If this has ever happened to you, you’ll know what we mean…
It’s infuriating!
You’ll be typing away on your laptop, and all of a sudden the text is appearing somewhere else on the page – in the middle of a word back on the top line, or something like that…
Usually this is caused by a thumb or the heel of your palm catching on the touchpad. (Also called a glide pad, glide point, pressure-sensitive tablet, or trackpad – depends on the manufacturer). When this happens it is like “clicking” on the mouse, and will relocate the cursor to wherever your movement across the touchpad sends it.
The good news is that there may be something you can do about this…
One option is to plug in a USB mouse, rather than using the touchpad. Some laptops will automatically disable the touchpad when you do this.
Other laptops leave the touchpad enabled even when there’s a mouse present. If this is the case for your machine, don’t despair – you may be able to manually disable the touchpad by going into Windows’ Mouse settings.
Unfortunately, different laptops have different touchpads and touchpad drivers, so the solution isn’t universal.
Start by opening the Control Panel and then double-clicking Mouse. If you see a Device Select tab, click it and 
enable Disable TouchPad when USB pointing device is present.
If this isn’t an option, try the Device Settings tab, then the Settings button, and then check through the extensive touchpad options.
On a Vista notebook, try the Tapping tab in the Mouse Properties window. Selecting “Tap off when typing,” keeps the touchpad from recognizing taps while you’re typing. If your laptop doesn’t have this option, look for something similar.
The Samsung Q310 laptop has a function-key toggle that turns the touchpad on and off. Perfect!