How do you disable your synaptic trackpad in Ubuntu

[David Kramer]

One of the many issues I had upgrading to Karmic (I'm working on a
comprehensive list) what the mouse configuration tool that comes with it
no longer lets you disable the trackpad, which constantly makes the
cursor jump while I'm typing due to my monstrous hands.  Ideally I would
like it to default to off, but have the ability to reenable it on demand.

I have tried TouchFreeze, and it doesn't actually disable the trackpad.
 I also tried gpointing-device-settings, which actually works, but it's
a GUI program I have to run from the command line, and the setting
doesn't persist reboots, so I have to run it from the command line and
choose the right options every time I reboot.

I will skip (for now) my rant on how all of the tried and true config
files everyone knows and understands are being taken away from us in the
favor of "The software knows what to do" (isn't that how we got Windows?).

Is there a better way?  Thanks.