Chapter 21. Pointing Devices

Your mom probably told you that it's impolite to point, but your mom probably wasn't trying to move a mouse cursor across her computer screen at the time. Trying to navigate through Windows with nothing but keyboard commands is like threading a needle in boxing gloves, only more frustrating. (It is Windows, after all.) You could point at the screen and show Windows where to put the [expletive deleted] cursor, but you could shout four-letter words until your face was as red as the nose of a career politician to no avail. (Maybe that's why they call it a cursor.) You need a method to point out to Windows where to move the cursor—namely, a pointing device.

As with any problem, technology has brought us not one, but several, solutions. When you sit at your desk, mice and trackballs fall naturally to hand for pointing your intentions to Windows. Go mobile, and you might use a TouchPad or TrackPoint to indicate cursor moves. Although each achieves the same result, each uses a different set of technologies.