WSJ: Mossberg takes the Linux bait and snarls ....
Gene Heskett
gene.heskett at verizon.net
Fri Sep 14 21:59:11 UTC 2007
On Friday 14 September 2007, Matthew Saltzman wrote:
>On Fri, 2007-09-14 at 12:29 -0400, Gene Heskett wrote:
>> On Friday 14 September 2007, Aaron Konstam wrote:
>> >On Thu, 2007-09-13 at 17:09 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote:
>> >> On Thu, 13 Sep 2007 13:06:51 -0400
>> >>
>> >> "Lamar Owen" <lowen at pari.edu> wrote:
>> >> > I agree 100% with one of his beefs. Laptop touchpad sensitivity.
>> >>
>> >> When I'm
>> >>
>> >> > typing (and as I touch-type around 50 wpm, the keyboard is really a
>> >>
>> >> humming)
>> >>
>> >> > often the cursor will jump to where the i-beam for the mouse is;
>> >>
>> >> ooops, left
>> >>
>> >> > click. But I didn't touch the touchpad. Aggravating as all get
>> >>
>> >> out. (And
>> >>
>> >> > if someone knows a way to turn that down, please let me know, as
>> >>
>> >> I've not run
>> >>
>> >> > across the setting yet).
>> >
>> >It seems to me that Mossberg has identified a terrific business
>> >oportunity. Someone for $50-$100 will configure all the things he feels
>> >currently are obscure to configure. It only has to be configured once
>> >and then mass copied.
>>
>> This complaint has been the order of the day for the synaptics touchpad
>> used in a lot of lappies. And it is one reason I run a little gizmo
>> called synaptics that shuts it off, and I use a pluggin wireless mouse
>> instead.
>>
>> Fusses about it here, or on the lkml, are either ignored or teased about
>> cuz I supposedly can't type.
>>
>> Of course I can't type when my thumbs must be pulled back against the
>> wrist and taped in place with several turns of duct tape. That of course
>> makes it difficult to hit the spacebarsomywordscomeoutalljumbledtogether.
>> Strangely, I don't have to be near as carefull on those rare occasions
>> when I have it running XP.
>>
>> I've asked politely, and I've asked obnoxiously, the same question:
>>
>> When is the touchpad going to be fixed?
>>
>> I'm a mostly retired broadcast engineer, the type that makes the high
>> powered transmitters you watch tv from work. I deal routinely with high
>> voltage power supplies capable of sucking a megawatt+ from the powerline
>> under fault conditions. Its pure hell to be composing a long technical
>> message, to people who just barely understand that turning on a light is
>> done by making metal to metal contact in the light switch, only to have
>> half of it highlighted by one misscue of that POS, and erased by the next
>> keystroke because you don't see it quickly enough when working from and
>> reading notes, nor can you stop typing that fast. More than one of my
>> messages, or a record file of what I'm doing has been converted into total
>> gibberish by such actions in 50 milliseconds.
>>
>> Or it can also cause a switch screens, any way to screw up what you are
>> doing, it WILL find a way to do it. Seriously folks, the touchpad needs
>> fixed. If winblow$ can do it, why can't linux?
>
>gsynaptics and (I think) ksynaptics both let you adjust the sensitivity
>of the touchpad, the length of time for a double tap, and what scrolling
>areas are active. In addition, syndaemon is a clever little thing that
>inactivates the touchpad entirely while keys are being clicked.
>Somehow, you should be able to use those tools to come up with an
>acceptable arrangement. If not, there is are more settings available
>via the synclient CLI tool.
>
>Windows only has a single desktop area, so switching screens isn't an
>issue there. Also, I notice most Windows users seem to fill the screen
>with whatever window they are working in, and the fonts are generally
>huge. So switching windows isn't an issue if that's your work style.
>If you keep the mouse cursor outside of your typing area, then
>accidental tapping won't move the I-bar.
Thanks, although the advice is a bit late, I rather like the mouse, it doesn't
do anything I don't tell it to do. Thrifty too, I only have to feed it a
battery every 6 mo or so, & no papers to change in its cage.
>Gene, are you a western Pennsylvanian? "Needs fixed" is an idiom I
>remember from Pittsburgh days...
Nahh, Old Iowa farm kid, born in Des Moines back in 34.
--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Mr. Cole's Axiom:
The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant;
the population is growing.
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