On 17 Aug, Bill Freeman wrote:
> I've grown to hate the touch pad mouse on my laptop because of
> the way that my thumb tends to inadvertently brush it while I'm
> typing, leaving me typing at the wrong spot in the text, or even at
> the wrong window.
>
> Meanwhile my boss is asking me for laptop recommendations.
> I'm tempted to tell him to avoid the touch pad mice ones. Today that
> seems to leave the force joystick nub between the "G" and "H" keys (I
> believe). But I have no first hand experience with those. My
> daughter doesn't like them, claiming, among other things, that they
> break easily (though she has never owned one either).
>
> I'd be interested to hear war stories from folks who have
> actually owned or at least extensively used such a beast.
>
> TIA, Bill
I've used one for several years, and I like them. I recently bought a
new laptop to replace my Omnibook 5500CT, and the first thing on my
"required features" list was that it have a pointing stick. The
Omnibook is still fine, I was just overcome with "new laptop envy" and
wanted a new one. I haven't noticed any problem with reliability,
though you should be aware that the cursor will occasionally drift and
will need to recalibrate (this happens automatically every few seconds;
just let it sit for a few seconds and it will magically correct
itself).
One of the things I like about it is that I am a fairly fast touch
typist and like having the pointer there without needing to take my
hands off the keyboard.
I believe that all of the pointing sticks are IBM's designs and everyone
else licenses them from IBM; at the very least, the replacement covers
for the nub from the Omnibook fit my new Thinkpad 1460. BTW, the new
Thinkpads with the "Internet scrolling feature" for the pointing stick
are (to Linux / Xfree86, anyway) just a PS/2 mouse with three buttons.
The "middle" button is used by the Windows driver to trigger a special
scrolling mode, but I've been using it under X as a three button mouse,
which is something I really missed using the two button version on the
Omnibook.
The biggest usage difficulty I've seen with these is somebody not
understanding that it is really more of a joystick than a mouse - i.e.
the cursor keeps moving as long as pressure is being applied in that
direction, and the little nub doesn't move at all
--
Stephen Ryan Debian GNU/Linux
Technology Coordinator
Center for Educational Outcomes,
C. Everett Koop Institute at Dartmouth College
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