Grar

[ladysprite]

I had a long, meaningful, complicated and intricate post about the importance of rest and comfort and taking time off to do nothing with friends.

Unfortunately, my computer ate it. All. And 'restore from saved draft' just gets me a blank screen.

I bought a new laptop about two weeks ago, and this has been happening constantly. The touch pad doesn't work when I try to use it, no matter how hard I try, and then five minutes later my sleeve will brush across one corner of it and suddenly I'll have opened three new tabs, enlarged everything on the screen to mega-size, deleted all my passwords, and recopied all my typing to some search engine bar that wasn't there thirty seconds ago. My cursor jumps around like a ballet-dancing ninja on speed. Files open that I didn't touch.

Either this thing hates me, or it's possessed. Or I am possibly too computer-stupid to use it. I want my old, decrepit, slow, ancient, broken, idiot-friendly laptop back....

Comments

[metaphysick.livejournal.com]

I had a long, meaningful, complicated and intricate post about the importance of rest and comfort and taking time off to do nothing with friends.

Speaking of, any good days for hanging out either this week or next?

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

I'm free tomorrow, other than Babydolls rehearsal at 7pm....

[metaphysick.livejournal.com]

Shall we say... Davis Square, 2 PM-ish, and go from there?

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

It's a plan. :)

[metaphysick.livejournal.com]

I'm feeling pseudo-sick, so I might have to bail, depending on how I feel when I wake up. It might just be allergies, though. If I have to bow out, I'll give a call.

[tpau]

itis a computer, it is quite likely posessed. tey all are. otoh, the touch pad may be set to overly stupidly sensitive...

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Would you consider adding a "real" mouse? (I can never get touchpads to work right.)

[z-gryphon.livejournal.com]

If it's a Windows system, there'll be a bit in the Control Panel that'll shut off the touchpad's fancier functions - tap-to-click, tap-to-drag, etc. - which is what it sounds like you're having the trouble with. Turning all that lot off will change the touchpad into a simple pointing device, leaving clicking and dragging to the buttons, as God intended. (And if it's not a Windows system, there's probably still such a thing, I just don't know where to find it.)

The "plug in a proper mouse" suggestion's a good one too, if you've got the real estate for it. I usually use one on my tiny netbook simply because the touchpad buttons are so ludicrously small and wrong-placed. It's a Kensington SlimBlade multimedia mouse, which doubles as an iTunes remote control - not a function I use often, but I do like the way the wireless USB dongle stashes inside the battery compartment when not in use.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

I second the suggestion of disabling the touchpad's click functions.

Also some touchpads default to the side and bottom being vertical and horizontal slide bars. This is also a feature you can disable.

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

In addition to adjusting the touch pad settings, paranoid me wonders if there's any chance you have a virus, given your symptoms. (You probably don't, but it's the first thing I think of.)

Fiddling with just about every control panel to get things Right (for my personal definition of Right) was pretty much the first thing I had to do when I got this computer. I remember the touch pad giving me fits.

[rosinavs.livejournal.com]

The tablet/laptop I had for work until recently had the problem of the pointer bouncing around on the screen, opening and closing windows and generally rendering the computer unusable until it was hibernated or restarted. Wiping XP off it and installing Vista helped, as did mega virus work by the IT office at work, but all it did was make the occurrence of the problem exceedingly rare rather than half the time. Exceedingly rare I could deal with. Oh, and resetting the touchpad and touchscreen settings.

Then, of course, I had to deal with the pain in the butt that is Vista. Which meant I couldn't get onto wireless networks that did not broadcast an SSID (rare, but some friends are paranoid) and a few other minor PITA issues.

[gmkieran.livejournal.com]

is it new enough to have shipped with Windows 7? just curious

I'm beginning to wonder if the cursor jump thing is some kind of well-hidden virus/worm that's going around or a broken patch MS put out. I've had 3 desktops start doing that in the last 5 months and I've replaced the Human Interface Devices (tried multiple varieties, including a drawing tablet) on all of them to no effect.

voting in favor of disabling all non-essential mouse-pad functions. personally recommend the thumb trackballs that fit around your finger, but I have a penchant for track balls *g*

Would also recommend dumping Vista (if you got stuck with it) and upgrading back to XP, but that's largely personal bias, so take with copious amounts of salt. ;)

good luck!

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

I had a laptop that misbehaved in a similar fashion. Turned out it was shipped with a cracked motherboard.

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Or disable the mousepad entirely (which we did for kestrell's laptop).