the wrong spot.

Often it's difficult to explain, not only to myself, but particularly to my "clients" just what went wrong. I'll try to reconstruct what happened, but all too often it's a mix of those shaky fingers, and a rather weak grasp of how the computer works. What's more, I doubt that explaining what happened actually helps avoid that same problem in the future. After all, these mistakes weren't simply mistakes of misunderstanding, but of a true difficulty in operating the machine.