WSJ: Mossberg takes the Linux bait and snarls ....

[Aaron Konstam]

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-$100 will configure all the things he feels
> >currently are obscure to configure. It only has to be configured once
> >and then mass copied.
> 
> This complaint has been the order of the day for the synaptics touchpad used 
> in a lot of lappies.  And it is one reason I run a little gizmo called 
> synaptics that shuts it off, and I use a pluggin wireless mouse instead.
> 
> Fusses about it here, or on the lkml, are either ignored or teased about cuz I 
> supposedly can't type.
> 
> Of course I can't type when my thumbs must be pulled back against the wrist 
> and taped in place with several turns of duct tape.  That of course makes it 
> difficult to hit the spacebarsomywordscomeoutalljumbledtogether.  Strangely, 
> I don't have to be near as carefull on those rare occasions when I have it 
> running XP.
> 
> I've asked politely, and I've asked obnoxiously, the same question:
> 
> When is the touchpad going to be fixed?
> 
> I'm a mostly retired broadcast engineer, the type that makes the high powered 
> transmitters you watch tv from work.  I deal routinely with high voltage 
> power supplies capable of sucking a megawatt+ from the powerline under fault 
> conditions.  Its pure hell to be composing a long technical message, to 
> people who just barely understand that turning on a light is done by making 
> metal to metal contact in the light switch, only to have half of it 
> highlighted by one misscue of that POS, and erased by the next keystroke 
> because you don't see it quickly enough when working from and reading notes, 
> nor can you stop typing that fast.  More than one of my messages, or a record 
> file of what I'm doing has been converted into total gibberish by such 
> actions in 50 milliseconds.
> 
> Ois what I did when I have to tr it can also cause a switch screens, any way to screw up what you are doing, 
> it WILL find a way to do it.  Seriously folks, the touchpad needs fixed.  If 
> winblow$ can do it, why can't linux?
> 

Another obvious solution is to buy a usb keyboard so your hands will be nowhere near
 the touch pad. That what I did to use when I need to type long documents.

--
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To love is good, love being difficult.
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Aaron Konstam telephone: (210) 656-0355 e-mail: akonstam at sbcglobal.net