http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/12/technology/personaltech/troubleshooting-a-balky-trackpad.html 2014-09-15 23:16:29 Troubleshooting a Balky Trackpad Before dismantling your computer, try these steps. === Q. A. Some laptop makers (like Before you start hunting for replacement parts and taking the computer apart, though, you might want to run through a few diagnostic steps to make sure the unresponsive behavior from the trackpad is not because of a software issue. (Giving the trackpad a good cleaning may help, too.) First, check your laptop’s manual or manufacturer’s website to see if there is a keyboard shortcut that enables and disables the trackpad when pressed. On some models, for example, pressing the Function and F7 keys can activate or deactivate the trackpad. No luck? If you are not comfortable Downloading and installing fresh drivers from the support area of the manufacturer’s website might fix the problem if the old drivers were damaged or out of date. If you have multiple USB devices connected to the laptop, try unplugging everything, rebooting the machine and trying the trackpad again to see if one of the other devices was interfering. The Pros and Cons of Scanner Apps Q. A. Some apps can also synchronize files with online storage sites like Dropbox or save scanned receipts into another program that tracks expenses. Some scanning apps — particularly ones that are intended for capturing business cards — use optical character recognition software to automatically convert the picture of the card or document to editable text. Once the text from an image has been converted with software, it can be pulled into a word-processing program on the mobile device, or even converted into a regular contact file in the phone’s address book. Most major phone platforms have at least a few mobile scanning apps to sample and many have ad-supported free versions if you do not want to part with $5 or $10 for a premium app. If you have an Android phone, you probably already have an app that can scan documents: