Slashdot Mirror

Others have already mentioned MIDI stuff, flight sim stuff, and the Griffin Powermate. But nobody has mentioned a jog/shuttle controller yet.

Depending on what you are doing, one or more of these might be useful. Contour has two different models and I am sure there are other brands out there too.

http://retail.contourdesign.com/?/products/5

steveha

been using one for years

http://ergo.contourdesign.com/products/product-detail.aspx?id=66

This seem like a copy-paste of the product RollerMouse from Contour Design which have a lot of users at my company. We even have Autocad-people using this. Seem to me that it actually works, as they have less problems with shoulder-pains etc.

Like this....

http://ergo.contourdesign.com/products/rollermouse/default.aspx

(Not affiliated, but this article really is non-news to me)

I use a Contour Roller Mouse and like it very much. It takes a bit of getting used to since its motion is somewhat different than a conventional mouse or trackball. This keeps my hands close to the keyboard at all times. The newer models have a number of buttons. I originally got it on the advice of an industrial ergonomist to address shoulder and neck pain from long hours at the computer (something that it has, indeed, improved significantly), but now find that I am more productive in all applications except CAD and graphics work. It is a bit expensive, but constitutes an interesting alternative.

See:

http://www.contourdesign.com/pmo/

Pro's:

+ USB or PS/2
+ 3 buttons, like the creator intended
+ Multiple sizes
+ Lefty, righty models
+ Great thumb action scrollwheel and scroll-slider

Con's:

+ BIG - especially the larger sizes
+ Not 100% ergo IMO - still can have a bit of discomfort
+ Optical pickup only, no more ball model (I prefer a ball)

Definitely worth trying out.

There isn't?

http://www.contourdesign.com/pmo/index.htm

Three different left-hand sizes.

Here's one that not only comes in lefty models, but you can choose from different sizes, too:

http://www.contourdesign.com/pmo/

I bought it because "normal" mice caused me pain, and because I must have a three button mouse (I'm guessing that I'm not the only one here).

I have the righty version, and it is pretty comfortable, much better than anything else currently on the market that resembles a standard mouse.

The most comfortable mouse of all time, bar none:

http://www.firingsquad.com/hardware/wingmanmouse/

It was just amazing. I'd kill to get one in new condition - I never had any pain with it. Shame that Logitech killed it.

I have been having wrist pains and my work got me one of these http://www.contourdesign.com/rollermouse/index.htm
I can now move the mouse with out removing my hands from the keys. It is awesome. I am still getting use to it so I am not to quick with it yet but I think this is a winner.

On a side note I was doing fine as I used VIM for most of my coding then I switched to a project where everything was visual studio based. That is when the pain began

I actually have an Evoluent VerticalMouse3. I got it because I suffer from tendonitis.

I switch back and forth between the VM3 and a Contour Perfit (optical) mouse because I find that both tend to relieve tension in one area (e.g., the radial nerve) but cause tension in another (e.g., the palm, or the back of the hand).

For the Contour Perfit, there are different sizes and different models for right vs. left-handed use (I use a large right-handed one). They're designed so that your whole hand rests on the mouse, in a "neutral" position (halfway between full flexion and full extension).

I think I like the Contour mouse a little better. I find with the VM3, despite the (very slight) lip at the bottom, my hand still tends to drag on the mousepad.

The scroll wheel, on pretty much any mouse I've tried, is a major culprit for repetitive stress injury. But the function is just too useful to give up!

Probably a bigger problem is the one discovered by rehtonAesoohC (parent poster): fine mouse movements are very difficult to achieve when using your whole arm rather than your fingers. Those larger muscles just lack the precision of our fingers, which is why I often find myself using the Contour mouse inappropriately, with my fingertips touching the mouse and rest of the hand arched up above it rather than laying flat. I've developed a few little tricks to get back some precision, like incorporating a kind of wrist wiggle to move the mouse left and right in a fan-like motion and get the mouse pointer to home in on a specific little point. But that can lead to wrist pain if overdone, and I think especially gives me pain along the radial nerve when using VM3

At any rate, I'm glad to see other recommendations from Slashdotters, and may try a few more mice. Don't overlook the possibility of using several mice and switching between them at times.

Enablemart - This seems to be a third party seller but I've yet to find out who makes all the equipment they sell
3M Ergonomic Products - Notable is the Ergonomic Mouse that looks kind of like a joystick
Kinesis Corporation - Another third party place that sells ergonomic items (they have chairs also)
Perific - Their main product is the Wireless Dual Mouse
Evoluent - They are known for the VerticalMouse
Contour Design - Best known for the RollerMouse and the PerfitMouse (Contour Mouse)
Combimouse - Combination Keyboard and Mouse
Adesso - They make a lot of products
Aerobic Mouse - Looks a lot like the VerticalMouse except it has a plastic area to hold your hand
Nohands Mouse - Control your mouse with your feet
Zero Tension Mouse - seems like a mix between the VerticalMouse and 3M's Ergonomic Mouse

I experience severe wrist and arm problems a couple years ago. My ergo department let me experiment with a lot of different solutions including the foot mouse. I found it very tedious and difficult to use for programming. It was very hard to do any exact pointing and I found myself with my feet tensed up, leaning back in my chair trying to get the cursor where I wanted it. This was making my back ache and wasn't particularly relieving my wrist pain. I finally settled on the roller mouse http://www.contourdesign.com/rollermouse/ The design slips under a standard keyboard and provides a sliding roller near the spacebar. I found I could quickly point the cursor just about anywhere with minimal wrist movement. It has really contributed to my quality of computer life. I liked it enough to get one at home too. Your mileage will vary.

A lifelong leftie, I switched my right hand from the numberpad to WASD a while ago, and I've never looked back. My thumb can wander freely about the Shift, Ctrl and Alt (ideal, but for that damned Windows key!) keys, and my pinky covers F,G and R for reloading and other sundries.

As for mouseache relief, I heartily recommend the Perfit mouse. Various sizes, proper left- and right-handed models, with a pleasingly relazed hand position. The wheel is on the thumb (as is a back and forward rocker), which may not be everyone's brew, but it works for me. It takes a little getting used to in the gaming department (for some reason, I could never make the switch in Battlefield 2 - I'm fine with every other game though. Go figure.) but so does any new device.

It's also quite pricey ($109 - fortunately, I bought it when the dollar was a bit rubbish), but a small price to pay for the gift of functioning hand-parts.

Emphasize keyboard shortcuts. It's a transition for the user but staying off the mouse can help a lot. This is really the number one solution.

Mouse preference is very user specific. You may have to try several items before finding something that works.

The key to using touchpads or trackballs in this circumstance is that the driver should provide a "click and hold" button. This allows the user to do a drag and drop without actually keeping the button depressed which can be quite hard on the thumb.

Some alternative mice that may work include:

http://www.contourdesign.com/rollermouse

http://www.aerobicmouse.com/

The 3M Mouse helps a lot with wrist position but the default configuration is in fact very hard on the thumb. The driver that comes with it does not allow you to reprogram the buttons. However, if you can find an older MS Intellimouse driver it will allow you to reprogram the buttons if you plug the mouse into a PS/2 port. You then configure the 3M Mouse like this:

This gives you "squeeze to click" which is much easier on the thumb. Instruct the user not to use Button 2 (the one on the right hand side on top of the mouse). This requires you to roll the thumb outward which is a very bad motion (thumbs were made for grasping).

http://www.contourdesign.com/rollermouse/rollermou se_use.htm

We have several people in my office with such complaints, and they all love the above device. Although the pictures show it being used with the thumb, it can be used with any finger.

There's the rollermouse, among other solutions. A bit on the expensive side at $200, but you see it quite often in administration offices and health care centers here in Sweden, so I suppose it must be good. Of course it's swedish, so that must have had an effect on its ubiquity here.

Like the parent poster suggested, this mouse comes with a thumb scrollwheel and an additional rocking thumbswitch. My hand is tilted at approximately 20 degrees. Not vertical, but not horizontal, either. It's very comfortable to use.

It took me about two weeks to get used to it. In other words, it took about two weeks for my hand to "unlearn" its unnatural grip on a regular mouse and to instead stretch out on the PerfitMouse.

Does the mouse look sexy on my desk? No. Is it wireless? No. Is it comfortable and pain-free to use? YES!

I personally love having both a middle button (for "open in a new tab" in FireFox) and a scroll wheel, although it did take a while to get used to using the thumb to scroll.

I find I can pretty much ignore the forward/back rocker switch below the thumb, only occasionally triggering it by mistake in a program that listens to it.

I use: rollermouse

Its lets you use the scroll wheel with your thumbs, and eliminates the need to move your hands off the keyboard to use the mouse. I've had no problems using it for fine detail work that requires high accuracy mouse momements.

I've never liked the ergonomics on Apple mice, and this one doesn't look any better than usual. I'll stick with the Perfit Mouse from Contour.

Or there's the Contour Design "Perfit Mouse", which is definitely not bargain-bin material:

http://www.contourdesign.com/pmo/index.htm

Three buttons across the top, and your thumb is next to a scroll wheel and a rocker switch on the side.

It comes in multiple sizes, including left-handed sizes.

Precision: This is a very good point that you make here. Research in the field on vertical type Mice validates this point, as well. Most gamers will have difficulty with precise cursor control with this type of mouse. Also, you increase the risk of trigger finger injuries. "As a "fast twitch" player who's been playing... It forces you to use the much less precise muscles of the shoulder and upper arm as opposed to the muscles of the forearm. I'll take my carpal tunnel syndrome..." I'm an Associate Ergonomist, who had Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, and now work for an input device mfg. Since, we work with CAD users(at Boeing, Intel, Trane,etc) who have Carpal Tunnel Syndrome(CTS), we had to design something that would allow them to have good control and decrease CTS type discomfort. If you click on the "usage" button here, and view what we call Mode #2, you can see how we achieve this. (This only took 18 months of R & D to find this solution.) http://www.contourdesign.com/pmo/perfitdemo.swf We have been in business helping people with CTS and other RSIs for 10 years. This product has been out since, we started. It is expensive, but works for many. OK I will get off my soap box, now. Cheers, Mouseguy

I tend to agree that this is a problem with form-fit mice... me, I hold the mouse with my fingertips and thumb anyway... but...

You might try the Perfit mouse, it comes in 7 different sizes...

This one is really good unless you need a lot of accuracy. Takes a bit getting used to, but once you start using it, it's a life saver. At least it was for me.

http://www.contourdesign.com/rollermouse/

And if you don't have the cash or a need for all the features of the ShuttlePro, there's always the ShuttleXpress. Fewer buttons, but you still have the jog and shuttle. At half the cost of the Pro, it's not a bad deal if your needs are more modest.

The Contour ShuttlePro is nicer. My stepdad, a retired cinematographer and photographer, is into video editing and uses one on his PC. All the buttons and the wheel itself are programmable and so forth. Definitely worth the ~$100US price tag IMHO, if you're constantly editing video. It should be quite nice for gaming as well, though I haven't tried it for that yet.

The Perfit Mouse Optical is perfect really, with three nice full size buttons and a scrollwheel on the side for the thumb, so I can still use a scrollwheel, but it's just waaay out of my price range for a mouse.

1. I tilted the keyboard away, not toward me. I pushed that wrist rest under the closest edge of the kb so now it's maybe 5 degrees of tilt toward the monitor. this flattens the wrist like piano playing would and keeps me from anchoring the heel of my hand to the wrist rest anymore (which led to more twisting from the wrist). (I got this tilt tip from an RSI USENet post.) Pain in wrists and elbows got better in a matter of days. VHS tapes, paperback books, and my current 2-inch empty ring binder all work pretty well for this purpose.

2. Bought 2 Perfit mice, one for each hand. Every 3-6 months i switch mouse hands. This helped wrists and top of shoulders. The deal here is tilt and getting the right size for your hand so you can't so easily plant the heel of your hand on the mousepad. It takes some getting used to, but you can program the 3 buttons to do whatever you like, and I like them so well i've bought 4 of them over the years for various systems. (it works on lots of platforms.)

I tried a graphics tablet as a mouse replacement for many years. I liked it because I was doing a lot of drawing and photo editing and it gave me a lot more precision. But I kept having to put the dang stylus down (it would then dutifully roll onto the floor) and make a keyboard command, then go get the stylus and continue. Even after I eventually trained myself to put the stylus down in a better place, this device switching cost me a lot of time, and the stylus was a right-hand-only device for me.

Eventually I turned the tabet upside down and used it for a mouse pad, at lap level. That helped quite a bit, but it interrupted cat visitations, so it could not continue.

3. I finally cut a T-shaped board out of plywood that fits into my desk drawer slot but sticks out a foot. It gives me enough room, at the right level, for my kb, mice, AND the occasional cat and/or dinner.

YMMV, but these three types of modifications (kb tilt, mouse size, kb/mouse level) cost only about $150 or so to try.

Many of my co-workers use these mice from Contour Designs.

You can check them out here

I already have a Shuttlepro v2 that I use extensively in Photoshop and Illustrator.Ironically, I don't do video work but the thing is a godsend for undo/redo, zoom and other common tasks.

I've been using 3-button mice since the PC Paintbrush IV days, and I have to say, I still use them every day. Nothing like that big middle button to slap to pop browser links into new tabs, and paste text.

At first I used to be a fan of Logitech, SGI and Sun's 3-button mice, but now I don't leave home without a Contour Perfit Mouse. It's 3-button, and there are not only left and right handed versions, but multiple sizes for each. It melds into your hand, so you only have to inch forward a bit of muscle in each finger to press a button. Very nice and ergonomic.

I'm dying to try out their new optical mice myself. They were pretty slow to the game there, to be sure. I do like where they've put the scroll button for those.

Long live the *real* middle button.

I hate the click action of mouse wheels. I've gotten to the point where I hoard Logitech Mouseman and Wingman mice. Three buttons, no wheel. I have a box full of them in my closet.

But what I use are PerfitMouse mice from Contour Design (http://www.contourdesign.com/perfit-new.htm). Three buttons across the top, multiple sizes, right- and left-handed versions. They're just now switching over to an optical version, with USB (plus PS/2 adaptor), and a wheel on the side for your thumb (my thumb is more flexible than any of my fingers; isn't yours?), and underneath it there's a two-way hat switch.

They're expensive. The new opticals are $110. But they treat my hand very well. I've bought three of the old versions for $90, and I've just bought the first of three of the new ones.

Control system volume and navigation - launch apps - use for timeline and frame by frame manipulation in final cut pro - use for TRON tank turrets and Centipede!

A lot like this device: Shuttle Express You can see the similarities.

This is one reason the Mac is great - I have been able to use lots of devices that I have investments in; in lots of different ways. T68i & Romeo is just one example.

the wheel is uncomfortable for clicking or any frequent use as a button. a middle mouse button is critical in in apps like Maya and useful for quick pasting in shell windows.

this mouse is not optical and it's not cheap. but the pricing ($90-$140) shows how rare good 3 button mice have become.

About 10 years ago until about 7 years ago their keyboards were made in the U.S.A. or Ireland. I bought two Natural Keyboards in 2000, both made in Taiwan. The crappy keyswitches butchered my hands and the key switches started wearing out within two months so that when you pressed shift or any broad key it would just jam in the "up" position and not go down. That was also a major cause of pain, eventually.

Now, my hands are 26cm (~11in?) thumb-tip to pinky-finger-tip, so the average keyboard and things like my Logitech "ergonomic" mouse were far too small.

So I dropped by an ergonomic equipment specialist in Holland and after trying out a bunch of keyboards I spent the dosh, and got a Kinesis Ergo Elan keyboard. For my huge hands it was a good size, and the ultra-light keyswitches and 6 keys under each thumb, all arranged in two bowls, have meant hours of typing without pain. Combine that with a Anir Vertical Mouse and I'm a happy hacker. I made sure work bought be one as well. At home I've got a huge Countour Perfit mouse to fit my hand

As for my fave keyboard. The Union Bank of Switzerland (now UBS AG) used to be the biggest IT shop in the country. They were even developing their own Unix workstation at one point. They manufactured a keyboard for traders with 4 or 5 extra rows of keys over the normal QWERTY layout plus a number pad, with a 4 line LCD display built in. Talk about lots of short-cut buttons... :-)

The pain around my knuckles and center of the top part of my hand got bad enough that I had to have an intern read/write e-mails for me at work. And rather then being a senior systems admin, I did staff training for various technical topics. Yippy. I took two weeks off of typing, and did a lot of research. This is what I ended up doing:

1) Kinesis Contour Keyboard . I was highly skeptical of this keyboard, being $250... but my hand pains were enough that I would try anything. I got it for home, the one with dual-dvorak/qwerty caps. I now swear by this keyboard so much that I would rather give up my Athlon and go back to a 486/33 if it was the only way to keep this keyboard. I then had work buy me one. It's hard to learn a new keyboard if it changes depending on where you are :) The primary advantage of this keyboard is no matter what keys you hit, your hands never move. Things that don't move, don't get stressed. I've also got some good photos of it's inards and some closeups.

2) Dvorak Keyboard Layout . I took the dive when I bought my Kinesis and immediately began learning Dvorak. Having my keyboard labeled with dual-dvorak/qwerty keys helped me a lot. Un-learning 12 years of QWERTY was by no means easy, but worth it. It was very rough to learn (took about 3 weeks to get back to normal speed), but because your fingers don't have to move as much for english words, my fingers are under a lot less stress. Doesn't help much with perl though, but Ruby's nicer syntax means my hands contort less anyways. Oh, you don't lose your qwerty skills. Whenever I type on a normal keyboard, my hand things qwerty. It associated Dvorak with the Kinesis keyboard.

3) Contour Systems Perfit Mouse . This was almost as important as the keyboard. It amazed me what a difference this made. These mice are custom to your hands. I got two 3-button mice for 7-inch hands, one lefty and one righty. I use the left handed mouse at home (my natural hand), and the right handed at work. It took some training on my right hand, but the balance makes it much less hurtful. I still get pains going to Microsoft mice or trackballs. I can't stress how excellently designed these are for your hands. Rather then pushing the end of your finger to click, you apply a very light pressure in the middle of your fingers. Less movement is less stress is less pain.

4) xwrits . This is software to remind you to take keyboard breaks. You can install it straight from /usr/ports/deskutils/xwrits in FreeBSD. This is the .xsession command line I use:

xwrits typetime=50 +finger=japanese +clock +mouse +beep +breakclock +multiply +top &

I'm going to have to set it so that locks me out of my workstation soon. I often will type "killall xwrits". Anyways, that's what I ended up doing for my situation. I can now type again quite happily, though I still get pains on normal qwerty keyboards like the one I'm on ATM at a friends house. Hand damage really sucks, I miss being able to use laptops without pain. Now I have to drag this Kinesis around.

IF YOU FEEL PAIN - STOP - TAKE BREAKS - FIX YOUR SITUATION! SEE A DOCTOR!. I cannot stress this enough. Not fixing this earlier has cost me.