4 Ways to disable Laptop TouchPad

Below are 4 ways to disable Laptop TouchPad when using an external Mouse instead of a built-in Touchpad.

1. Disable Touchpad via Control Panel

Your system must have the Touchpad driver installed. Lets take the most common brand Synaptics as an example. You can open the “Mouse Properties” in Control Panel, and then switch to “Device Settings” tab with the Synaptics logo.

Now you will see the devices list, choose your Synaptics Touchpad, then click on “Disable” to stop it from working.

2. Disable Touchpad via Laptop Keyboard

Most laptops in the market have a built-in function key (Fn), just like the WiFi switcher, to quickly turn the Touchpad on or off.

This key may or may not be there in your laptop. It depends on what brand of laptop you are using.

3. Use TouchFreeze to disable Touchpad

While the two methods mentioned above can only disable the Touchpad permanently, TouchFreeze is a brilliant little application that disables the Touchpad temporarily when you start typing. Hence you don’t need to control the Touchpad switcher manually. Just leave it running background, and do your work confidently.

However, the above tool didn’t seem to work on my Windows 7 system correctly. May be it’s only for XP users.

4. Use Touchpad Pal to disable Touchpad

Similar to TouchFreeze, Touchpad Pal can also automatically disable Touchpad when you are typing text.

 

Compared to the tools introduced above, Touchpad pal has some advantages. Like it is compatible with Windows Vista and Windows 7, and displays the “Clicks blocked” frequency in the main interface.

Petzold’s Programming Windows Phone 7 Special Excerpt 2 is available, Download now

Here comes an-other update for developers; Special Excerpt 2 of Programming Windows Phone 7 is available now. Its 2nd preview of book entitled “Programming Windows 7 Phone” authored by Microsoft MVP Charles Petzold. The book will be finalized by upcoming PDC 10 (October 28th, 2010) And, guess what: it will also be free.

This book is for .NET Programmers or who knows the basic principles of .NET programming and working familiarity with the C# programming language. This excerpt preview has 11 chapters (and 265 pages) categorized in 3 parts viz Getting Started, Silverlight & XNA. The chapters are:

Part I The Basics	Part II Silverlight	Part III XNA
Chapter 1 Hello, Windows Phone 7	Chapter 7 XAML Power and Limitations	Chapter 20 Principles of Movement
Chapter 2 Getting Oriented	Chapter 8 Elements and Properties	Chapter 21 Textures and Sprites
Chapter 3 An Introduction to Touch		Chapter 22 Touch and Play
Chapter 4 Bitmaps, Also Known as Textures
Chapter 5 Sensors and Services
Chapter 6 Issues in Application Architecture

The guide can be downloaded here [XPS format] and [PDF format]. The Code samples for this draft preview are also available. [Code Samples]. You can find more resources, developer guides & tools and books to learn key concepts for programming Windows Phones. Read More.

Bing Dynamic Themepack: Fresh wallpaper, updated automatically

Microsoft has released a new RSS-based Bing Dynamic Themepack for Windows 7. This theme displays a fresh downloaded wallpaper which is updated automatically. You receive a new photo from Bing every week for three months, with this Windows 7 theme that updates automatically through an RSS feed.

Switch it up! Receive a new photo from Bing every week for three months, with this Windows 7 theme that updates automatically through an RSS feed.

 Download