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I've had wrist problems - not carpal tunnel as such but nevertheless pain.

I spent ages going from pillar to post - I eventually discovered that apparently office ergonomics are more of an art than a science. Nobody can tell you what will fix your problems, all they can do is suggest a few things you can try. It's down to you to try them and find a solution that works for you.

Four things I tried which helped:

  - Replace the mouse with a trackball. There's a tendency with a mouse to move your wrist - you're not meant to do this, you're meant to use your whole arm. But I don't know anyone who does. It'll take you a few days to get used to, after which you'll never use a mouse again.
  - Invest in an adjustable split keyboard (eg. Goldtouch). The adjustable aspect's important - you're meant to change it every so often so as to even out the wear on your wrists.
  - Relax. Book a couple of days off - say, a Friday and a Monday - and have a long weekend away. Leave your phone, laptop, iPad and anything else technology related at home.
  - Book a couple of sessions with an osteopath.

A few years ago now, I had wrist problems which were said to be from spending too much time in front of the keyboard.

I looked for every possible way to relieve the problem, hoping that I'd find someone or something that could simply say "Do this. You'll be much better". I learned something that most manufacturers of ergonomic products don't tell you. Specialists in setting up an ergonomic work environment will tell you - but not before you've paid them (£/$/€)a few hundred.

Nobody can say "Buy product X, Y and Z; you'll be fine". The reason for this is what works for me may not work for you; you have to figure out what works for you for yourself. I can tell you what works for me but there's no guarantee it'll help you.

What works for me is this:

1. If you can't get into the habit of using a mouse without bending your wrist, ditch it. I've found a trackball very effective.
2. I've got a Goldtouch keyboard which I'm very happy with. They're not cheap, but they're a hell of a lot cheaper than re-training to do something else.
3. Every so often switch which hand you use for your trackball/mouse. This gives your other hand a chance to recover.
4. Arrange the arms of your office chair so you can't easily rest your elbows on them. Or, even better, remove altogether. I've found I have a tendency to rest my arms on the chair while I'm using the keyboard, which is a Big No No.
5. If it starts to hurt, pay attention. Chances are you're doing something that's making it hurt - maybe sitting in a particular way. As soon as you've figured out what that is, stop doing it. If that means you have to move things around to force yourself to stop, so be it.

• There is no number pad. So If you mouse right handed it brings the mouse even closer in for a more optimal position. Believe it or not, this small distance reduced quite a bit of muscle strain.
• The keyboard is adjustable in arc, hight and incline. The mechanism for doing the adjustments is very sturdy and doesn't slip over time.

The key impact and feedback is a good "medium". I was originally concerned about this since I like a good bit of feedback when I type, but I've come to like it. Its a whole lot better then a lot of the soft spongy cheap keyboards out there.

I've used these for a number of years now, and they're more durable that e.g. the M$ keyboards (more than one accidental water spill on my goldtouches, and they work fine after drying out. The M$ ergo keyboards die. I'd rather not admit that this has happened so often, but sometimes it does).

My only complaint is that the hinge/ball-joint mechanism on the goldtouch seems to have gotten less sturdy in the last 3-4 years, and I've had 2 break on me. My older model, at home, has never broken.

They also have a smaller keyboard that may be the next one I buy, hoping that the ball-joint is better.

Here's the manufacturer's site for their keyboards: http://www.goldtouch.com/c-2-adjustable-keyboards-numeric-keypads.aspx

Personally, I like the Adjustable keyboard . Ball adjustment locks in place. Standard QWERTY, no thumb keys (no big transition to flat QWERTY). Possibly membrane, but I don't mind even though I've used Model "M"s for decades.

For me, the big deal is reducing wrist angle. I adjust kbd up as high as possible to make my wrists more vertical, and somewhat apart to keep arm-middle-finger phalanges in line. This kbd goes much higher than most others.

Sorry, this is a bit stream-of-conciousness, but it's past my bedtime...

Here's the rub. There generally isn't a quick fix. I had a similar RSI problem. I was able to find relief with a combination of the following:

Goldtouch split keyboard (cheap on ebay, and you can still type on flat keyboards in a pinch)
          http://www.goldtouch.com/
Logitech Thumb Trackball (you really don't move the thumb much with it)
          http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/products/details /US/EN,CRID=2150,CONTENTID=5002
IMak Keyboard and Wrist Rests (I love their stuff)
          http://www.imakproducts.com/
Under desk keyboard and mouse tray (generic off ebay)
IMak Pil-o-splint
          helps you relax your hands when you sleep, often people clench their hands while the sleep
And last, I learned dvorak
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dvorak_Simplified_Key board

Posture is also VERY important. If you slouch when you type, nothing will help.

The most important thing though was the rest my hands received by forcing myself to learn Dvorak and thus type at 5 words per minute instead of my former blazing speed.

Unfortunately, computer related injuries form over time from repeated stress. The general rule is healing time takes as long as it took to injure yourself.

Good luck.

Oh yeah, I'm not a doc, so this isn't medical advice. Go see a doc. IMHO, it's a bad idea to get surgery for this though.

Well, I found that the GoldTouch mouse was quite good at relieving stress. It takes a little getting used to, because it's meant to nestle further back in the palm of your hand. If you use it that way it's great, but for a while the tendency is to let it slip back up front and grasp it with your fingertips like a normal mouse, and it sucks when used that way.

Beware of weight. I once tried a mouse that was in a very good-fitting ergonomic shape and even came in multiple sizes. It fit perfectly into my relaxed hand, with no effort at all to grip it. But it was a heavy clunker and using it killed my wrist because of the excess force required to get it moving. (The GoldTouch is nice and light.)

Also consider a trackpad. I don't like them as much as a mouse, but I find that when I use the computer too much I can just occasionally spend a day on the touchpad and my wrist recovers substantially from using the mouse. I have the Kinesis ergo keyboard, and used self-stick velcro to mount a trackpad on the keyboard between the key wells--that's particularly sweet because I can put the keyboard right in my lap without having a huge keyboard tray and having to reach out to the side for the mouse.

Right now I'm using a Kensington Optical Elite and it's OK for me. The shape is somewhere between normal and GoldTouch, and you can grip it either way: between thumb and fingertips or back in the palm.

Goldtouch makes ergonomic keyboards that range from $160-$200. I've used them and love them, but I don't think I'm at home typing enough to justify a purchase like that. An Apple Pro Keyboard runs about $70, so I don't think $100 for a "better" keyboard (in some people's minds) is so bad. I'd like to try a demo model of the Matias keyboard at some point.

My keyboard of choice is the Goldtouch. I actually didn't switch to it for its ergonomic features, though these are very good. But my problem wasn't RSI, it was a tendency to hit the wrong cursor key. I saw a Goldtouch and was impressed by the unusual (but very logical) layout. However, Goldtouch didn't design the layout to make the keyboard klutz-proof -- they did it to move the mouse closer to the center of the keyboard.

I have to disagree with you there. OEM-supplied components *are* quite flimsy, since they compete on essentially nothing but price (well, perhaps extra volume buttons on the keyboard might be a selling point).

There are a number of manufacturers that produce more highly-price, nicer input devices. Among them, Logitech,
which sells a whole line of wireless keyboards, PCKeyboard, which has among its offerings modern versions of old-IBM-Model-M style buckling-spring mechanism keyboards (CLICK CLICK CLICK...), Fingerworks' unusual offerings, the expensive-but-ultimate-RSI-avoidance Kinesis keyboards, and Goldtouch's ergo products.

I have been using a Goldtouch adjustable keyboard for more than a year and am very happy with it. The only serious annoyance is that they put various locking keys too close to the shift key, so I hit them accidentally.

Incidentally, it's bad for your wrists to put up the little legs under the back corners of most keyboards. You're better off to tilt it away from you, if you can, or at least leave it flat. When your wrists are straight, your fingers curl under.

WRT the DIY version, you can set Linux up to merge inputs from multiple keyboards (actually, that's its default behaviour and dissuading it from doing that is one of the big traumas involved in making multiple independent X instances work), so you could plug two potentially mangled keyboards in and lay one to each side, and potentially also have another unmangled keyboard before you as well.

But I'm no ergonomics expert. You should send your question to their support people.

Not quite what you're after, but it's close...

As mentioned in earlier posts, this thing, or that thing.

It's nice to see Safetype actually making these boards.

When I was out and about searching for something beyond the flat-as-a-pancake keyboard, I'd originally seen this design all over the web, but only as the product of research at Cornell, with no actual plans to put it into production. Seems they've changed their position on that front, though.

Here is Cornell's white paper on the vertical keyboard and its effects on posture and the like.

I ended up with a Goldtouch, which I am very happy with not only because it relieved any problems I was having, but because their customer service is among the best I've ever dealth with, anywhere, for *any* product or service out there. Wonderful people. They really stand behind their product.

I think it depends on the split keyboard. I currently have a MS ergo keyboard, which is split but not adjustable. I type above the keyboard so my wrists don't have to bend up, but if you were typing at a bad level I could see how you would have to bend them.

I currently have on order a split keyboard that allows you to adjust the angle of split as well as the y tilt. Something else I like about it is that it doesn't have a number pad and integrates the insert/home/... and arrows keys into the main key section so the width profile isn't much more than the main section. This is nice for me because most keyboard trays aren't made so that the main key section is centered in front of the user, it's off to the left.

At the job previous to this I had suffered pain down the back of my hand from stiff cherry keyboards. The best comprimise we found there was an apple imac keyboard - it has a soft positive action and because it doesn't have a insert, del, home, end. pgup, pgdn block it minimised the distance to mouse / trackball.

Another nice keyboard I had the trackball in the keyboard, where the arrow keys should be (which took a bit of getting used to - the arrow key were shifted up, and the others moved elsewhere). Unfortunately the build quality wasn't so good and some of the keys stopped working after 12-14 months (I had thought the trackball would be the first to die).

About a year ago, I bought a Goldtouch keyboard for the machine I do about 60% of my work on. This keyboard caught my eye mainly because the cursor keys are rather more rationally arranged than on the standard IBM 101 layout. I used to have a persistent problem of hitting Page or Home when I meant to hit an arrow key. No more. And 101 keyboards are just too damn big.

Took a little getting used to, but I now much prefer the Goldtouch keyboard. Except I had a hell of a time whenever I switched to my secondary machine. Finally had to get a Goldtouch for it as well. It was either that or trash the first one.

And my mutant keyboards were still QWERTYs! Forget QWERAK or Dvorak.

YMMV. Especially if you're a hunt-and-peck typist, with fewer skills to unlearn. I'm a touch-typist, a skill I learned on an actual typewriter (that's how old I am). One with blank keys, to break me of the habit of looking at the keyboard.

Still, I wonder who really needs the extra 30% throughput that non-QWERTY keyboards supposedly offer. Aside from professional keyboarders. I think the rest of us need the extra time to stop and think!

I emphasize the word "real". Cheap, useless knockoffs are the curse of ergonomic products. Not that hard to make something that looks ergonomic. Raise your hand if you've ever tried to use one of those $50 "back chairs" that are guaranteed to destroy your leg muscles. These are imitations of some Swedish item that might actually be pretty good, but nobody sells.

Anyway, here's a plug: I'm profoundly satisfied with the Goldtouch keyboard. What caught my eye was its small footprint. (The theory is that this reduces mouse-related RSI.) To make this work, they put a lot of thought into rearranging the keys. I'm impressed with the result, even though it took me a while to get used to the layout. The design makes it much harder to hit the wrong cursor key, something I used to do a lot.

Other good features I won't go into. But not cheap: $160.

Goldtouch has not only several versions of Ergonomic keyboards but also an Ergonomic Mouse and mouse pad.

Goldtouch has not only several versions of Ergonomic keyboards but also an Ergonomic Mouse and mouse pad.

Goldtouch has not only several versions of Ergonomic keyboards but also an Ergonomic Mouse and mouse pad.

Goldtouch has not only several versions of Ergonomic keyboards but also an Ergonomic Mouse and mouse pad.

In answer to the original question, to the best of my knowledge I had experienced no symptoms till about a year ago, then after playing starcraft one day I noticed that my wrists were hurting. Now, i experience symptoms on a daily basis, and have been actively trying to find a solution to the problem. I am currently using a goldtouch keyboard(adjustable split kb), but my biggest problems come from the mouse and the arrow keys, and I have yet to find a reliable solution to these problems.

The Goldtouch split keyboard is great. It is split around a ball joint and is totally adjustable. The keys have a nice feel, and my wrists have been fine since using it. The arangment of the keys is a little different, so that the mouse can be more within your comfort range. This takes some getting used to. I use it with NT and have never had any technical glitches. The Goldtouch mouse is great as well.

The critical command is 'xkbcomp', which lets you dump, compile, and activate keyboard rulesets.

My right-hand problems relate almost entirely to the clicking, not to the moving, of the the rodent, so I've mapped four buttons on my Goldtouch keyboard to:

• Pointer_EnableKeys - Toggles mouse emulation mode so that the relevant keys can send mouse events.
• Pointer_Button1 - Sends a button one click event.
• Pointer_Button2 - Sends a button two click event.
• Pointer_Drag_Dflt - Toggles down/up state of default button, for dragging (always button one for me).

Combined with lots of keyboard shortcuts for WindowMaker, this fix has basically eliminated all of my right-hand problems. My left ulnar (pinky to elbow) problems have proved much less tractable, unfortunately.

- Kwin

The keyboard is actually not that great; I like the tilting design, but actually wish it would tilt more, say, to almost ninety degrees! Also, these stupid bastards put in two MS 'Start' keys, one of which is directly to the left of F1, so you always hit F1 when you want F2, etc. But I haven't seen anything better that's actually on the market as opposed to being in development. If anyone knows of similar but better products, please let me know.

The mouse I really like. It's three button with the buttons a little rearranged, but I got used to it really quickly. I'm sure the buttons can be reassigned in X anyway. If an ordinary mouse has left, middle, right buttons labeled 1 3 2, then the Goldtouch is 3 1 2. It's very comfortable.

kemokid

Domain names are not different. Current trademark law already protects companies from domain name squatters. If you don't believe this, look at case law on the subject from the last 4 years.

There's no need for this extra legislation.

Again, there is NO NEED FOR THIS EXTRA LEGISLATION!!!!

It only makes it easier for a large corporation (such as Microsoft) to fuck a little guy for having a good idea first, but not having the legal manpower (read: $) to back it up.

See Microsoft and Windows2000.com. Registered in 1996, this domain (well in advance) preceded M$ decision to let its OS assembly line slip in production once again so that it had to rename its OS to Windows2000. Does microsoft own the trademark windows? Maybe. Actually, not really since it is f*cking generic. I'm sitting next to three (3) windows right now, and M$ didn't have thing to do with them. I look outside and I see people.

Windows were a concept first introduced to the computer world at large by Apple computers (and they were called just that, windows), first with Lisa & then with the Macintosh Operating System (now called MacOS). Apple borrowed this idea from previous work, but the previous work was non-commercial. M$ stole the work from Apple for the simple reason that Apple made a product with this work, licensed use of this work to M$ for use in writing programs for Macintoshes, and then M$ turned around and bit Apple in the *ss by coming out with its own OS based on the concepts that it had learned within the legally-binding relationship of a non-disclosure (and thus non-use except as specified) by Apple.

Well, I'm way the f*ck off topic, but the current trademark laws are sufficient, and there is no need to give police power to corporate America. They're got enough power as it is.

Microsof t pays congress to cut the Department of Justice's budget

"Where do you want to go tomorrow?" How about to court?

MSoft Throws Up Hands over 'Palm' -- Sort of

Micro$oft f*cks GoldTouch Technologies

As far as customer goodwill, does Microsoft have any?

Microsoft steals patents all the time. Makes sense since they have gobs of money with which to control the U.S. patent office.

As a recent example, PriceLine's patented technology is being stolen right now:

CEO Bill Gates told Priceline founder Jay Walker that he wasn't going to let patent infringement claims stand in his way. ... "Mr. Gates went on to say that many other companies were suing Microsoft for patent infringement and that priceline.com could, in effect, get in line."

A little further in the past, GoldTouch technologies filed a lawsuit which is still pending over MS's outright theft of their patented ergonomic mouse technology:

The Meeting with Microsoft 9. In September 1997, during an intensive two-hour meeting, Goldtouch representatives met with Microsoft representatives, disclosed the design of the Goldtouch mouse to Microsoft, and proposed that Microsoft license and market the Goldtouch mouse. Microsoft knew of Goldtouch's pending patent application at the time of this meeting. 10. During the September 1997 meeting, senior Microsoft design staff closely examined a sample of the Goldtouch mouse and extensively questioned Mr.Goldstein on how and why it had been invented. Being very familiar with product design generally, they used their own extensive background to explore in detail both the unique design rationale and the underlying scientific measurements which demonstrated that the Goldtouch mouse was superior to competing mice. Microsoft thus was able to acquire valuable design information even beyond that disclosed in the then-pending patent application (which had not yet been made public). As experienced industry hands, they knew that this information was extremely valuable, not just for Goldtouch's current product line, but for the future innovation which Goldtouch relied on for its very existence. Microsoft Markets the Goldtouch Mouse As Its Own 11. At the conclusion of the September 1997 meeting, Microsoft professed to be completely uninterested in the Goldtouch mouse, and led Goldtouch to believe that Microsoft was entirely satisfied with its existing mouse designs. Despite these representations, only about one year later Microsoft introduced its own ergonomic mouse, the Intellimouse® Pro. In the year following the meeting with Goldtouch, Microsoft copied important features of the Goldtouch sample mouse examined at the September 1997 meeting, implemented additional advanced features discussed at the meeting, and began to manufacture its knock-off product. Microsoft misappropriated Goldtouch's trade secrets to enhance its own inadequate designs. 12. Microsoft's knock-off mouse copies patented features relating to the shape of the Goldtouch mouse and adds rubber inserts to enhance ease of gripping. But the additional inserts themselves are an idea stolen from Goldtouch - a premium feature that was specifically discussed at the September 1997 meeting. Nevertheless, Microsoft's Intellimouse® Pro is an inferior product and it certainly infringes Goldtouch's issued patent. Microsoft is effectively draining Goldtouch's lifeblood by unlawfully exploiting its most carefully guarded ideas and their scientific basis. 13. Through the unconscionable scheme described above, Microsoft has sought to add Goldtouch's purloined intellectual property to Microsoft's already impressive hoard of ill-gotten gains, in so doing, Microsoft has dealt Goldtouch a grievous wound. Goldtouch invokes the jurisdiction of this Court to obtain compensation for Microsoft's theft of benefits which Goldtouch otherwise would have received for its innovation and leadership in ergonomic mouse design. Goldtouch further requests that the Court enter an order enjoining Microsoft from further violations of state and federal intellectual property law.

More is at... Complaint

Microsoft steals patents all the time. Makes sense since they have gobs of money with which to control the U.S. patent office.

As a recent example, PriceLine's patented technology is being stolen right now:

CEO Bill Gates told Priceline founder Jay Walker that he wasn't going to let patent infringement claims stand in his way. ... "Mr. Gates went on to say that many other companies were suing Microsoft for patent infringement and that priceline.com could, in effect, get in line."

A little further in the past, GoldTouch technologies filed a lawsuit which is still pending over MS's outright theft of their patented ergonomic mouse technology:

The Meeting with Microsoft 9. In September 1997, during an intensive two-hour meeting, Goldtouch representatives met with Microsoft representatives, disclosed the design of the Goldtouch mouse to Microsoft, and proposed that Microsoft license and market the Goldtouch mouse. Microsoft knew of Goldtouch's pending patent application at the time of this meeting. 10. During the September 1997 meeting, senior Microsoft design staff closely examined a sample of the Goldtouch mouse and extensively questioned Mr.Goldstein on how and why it had been invented. Being very familiar with product design generally, they used their own extensive background to explore in detail both the unique design rationale and the underlying scientific measurements which demonstrated that the Goldtouch mouse was superior to competing mice. Microsoft thus was able to acquire valuable design information even beyond that disclosed in the then-pending patent application (which had not yet been made public). As experienced industry hands, they knew that this information was extremely valuable, not just for Goldtouch's current product line, but for the future innovation which Goldtouch relied on for its very existence. Microsoft Markets the Goldtouch Mouse As Its Own 11. At the conclusion of the September 1997 meeting, Microsoft professed to be completely uninterested in the Goldtouch mouse, and led Goldtouch to believe that Microsoft was entirely satisfied with its existing mouse designs. Despite these representations, only about one year later Microsoft introduced its own ergonomic mouse, the Intellimouse® Pro. In the year following the meeting with Goldtouch, Microsoft copied important features of the Goldtouch sample mouse examined at the September 1997 meeting, implemented additional advanced features discussed at the meeting, and began to manufacture its knock-off product. Microsoft misappropriated Goldtouch's trade secrets to enhance its own inadequate designs. 12. Microsoft's knock-off mouse copies patented features relating to the shape of the Goldtouch mouse and adds rubber inserts to enhance ease of gripping. But the additional inserts themselves are an idea stolen from Goldtouch - a premium feature that was specifically discussed at the September 1997 meeting. Nevertheless, Microsoft's Intellimouse® Pro is an inferior product and it certainly infringes Goldtouch's issued patent. Microsoft is effectively draining Goldtouch's lifeblood by unlawfully exploiting its most carefully guarded ideas and their scientific basis. 13. Through the unconscionable scheme described above, Microsoft has sought to add Goldtouch's purloined intellectual property to Microsoft's already impressive hoard of ill-gotten gains, in so doing, Microsoft has dealt Goldtouch a grievous wound. Goldtouch invokes the jurisdiction of this Court to obtain compensation for Microsoft's theft of benefits which Goldtouch otherwise would have received for its innovation and leadership in ergonomic mouse design. Goldtouch further requests that the Court enter an order enjoining Microsoft from further violations of state and federal intellectual property law.

More is at... Complaint