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ask a doctor. He can give you advice on how to sit and also on what to sit on. There are ergonomic chairs and even balls.
Also there might be medical reasons as to why do or not do something.

Where I work, one person has back issues and she asked her doctor and he told her she must NOT use a sitting ball as that would increase her problems.

I use a trackball instead of a mouse. Took me three days to get used to it. I also have a mouse pad with foam and a wrist pad. http://www.kensington.com/kensington/us/us/s/1429/mouse-wrist-pads.aspx will give you examples. Relative cheap solution to prevent problems.

Using something like this might be a bit over the top.

As to sitting: sit straight, adjust your monitor to your sitting position. (Most likely it is to low) and take breaks. Befriend a smoker and go with them on their smoke breaks. This will give the added bonus of talking with people from other departments.

There is a huge market for ergonomic keyboards which the article completely avoids. It is these keyboards, rather than the ones which they present, which offer substantial differences in the typing experience.

I can think of two good examples off the bat. The Kinesis contoured keyboard is what I use, which includes palm rests and vastly different shape which reduces the distance your fingers travel, and takes a lot of strain off your arms. It's also programmable, which is a life-saver for devs. It comes PS/2 or USB, querty or dvorak switchable (i.e. in-keyboard switchable, with dual letter cues), and is solidly constructed.

The SafeType keyboard instead has two vertical parts of a split keyboard, so that your arms have a similar shape when typing as they would holding a large ball by the sides. This is supposed to reduce strain in your arms, by removing some torsion and keeping them in a more natural position. Some keys devs might need (arrow keys) are in a regular, central part of the keyboard. If you need these constantly, it could limit the benefit of changing your hand posture. Still, vim users (for example) wouldn't be affected. Ideally, you'd also get the Evoluent Vertical Mouse to match, so your mousing is also done with your hand in a handshake position.

As someone who's had RSI for a long time, I can tell you that none of the keyboards reviewed in the article are much better, or even significantly different from one another, compared with the difference with real ergonomic keyboards.

No No No.... "reaction times can be cut by anything up to 60%" I don't care about reaction times. I care about my wrists. Frag gaming, just let me move my mouse for more than an hour without painful twinges and numbness.

If you have Carpal Tunnel, you should try out the SafeType keyboard and mouse.
I tried it for the same reason, and it really helped. Basically it makes it so that you don't have to bend your wrists to type or click.

Here you go
http://www.safetype.com/index.asp

You may want to consider the SafeType keyboard.

It gives you ergonomic benefits that no "ergonomic" bump-in-the-middle keyboard comes close to.

Besides, does Dvorak make that much of a difference? Sure, the layout might be marginally better but you're still twisting your wrists 90 degrees to make your hands parallel with it (pronation), you're then angling your elbows in 45 degrees and your hands back out 45 degrees to line up with it (deviation), and you're still, likely, tilting it (extension)putting even more stress on.

A better arrangement of keys is only going to do so much for you. At the end of the day, you've still got extension, deviation and pronation going on - even if you're marginally reducing stress within those three.

The SafeType sorts all three out. Lower your arms by your sides. Now lift your forearms up so your elbows are at 90 degrees. Nothing else. That's it. You're done. Your arms are in a massively more neutral position, your carpal tunnel is now straight, letting the tendons run through without rubbing against it, all is good in your world. Wouldn't you prefer a keyboard like that to one that's just as bad as every other keyboard with a marginally better layout?

The other advantage of the SafeType is that, if you can already touch type, once you stop overthinking it, you can already use it. All the keys are still in the QWERTY position - they're just broken in to two vertical blocks. Most people I've watched are up and using it within ten minutes, typing naturally within an hour or so.

That advantage translates in to backwards compatability - you're still using QWERTY so you can transfer to a client site without ever having to make a mental switch.

I've tried a lot of ergonomic options and this one's by far the best. It's not cheap - at about $300. Then again, if you're worth anything as a developer, you likely earn that in a single day or less. Isn't one day's pay worth ensuring your career last another 20 years? One day's pay is a lot less than no more days' pay.

(Note: I reviewed the keyboard for one of the IEEE magazines. At the time I was impressed but had enough minor issues that I regarded it as only useful for those who had problems they needed to immediately address. After the review, I kept using it - and I'm completely willing to admit I was wrong. It's a great keyboard and, honestly, well worth the price for anyone who works with computers all day every day.)

You may want to consider the SafeType keyboard.

It gives you ergonomic benefits that no "ergonomic" bump-in-the-middle keyboard comes close to.

Besides, does Dvorak make that much of a difference? Sure, the layout might be marginally better but you're still twisting your wrists 90 degrees to make your hands parallel with it (pronation), you're then angling your elbows in 45 degrees and your hands back out 45 degrees to line up with it (deviation), and you're still, likely, tilting it (extension)putting even more stress on.

A better arrangement of keys is only going to do so much for you. At the end of the day, you've still got extension, deviation and pronation going on - even if you're marginally reducing stress within those three.

The SafeType sorts all three out. Lower your arms by your sides. Now lift your forearms up so your elbows are at 90 degrees. Nothing else. That's it. You're done. Your arms are in a massively more neutral position, your carpal tunnel is now straight, letting the tendons run through without rubbing against it, all is good in your world. Wouldn't you prefer a keyboard like that to one that's just as bad as every other keyboard with a marginally better layout?

The other advantage of the SafeType is that, if you can already touch type, once you stop overthinking it, you can already use it. All the keys are still in the QWERTY position - they're just broken in to two vertical blocks. Most people I've watched are up and using it within ten minutes, typing naturally within an hour or so.

That advantage translates in to backwards compatability - you're still using QWERTY so you can transfer to a client site without ever having to make a mental switch.

I've tried a lot of ergonomic options and this one's by far the best. It's not cheap - at about $300. Then again, if you're worth anything as a developer, you likely earn that in a single day or less. Isn't one day's pay worth ensuring your career last another 20 years? One day's pay is a lot less than no more days' pay.

(Note: I reviewed the keyboard for one of the IEEE magazines. At the time I was impressed but had enough minor issues that I regarded it as only useful for those who had problems they needed to immediately address. After the review, I kept using it - and I'm completely willing to admit I was wrong. It's a great keyboard and, honestly, well worth the price for anyone who works with computers all day every day.)

You may want to consider the SafeType keyboard.

It gives you ergonomic benefits that no "ergonomic" bump-in-the-middle keyboard comes close to.

Besides, does Dvorak make that much of a difference? Sure, the layout might be marginally better but you're still twisting your wrists 90 degrees to make your hands parallel with it (pronation), you're then angling your elbows in 45 degrees and your hands back out 45 degrees to line up with it (deviation), and you're still, likely, tilting it (extension)putting even more stress on.

A better arrangement of keys is only going to do so much for you. At the end of the day, you've still got extension, deviation and pronation going on - even if you're marginally reducing stress within those three.

The SafeType sorts all three out. Lower your arms by your sides. Now lift your forearms up so your elbows are at 90 degrees. Nothing else. That's it. You're done. Your arms are in a massively more neutral position, your carpal tunnel is now straight, letting the tendons run through without rubbing against it, all is good in your world. Wouldn't you prefer a keyboard like that to one that's just as bad as every other keyboard with a marginally better layout?

The other advantage of the SafeType is that, if you can already touch type, once you stop overthinking it, you can already use it. All the keys are still in the QWERTY position - they're just broken in to two vertical blocks. Most people I've watched are up and using it within ten minutes, typing naturally within an hour or so.

That advantage translates in to backwards compatability - you're still using QWERTY so you can transfer to a client site without ever having to make a mental switch.

I've tried a lot of ergonomic options and this one's by far the best. It's not cheap - at about $300. Then again, if you're worth anything as a developer, you likely earn that in a single day or less. Isn't one day's pay worth ensuring your career last another 20 years? One day's pay is a lot less than no more days' pay.

(Note: I reviewed the keyboard for one of the IEEE magazines. At the time I was impressed but had enough minor issues that I regarded it as only useful for those who had problems they needed to immediately address. After the review, I kept using it - and I'm completely willing to admit I was wrong. It's a great keyboard and, honestly, well worth the price for anyone who works with computers all day every day.)

You may want to consider the SafeType keyboard.

It gives you ergonomic benefits that no "ergonomic" bump-in-the-middle keyboard comes close to.

Besides, does Dvorak make that much of a difference? Sure, the layout might be marginally better but you're still twisting your wrists 90 degrees to make your hands parallel with it (pronation), you're then angling your elbows in 45 degrees and your hands back out 45 degrees to line up with it (deviation), and you're still, likely, tilting it (extension)putting even more stress on.

A better arrangement of keys is only going to do so much for you. At the end of the day, you've still got extension, deviation and pronation going on - even if you're marginally reducing stress within those three.

The SafeType sorts all three out. Lower your arms by your sides. Now lift your forearms up so your elbows are at 90 degrees. Nothing else. That's it. You're done. Your arms are in a massively more neutral position, your carpal tunnel is now straight, letting the tendons run through without rubbing against it, all is good in your world. Wouldn't you prefer a keyboard like that to one that's just as bad as every other keyboard with a marginally better layout?

The other advantage of the SafeType is that, if you can already touch type, once you stop overthinking it, you can already use it. All the keys are still in the QWERTY position - they're just broken in to two vertical blocks. Most people I've watched are up and using it within ten minutes, typing naturally within an hour or so.

That advantage translates in to backwards compatability - you're still using QWERTY so you can transfer to a client site without ever having to make a mental switch.

I've tried a lot of ergonomic options and this one's by far the best. It's not cheap - at about $300. Then again, if you're worth anything as a developer, you likely earn that in a single day or less. Isn't one day's pay worth ensuring your career last another 20 years? One day's pay is a lot less than no more days' pay.

(Note: I reviewed the keyboard for one of the IEEE magazines. At the time I was impressed but had enough minor issues that I regarded it as only useful for those who had problems they needed to immediately address. After the review, I kept using it - and I'm completely willing to admit I was wrong. It's a great keyboard and, honestly, well worth the price for anyone who works with computers all day every day.)

How about pressing the keys? How about inserting CDs/DVDs? Breathing? I guess someone wants to make us even more unhealthy.

But really, does anyone truly benefit using these wonderful natural keyboards or stuff like this?

Seems to me that there have been a lot of attempts made to come up with better keyboard designs - Dvorak; that alphabetical keyboards; chordic keyboards; split keyboards; weird keyboards; other weird keyboards; and so on.

Call me when one of them has broad market acceptance.

Michael

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.

This?

Not spherical, but you type sideways. /.

see the pic here ? See the ring? Would you buy from some one with two left hands? ;)

b4n

Even their own image shows the users arms far above the chair, and the desk.

Besides, how the hell do you see your monitor with the keyboard in the way???

If you watch their little video, they talk about some positions that normal keyboards force your hands to be in. It's those positions that cause all of the problems that are associated with typing. Their keyboard purports to remove the problems by putting your hands in a more natural and neutral position.

A little over a year ago, slashdot posted an article about the Evolution Keyboard, now by Kinesis. I have had one of those for several years, and would recommend that anyone interested in the SafeType keyboard also check out the Evolution keyboard. (You can the review I posted to slashdot here.)

The SafeType keyboard is fixed in position, and they consider that to be one of its major features. While I can see that preventing users from futzing with the keyboard keeps them from moving it to a position where it can hurt them, I happen to really like the ability of the Evolution keyboard to move to whatever position I like. In fact, I can make it go completely vertical if I want, gaining all the advantages of the SafeType keyboard. I can even drop it to the sides of my chair, removing even one more "unnatural" position of my arms.

To me, having lots of choices in how I configure my work space is a good thing. And having a keyboard that fits this mindset is one of the most important parts.

UC San Diego? what in the world do you mean? The company is located in Carson City, NV and its "university study" was done at "Cornell.

UC San Diego? what in the world do you mean? The company is located in Carson City, NV and its "university study" was done at "Cornell.

So, by their defintion of Pronation, we should never ever turn our palms downward, because this causes problems. I'm sorry, but I think if that was half as harmful as they made it out to be, then humans wouldn't have the capacity to do it, or else problems would be more widespread.

I tried achieving the position they show for the pronation display, and i had to put my elbows on the table touching each other before i could get my hands to rotate like that. granded that might be harmful, but the fact that the other two joints in your arm rotate a bit makes it like their points are rather contrived.

Deviation might be a more legitimate concern, but looking at my own wrists it still seems as if they are exaggerating purposefully

So, by their defintion of Pronation, we should never ever turn our palms downward, because this causes problems. I'm sorry, but I think if that was half as harmful as they made it out to be, then humans wouldn't have the capacity to do it, or else problems would be more widespread.

I tried achieving the position they show for the pronation display, and i had to put my elbows on the table touching each other before i could get my hands to rotate like that. granded that might be harmful, but the fact that the other two joints in your arm rotate a bit makes it like their points are rather contrived.

Deviation might be a more legitimate concern, but looking at my own wrists it still seems as if they are exaggerating purposefully