[gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard

[Wayne Merritt]

That touchpad really messed with my head the first couple of days I
had my netbook. I finally found a way to deactivate it from the system
tray and in the control panel. My thumbs seemed to be drawn to that
area of the netbook on their own, so I finally deactivated it. I
suppose that this might frustrate any sighted person that tries to use
my netbook at some point, but then again, they're not the ones that
use it on a regular basis. Besides, what better way is there to
provide a crash course on keyboard commands and their usefulness,
grin.

Good luck,
Wayne

On 1/1/10, Joel Deutsch <jdeutsch at dslextreme.com> wrote:
> Hi Lloyd,
>
> I'm aware that there's an area faintly outlined by grooves in the central
> area of that big flat hand rest slab beneath the keyboard area. I knew to
> look out for it just from things people said on lists, and the sighted
> friend who configured this particular Acer for me pointed out exactly where
> it was, disabled it partly in the bios (he's an I T professional, so he
> knows what  he's doing) but warned me to simply keep my hands clear of the
> area, no matter what. So far I've put in hours sitting with this machine on
> my knees and learning slowly to use it, and I've so far been entirely
> successful in avoiding that patch that is the touch pad. I'm not misspelling
> words like that last one, just breaking them up so that Jaws doesn't
> mispronounce them, which drives me nuts.
>
> Thanks for the warning, though. And Happy New Year!
>
> Joel
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lloyd Rasmussen" <lras at sprynet.com>
> To: "'NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List'" <gui-talk at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2009 3:56 AM
> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard
>
>
> The central part of that "hand rest" is probably a touchpad, which acts like
> a mouse.  If you haven't already done so, you need to deactivate it and
> learn how to deactivate it in the future in case it decides to come back to
> life.  Clicking or touching in the wrong places can really mess you up.
>
> Lloyd Rasmussen, Kensington, Maryland
> Home:  http://lras.home.sprynet.com
> Work:  http://www.loc.gov/nls
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>> Behalf Of Joel Deutsch
>> Sent: Thursday, December 31, 2009 1:08 AM
>> To: NFBnet GUI Talk Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [gui-talk] Still hassling with my laptop keyboard
>>
>> Ted,
>>
>> Thanks a lot for the moral support. I've been putting in about an hour of
>> just practicing nearly every day, and I can see that I've begun to
>> memorize
>> and visualize (a formerly sighted person's habitual way of mapping things
>> the little keyboard, and I guess I'm making some progress. I'm still a
>> long
>> way from my fantasy of sitting back in an easy chair with the laptop on my
>> knees and just typing away; even when I get more of the keyboard
>> memorized,
>> I know I'll probably always be struck by the feeling that it isn't a
>> normal
>> typist's keyboard. Wrong hand position, and that slab of "hand rest," I
>> guess it's thought of, just screws things up if you're a serious typist.
>> If
>> children were all given their first piano lessons on something akin to
>> this,
>> not many of them would grow up to be serious pianists, I'm afraid.
>>
>> But I'll keep working at it and see if I can develop a level of skill and
>> comfort that's "good enough," to steal a phrase from psychology. The
>> good-enough mother, it was.
>>
>> Thanks again for the moral support. I was starting to think I was really
>> lame. Now I see it's truly difficult, but can be done if you're
>> determined.
>>
>> Joel
>
>
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