[Sussex] Rantting

[Paul Morris]

Geoff
On Thursday 14 April 2005 11:07, Geoffrey J. Teale wrote:

> I've been having trouble with my hands recently, a lifetime of playing
> heavy strung guitars and a typing style akin to a jack-hammer on ice
> have started to give me pains across the back of my left hand.  As a
> result I will shortly be taking delivery of a Fingerworks Touchstream
> LP "keyboard" to try and ease the impact on my fingers.  Now this
> device replaces a lot of common key commands with gestures and indeed
> acts as a mouse as well as a keyboard.  In doing all this it allows some
> much more complex interaction with the GUI that makes some trivial
> tasks a little more interesting.  Imagine a world with two mice
> available to you to control GUI elements without moving your hands
> from their typing position - I'm looking forward to playing with
> things like this:
>
> http://www.fingerworks.com/XWinder.html
>
I'll be interested in hearing about how you get on with the touchstream 
keyboard as I also suffer with input device related pain. For years I was 
unable to use a mouse with my right hand for more than a few minutes at a 
time, without pain in my hand and wrist. When I started to get the same 
symptoms in my left hand, I started to look for alternatives to the 
conventional mouse. 
I currently use a 3M renaissance mouse (http://www.3m.com/cws/renmouse.html) 
at work and a Quill mouse (http://www.quillmouse.com/) at home. Both are 
based on the principle of keeping your hand in a vertical position, with the 
wrist relaxed and the larger arm muscles doing the work.  Using these 
alternatives I no longer experience the wrist and hand pain, and I can now 
even use a conventional mouse ( my family insist I leave one connected) for 
reasonable periods with no ill effects. 


-- 
Paul