Mouse Not Required?

Chromose asks: "Being a system administrator by day, and coder/artist/gamer by night, my hands and wrists get their fair share of exercise around the clock. I've had lumps on the back of my hands off and on for a couple years now and just recently discovered they are ganglion cysts. And although pain and stress has been minimum up to now, I worry of what continuing everyday keyboard and mouse stress will lead to. Introducing FingerWorks. I stumbled across their iGesture Pad on ThinkGeek the other day and started digging for reviews. What reviews I have found exclaim how remarkable the products work, but not many reviews could be found. It sounds like the answer to my search for relief, and it sounds too good to be true. So I'm asking, who out there has used these things and are they truly a revolution in the making?" Yes, ThinkGeek is part of the Sinister VA Software Kieretsu, but if you aren't worried about it, then neither am I.

Comments

Well, here's a review...

[Eneff]

http://www.meetthegeeks.org/ourreview/fingerworksi gesture/

From what I can tell, it seems to be testing out as alpha and might not be quite ready for prime time.

TouchPad

[Crazy Ukrainian]

How exactly is the touchpad on thinkgeek an improvement? You're still resting your wrist on something and moving something else. Seems oddly similar to a mouse, but I can't quite figure out why...oh I do wonder.

Re:TouchPad

[E1v!$]

Ummm, you're not moving ANYTHING else. I think that's kinda the point.

0 force allows you to change/reduce the amount of force used to type on the keyboard this == reduced stress (in theory). The changes in the angle of the hands alone from most other keyboards should yield some short term improvement. (and with altering the types of keyboards he uses could yield long term improvement)

Re:TouchPad

[cgenman]

While it is true that you are not moving the keyboard / mouse, you are still moving your hands, which weigh significantly more than a little piece of plastic. Likewise, while tapping on a hard piece of plastic in theory takes less energy than tapping on moving keys, the keys also serve to deaden the impact. I tend to find tapping angrily on solid surfaces to become uncomfortable rather quickly, and would doubt long-term use would be good for the joints.

If you are looking for something ergonomic to reduce the strain on your wrists, use your keyboard navigation as much as possible, and when not possible try a trackball. Assuming you're in Windows land (which is why you would need a mouse), the Kensington Expert Mouse has a wonderful series of chordable buttons that can be mapped to basically any function you might do frequently, giving you a palette of 35 imput commands per program. Plus you don't move your arm, wrist, or anything but your fingers when you point.

ahhhhh!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"my hands and wrists get their fair share of exercise around the clock."

Must resist urge to make pr0n comments.....

Nomenclature

[Flamerule]

Quoth Cliff:

Yes, ThinkGeek is part of the Sinister VA Software Kieretsu, but if you aren't worried about it, then neither am I.

Mmm... keiretsu, actually. You're unlikely to see an "ie" combination in Japanese.

Ganglion cysts are basically harmless

[eht]

As the page you posted says, without actually saying it, ganglion cysts are basically harmless, and unless cause you problems can be ignored, I've had them for several years and they come and go without any problems, one doctor I mentioned them to said I could get surgery, but they wouldn't be guaranteed not to come back, and the traditional method of removal used to be smashing them with the family bible.

Re:Ganglion cysts are basically harmless

[cei]

Yeah, I've had ganglion cysts for most of my life. Had one surgically removed when I was in 4th grade. 6 or 7 years later it was back and they drained it with a needle. At this point I've decided they don't bother me enough for me to pursue any further treatment. They might ache a bit in cold weather, and when I was playing bass regularly, my wrists could stiffen up a bit more, but it was bearable.

Re:Ganglion cysts are basically harmless

[SpaceLifeForm]

I agree. Having had ganglion cysts for a long time, I've used the smashing method when I needed to have a different pain in my wrist. It works.

Other options

[Matt2000]

You can also get a trackball, I use the MS Trackball Explorer and work, and a regular mouse at home. Switches up the type of motion so your hand doesn't get so blown out.

Emacs Gestures?

[glenstar]

After looking at this, I am sure glad I don't use Emacs. Although,one really has to wonder how the Vim gestures would look...

Re:Emacs Gestures?

[one9nine]

Basiclly, there are just two. The first involves making a fist and waving it at the screen and the second also involves a fist in front of your screen with your middle finger extended.

Actually vi is really cool once you get the hang of it.

Obligatory porn joke

[Cokelee]

Sure, it was all from typing . . .

gestures on laptop touchpad?

[greywire]

This looks like a great idea. To bad it costs, what, almost $200? Could something like this be done on a laptop touchpad? Granted its much smaller and so the gestures couldnt be as complex, but it would be a neat little software hack...

Eye Trackers and such

[Oriumpor]

I really really really want an eye tracker myself, the cost has been prohibitive I have found for the lowly engineer. However, these might be helpful.

also the Ability hub has an interesting piece on accessibility.

The TrackIR GX looks interesting, although not as a mouse alternative, it can be used to make your neck hurt so you can script 17 actions with the movement of your head.

IBM has been working on an eye tracking solution, I remember seeing something on TechTV a while back, anyone know the progress on that?

You have two hands: use them.

[jotaeleemeese]

After many years in the IT industry as an SA I began to have pain in my right hand.

I immediatly took some actions (new keyboard, comfortable mouse pads, etc).

Something else I did was to change the mouse to my left hand and declare it in my work machines as a left handed one.

At home I bought the most comfortable input device I could find (I settled for a Waccom pen tablet using the pen 99 per cent of the time) and carried on using it with the right hand.

All those changes eliminated the pain, I have been working like that for 2 years.

The workload in your hands is heavy, help them by distributing the work as much as poosible between both of them and ensuring that your hand does a little in a repetitive manner as possible (next year I may switch hands, devices or both to ensure the new changes don't become a new source of stress).

Ganglions are caused by inner conflict.

[Futurepower(R)]

"The cause of ganglions is not always clear."

Ganglions are caused by inner conflict. There is no direct connection with computer use.

I had the same thing

[g(zerofunk.org)]

Speaking from experience of having those damn things I suggest that you get to a doc's office asap and have them removed before they get worse. I waited over two years to have it removed and im left with a nasty scar on the upside of my wrist and about 30-50% weight abality in my right wrist. The worst thing about it is that the scar tissue is so bad that the bump from that is bigger then the lump that I had from the Cysts.
g

Re:I had the same thing

[Atrapose]

I don't know what butcher you had cut on you, but my 5 y.o. daughter had one removed on her wrist about 4 months ago, and the scar is so small that it's hard to tell which wrist had the thing on it. The Dr. made a horizontal cut that went along the grain of the skin (yes, skin has grain) so as she grows, the scar won't elongate or continue to keloid. We had tried several other treatments before (draining, constant pressure, etc) but it always came back in a week or two. Surgury worked, and if a Dr. can remove something from a wrist no bigger than my three fingers, then you can find one that will remove it from your hands w/o damage.

"Violence is the last resort of the incompetent" -- Asimov

Deja vu

[pjcreath]

These keyboards have been discussed on /. before, but thankfully more than 24 hours ago. Check out the prior articles on FingerWorks keyboards for a lot more information.

The review I wrote is here. As a further update to their helpfulness, my keyboard died for no apparent reason, and they're fixing it for free (a long time after I bought it).

Wacom Tablet

[JZ_o8]

I'm a graphic designer and I have used pen-based graphics tablets for several years....(I used my first one in Windows 3.11).

After some period of adjustment, many people will use a graphics tablet as a complete mouse replacement....the only time I use a mouse is for FPS games. However, for most other games (and applications for that matter) it is better than a mouse. I feel I can move through the environment with less effort and more precision.

And repetitive stress is lessened. Much of the stress of using a mouse is in the way you rest. Most people assume a resting position when using a mouse that holds their first finger arched over the left-button awaiting the next click. However with a pen-based input, you can rest on the heel of your hand much like when writing.

Give it a try. The models from Wacom are the industry standard.