On 07-May-09 08:59:26, Wayne Stallwood wrote:
On Thu, 2009-05-07 at 08:39 +0100, Chris G wrote:
[...] Do any of the netbooks have a trackball rather than a pad? I really don't know why trackballs aren't more popular, I use one on my desktop and we now have a wireless keyboard with a trackball and it's magic, no separate mouse to lose/drop and the trackball is much nicer than a pad.
A few of us have been moaning about this on the list...well not trackballs specifically but why they insist on using trackpads rather than trackpointers/nipples when there is so little space on the palmrest. The only netbook type device I have seen that had a trackball was some of the early Toshiba Librettos. Everything other than the trackpad seems to have lost favour with the manufacturers now. Hell even some thinkpads come without a nipple !
I have come to hate track/touchpads! At best they're harder to control than a mouse or trackball. At worst they have become too clever and hypersensitive (which I suppose adds up to neurotic).
Many's the time the ball of my thumb has lightly brushed the touchpad, sent the mouse leaping off to some far corner (with interesting implications if one is typing), and even triggered some action.
For a long time now I've been using a real USB mouse on the side (literally). You can get a nice little one (Technika) from Tesco for about 8 quid. It has a reel at the middle of the cable onto which the cable is spooled up. Pull it out from both ends, and a ratchet will lock it where you want. When you've finished, give it a gentle tug to release the ratchet, and re-spool the cable. Handy for tucking into the laptop case.
Some laptops have a little button on the touchpad which turns it off. Then you have pure mouse, which is a much better situation.
[...] Someone at the Slyeham meet also mentioned getting the Acer for £100 from tesco but I think you will be hard pushed to find one there now.
That was BJ and also BJ Jr. BJ Jr told me they were bought at Diss Tesco, and they were all sold out.
Ted.
-------------------------------------------------------------------- E-Mail: (Ted Harding) Ted.Harding@manchester.ac.uk Fax-to-email: +44 (0)870 094 0861 Date: 07-May-09 Time: 10:53:20 ------------------------------ XFMail ------------------------------