Ubuntu 12 - Disable Touchpad

I moved back onto my laptop recently and noticed that synaptiks is no longer disabling my touchpad when I have my mouse plugged in. ( Also noticed that I always had to start the application twice before it would run ). A better solution is to run install a touchpad notifier from which you can disable the touchpad.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:atareao/atareao
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install touchpad-indicator

After installing I had to manually launch it by typing 'touchpad' into my synapse launcher. The touchpad icon now appears in my notification area from which you can rightclick and disable the touchpad. Much nicer.

References

Ubuntublog.org