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)

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.

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.

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...

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).