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Touch Laptops

codinghorror.com

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Re: Touch Laptops

#11

Post by jerrya »

Jeff Atwood writes, The screen bounces when you touch it and for me this just brings up all the reasons I don't want a touchscreen except on a tablet. There is gorilla arms, screen bounces, and screen smudges. Jeez, I hate when people touch my screens.

But I am wondering if a reasonable or even better solution is an appropriate touchpad or even Android or iPad touchpad app.

Right now there are two (maybe three) touchpads quasi made for Windows 8 that I would like to try.

* The Logitech Wireless Rechargeable Touchpad T650 -- a huge touchpad with Windows 8 gesture support

* Splashtop Win8 Metro Testbed for Android and iPad

* Unified Remote for Android and Windows Phones

I haven't used Windows 8 more than three minutes, and I haven't used these alternatives to a touchscreen monitor, but I like the idea of having a 4" to 7" phone or tablet screen that mirrors the Windows 8 screen but lets me keep my finger flat on the table, pointing to a smaller screen now in remote touchscreen mode and able to get feedback to where my finger is either by seeing a "mouse pointer" move on the screen, or just by looking at the phone or tablet my finger is on and seeing the screen there.

Re: Touch Laptops

#12

Post by cmelbye »

meaty wrote: post #2

Why does everyone still have to use imperial/US measurements. Metric please or I have to break out the calculator.

People from the US use US measurements, surprisingly.

Re: Touch Laptops

#13

Post by meaty »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #9
meaty wrote: post #2

Why does everyone still have to use imperial/US measurements. Metric please or I have to break out the calculator.

Try being British, you basically have to understand both intuitively.

I am British! I haven't used imperial for at least 15 years apart from for speed limits, which I ignore anyway.

Re: Touch Laptops

#14

Post by davidlumley »

WalterBright wrote: post #8

I bought a new Asus laptop with Win8 specifically because it has a touchscreen. The touchscreen solves my long standing problem with using laptops - I find touchpads nearly unusable. It's soo much easier to scroll with the touchscreen, especially with the small laptop screens. All non-touchscreen laptops are, to my mind, instantly and sadly obsolete. Note that for a desktop, I see no advantage to a touchscreen, as th…

> The touchscreen solves my long standing problem with using laptops - I find touchpads nearly unusable.

Have you used a macbook running OS X before? I find the touchpad handling much better in OS X than I do in Windows so would be interesting to know what sort of touchpad you're comparing to.

Re: Touch Laptops

#15

Post by bjcy »

mooism2 wrote: post #10
loeg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Atwood's an American. Writers will write what they know… they're hardly obligated to use an unfamiliar measurement system for your convenience.

Well, it depends. If Atwood's aiming at an international audience, then he should use both measurement systems. If he's happy with an American audience then there's no reason for him to bother. I note that the date of his blog post is the international-friendly “November 19, 2012” rather than the American numeric “11/19/2012”. But internationalising dates like this is easier than providing measurements in dual units.

Us Americans do use "Month DD, YYYY" quite frequently, so I don't think that his usage of it is done purposefully.

Re: Touch Laptops

#17

Post by statictype »

davidlumley wrote: post #14
WalterBright wrote: post #8

I bought a new Asus laptop with Win8 specifically because it has a touchscreen. The touchscreen solves my long standing problem with using laptops - I find touchpads nearly unusable. It's soo much easier to scroll with the touchscreen, especially with the small laptop screens. All non-touchscreen laptops are, to my mind, instantly and sadly obsolete. Note that for a desktop, I see no advantage to a touchscreen, as th…

> The touchscreen solves my long standing problem with using laptops - I find touchpads nearly unusable. Have you used a macbook running OS X before? I find the touchpad handling much better in OS X than I do in Windows so would be interesting to know what sort of touchpad you're comparing to.

Yes, the MacBook's touch pad is significantly, significantly better than most other PC laptop touchpads. I don't need a mouse when using a MacBook. I can't use a PC laptop without a mouse.

I suspect its a combination of better hardware and better software (I bet Microsoft doesn't write the touchpad interpretation code, its done by the individual hardware makers and so will be total crap).

Re: Touch Laptops

#18

Post by smiler »

meaty wrote: post #13
jiggy2011 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try being British, you basically have to understand both intuitively.

I am British! I haven't used imperial for at least 15 years apart from for speed limits, which I ignore anyway.

Except you subconsciously have. All display sizes are sold in inches. The trip computer on your car will tell you miles per gallon. Even if you ignore speed limits, your speedometer gives you your speed in MPH :). If you've ever flown on a plane, altitude has been given as feet and distance in miles. So you do use both.

Re: Touch Laptops

#19

Post by rjd »

meaty wrote: post #13
jiggy2011 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try being British, you basically have to understand both intuitively.

I am British! I haven't used imperial for at least 15 years apart from for speed limits, which I ignore anyway.

Having growing up in a metric country and lived in Britain I must admit its very nice having 60miles per equalling 60 minutes of driving for long trips.

Being able to say "I'm 45 miles away from X I'll be there in 45 minutes" without having to do recalculate each time you pass a road sign makes trips all the more pleasant.

Re: Touch Laptops

#20

Post by naz »

meaty wrote: post #13
jiggy2011 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try being British, you basically have to understand both intuitively.

I am British! I haven't used imperial for at least 15 years apart from for speed limits, which I ignore anyway.

You don't intuitively measure your weight in stone?
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