Smartfish technologies have announced a new product range, ErgoMotion. It’s an interesting concept and mostly well executed.
An ergonomic setup with all devices set in the same position everyday is not a good ergonomic setup. Change is good. They have taken this idea, and come up with an interesting idea, products that slowly change position/angles automatically. See the video below. Or on their own site.
They say they collaborated with top professionals in the field but they seem to have made the classic keyboard mistake of including a numberpad, which for people with RSI is much more of a disadvantage. See first section in my keyboards post. It’s a wee bit worrying that the quotes in the video are from the engineer and the designer. How about use case comments from rsi sufferers? Great that it looks nice but that’s the last of my worries. Not sure I’m the target market.
Seems like a really good effort at doing something new for ergonomics but I’d like to see a compact, version without the keypad.
Their mouse is interesting too, and I might check it out at some stage, but again they seem to have approached it from a classic mouse perspective, and added motion. But the base position presents the same problems as a classic mouse, that requires you to twist your wrist slightly, rather than the more natural handshake position of a vertical mouse. So I might hold off and see do they do a version where the base position is more vertical. But because it is so flexible, it might just make up for it. Flexibility is RSI’s worst enemy, so I’ll be keeping an eye on Ergomotion.
I read this book a good while ago now. Not sure why I didn’t review it at the time. Well I do – I actually felt that I’d read so much on the subject that I didn’t learn much from this book. So I didn’t want to be negative about it for the wrong reasons. It’s a really good book – if I had to recommend only book I’ve read so far this would be it I.
It really makes such a difference to understand what is happening to your body and why. A sizeable chapter in this book is geared towards understanding how people get RSI and understanding parts of your anatomy that are affected. There is another big chapter on therapy, but don’t expect to flick through the book and get a quick cure. Take your time, the background stuff is important. Knowledge is power!
As for the therapy / recovery, there’s not a huge amount that you won’t find on this site. All good resources recommend an appropriate exercise routine as the main course of action. And this book is no different. Though everything in the book is fleshed out a but more and there are more exercises.
One new thing I did learn is that poor posture is a symptom of RSI. We all know poor posture can greatly contribute to RSI but I never thought of it the other way around; once you start experiencing severe symtpoms of RSI your posture can get even worse, so it’s a bit of a double battle.
But – I still can’t believe how so much literature on the subject focuses so much on keyboard activity and gives so little column inches to the mouse – or more to the point using a mouse and keyboard together in the least harmful way. So often the use cases are about programmers or typists; keyboardists.
Another downside is that it has a very American slant. There’s a whole chapter about volunteering to become the office ergonomic sheriff. Over on this side of the pond we’re more inclined to want to keep this kind of stuff to ourselves, not shout it from the rooftops and become the resident RSI embassador. Thoiuygh feel free to shout “speak for yourself!”
And you’ve got to love the title. RSI and CPS are NOT the same thing.
My keyboard of choice, the Goldtouch Adjustable Keyboard, is on sale at Amazon.co.uk now at a really good price. I just bought a spare for a total of €32,93. The one I am now typing on cost me €172.58, though my previous job bought it for me (and unlike the job before, very kindly let me take it with me).
An easy mistake to make when you first start investigating how to cure your RSI, is to search for the perfect setup. There is no such thing. Or to put it another way, the perfect setup is actually one that is an always changing flexible setup.
Over the years you’ll find yourself gathering all kinds of input devices, to try and find the right one, specially pointing devices, (ie mice / alternative mice). Don’t get rid of them. Get a usb hub and plug them all in. Then whenever you feel pain in your hands; switch things around. Stop using your vertical mouse, and go back to your basic mouse, or use your graphic pad for a few days. None of them are perfect, none of them should be used for 8 hours a day, so give your hands a rest from that exact position and switch around.
It’s a very powerful technique. So powerful, that I think people can very easily assume their latest input device is their saviour; when it probably has a lot more to do with the old switcheroo. Let that be your motto for the next month;
I was over in Spain last month and it is always great getting a good solid break from the computer. But I know that’s all it is; a break. It’s very easy to think that a week or two might be enough for your damaged nerves and muscles to start repairing and rebuilding themselves but it’s not. The break is great – but don’t expect anything more – it’s just a break. When you get back to your computer, you will be right back where you left off, with the same old aches and pains – and maybe even worse if you’ve also taken a break from your exercise routine.
I’ve read about this in various books too, people have actually gone on sick leave and holed themselves in bed for the duration, thinking this will be some sort of cure, whereas not using those nerves and muscles is the worst thing you can do.
So keep it in mind,; unless we’re talking about a very prolonged period is only a brief reprise, enjoy your break, maybe even use the extra time to strengthen your body – just don’t expect any miracles when you’re back from the hols.
These guys are making a (very low budget) documentary about computer game addiction and the harmful effects it can have, both emotionally and physically. I wasn’t too interested in people’s game addiction stories to be honest – but if you skip straight to 6 minutes, 30 seconds, it’s interesting to hear an expert (plastic surgeon – Daniel Golshani) talking about Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. Too many people think RSI and CTS are the same thing. When they’re not. CTS is a very specific injury, whereas Repetitive Strain Injury or Occupational Overuse Syndrome are umbrella terms for a whole host of injuries caused by repetitive and strained use of interfaces/tools/instruments. Which reminds me I ve been meaning to write a review of the book “It’s not carpal tunnel syndrome!” for a while now.
Update. There are a lots of interesting replies, links and blogposts with more videos on their main page. I’m going to go through them all when I’ve time. Interesting to see that half the guys from the lighting team of Toy Story 2 got such bad RSI that they couldn’t wash their hair. I rarely see other people describe symptoms that I share but that’s one of them.
When I got the Wristwand in the post I thought I’d been had. Saw the end off a sweeping brush and you’ve got the Wristwand. But in fairness it does have to be the exact width (ok we’re still in sawn-off sweeping brush territory) – it is wrapped in nice foam on either end.
It does give your wrists a good stretch though. You just hold either end and raise your arms over your head while twisting at the wrists. Exercises can be easy to forget, so at the very least things like this act as a good prop; a reminder. Even if they’re not the miracle cure some of the pr would have you believe. And the WristWand is less than a tenner, so no big deal.
I ordered a new powerball today. One with a counter. If anyone out there wants my old one just leave a comment to claim it. Preferable location for me to post to is Ireland. The only difference between the new powerball and my old one is that the new one has a counter.
Launchy is a smart little open source application for launching any application at a few keystrokes. Here’s how it works.
Launch launchy by typing alt + space ( Which is very convenient, as they are right beside each other)
Type the first few letters of whatever you want to launch and hit enter
It’s that easy. It saves quite a few mouseclicks and trying to find a program in your start menu. An it’s quite smart in helping you find what youre looking for eg. typing Fire will launch Firefox as will typing Fox, in fact F will probably work if you have no other programs beginning with F.
Once you get used to it, you can use more advanced commands but let’s not complicate things right now!
I haven’t posted here in ages for a few reasons. (1) I’ve pretty much already passed overal my knowledge on beatingrsi (2) I had been looking for a new job for a while and didn’t really want to draw attention to this being my blog.
Anyway – I’m a big fan of macros, automation, keyboard shortcuts and any software that makes computing less work, which ultimately means less strain on your body. So I’ll probably write more about that end of things from here on. This is a repost from my main blog:
You know computers are supposed to make your working life easier not harder right? But it can be easy to forget that sometimes, and some people will downright deny it! We’ve all had moments where we wanted to drop a PC out of a high story building but in general day-to-day work, if your computer is making your life harder, there’s a good chance you’re just not using the right tools. Or you’re not using a fraction of their potential. And that potential is to make your life much easier.
For every repetitive task you do, you could probably be using a dedicated application, an automated function or a macro. Some tasks are so suitable to this, that you can click a button and just watch your computer working away for a minute, doing a task that previously took you 15 minutes by hand. 15 long minutes of grunting and swearing and banging the keyboard.
Macros
One of the greatest labour-saving devices in computing is the macro. A simple definition of a macro is the ability to record your keyboard and/or mouse actions, so you can ‘replay’ the actions rather than manually redoing them each time.
I first got into the whole macro thing when I started a job as a technical writer where we were using Word to write our documents; scripts for content developers and voice over artists. All the text had to be in very particular formats, labels, layouts and colour-codes. People spent an unbelievable amount of time on the formatting rather than the actual writing. Word Styles (which looked different on every computer were driving people crazy). They spent a fortune getting some guys to build a dedicated application but that was just as bad. An unfortunate but all too frequent case of programmers with no user interface skills building a useability nightmare. So I dug a bit into Word’s automation and customization and it ended up as the perfect solution.
People slag off Microsoft products – but the level of customization you can do in Word makes it an amazing piece of user centred software. You can record your own macros, then create keyboard shortcuts or buttons to trigger the macros and you can add whole toolbars containing the buttons, or use menus to add new commands. You can also delve a bit deeper with vbscript to add loops and if statements to your macros, almost building applications within the application.
I started off recording simple macros for myself that would make text red bold, green italic etc. Then I would map that to a keyboard shortcut. Then I started adding more complex functionality. I started sharing these with the team and soon enough I took on the role of completely redesigning all the templates, and processes used throughout the whole production team, making use of every level of automation available. I got really carried away with the macros then, using them to build whole tables of information.
The main template ended up with a whole toolbar of buttons, a customized insert menu, and lots of other functionality available through keyboard shortcuts.
Below is a brief video example: At the click of a button, a whole table is split up, formatted and populated. Common phrases are added from the insert menu. That’s just one type of table, we had about 5 different types, all added with one click. At the end of the process, another macro re-formatted the whole script to spit out xml for the developers and a vo script for the voice over artist.
This is an advanced version of the amount of work you can save yourself doing if you use Word a lot and find yourself doing any task again and again.
I didn’t intend to write this as a tutorial, more as a nudge in the right direction, but let’s have a quick go. We’ll create a copyright type sign off.
Step1. Record the macro
In Word, go to Tools > Macro > Record New Macro > Type sig then hit Enter
Go to Insert > Symbol > click the Copyright symbol > Click Insert then Close
Type a space, then your name, then another space
Go to Insert > Date and Time > Click OK > hit enter to go onto next line
Click the square stop button on the macro toolbar
Step2. Make a button
Go to Tools > Customize > Commands tab
Scroll down on the left column and click Macros
Your sig macro will be on the right, click-and-drag it to your toolbar (beside the bold button for example)
Now right-click this button (don’t close the Customize dialog box) and select Default Style
Then right-click it again and select Change Button Image and select the pencil icon (You can also right-click and edit these icons and make your own)
Close the dialog box.
Step3: test it out
Click the pencil icon
Click it again!
Cool hoh!?
You can record any kind of macro you want. Very detailed ones. Though beware you can’t just click all over the screen, you have to use your keyboard to highlight text and navigate around text. Find and replace type macros can be very useful too. I have a few macros that I use now to take a word document and clean it up for the web, so it replaces foreign characters and symbols with the proper Unicode / html.
When I was leaving the job where I built all the macros, I was handed a thoughtful customized gift that is one of my proudest possessions: a Macro Man superhero t-shirt! It even has the buttons on the back!
Breaking out of Word
Right so. Word Macros. Great craic altogether. Used wisely they will save you a lot of work. Invest a bit and you get a lot – but what about outside of Word? Now you need an independent macro recorder. I’ve tried a few over the years but recently found one I really like, autohotkey, a free, open source application. Downloadable from http://www.autohotkey.com/
Autohotkey, lets you record mouse clicks and keyboard actions. That simple. You can use it in a number of ways. It’s one of those programs where the more you invest in, the more you get back. I found, I really needed it a few times recently. It was a total lifesaver. If you find yourself cursing a really badly designed user interface, something like autohotkey can make all the difference.
I was working on a job recently where I was migrating from one web based resource centre to another. I had to add loads of images. Three versions of the same image every time. The UI and UX design was terrible. I had to browse through a load of folders every single time I needed to add an image, it took about 5 minutes and 50 clicks to add every image! After recording a few macros in autohotkey, I could just sit there with my arms folded and watch autohotkey do all the work. It’s great to watch!
Below is a video capture of another resource library that I used regularly, and went to the same location regularly. I often had to login and browse through lots of folders ever time, clicking those tiny plus symbols (which should be banned from all user interfaces!). The video below isn’t impressive in itself but bear in mind that I just pressed a button, sat back and watched until the folder with the images I wanted was open.
Autohotkey comes with a recorder but you usually have to edit the script a bit as well. It doesn’t record intervals between actions, so you have to add a lot of pauses, or sleeps. It’s very easy script to edit though. Here’s one example:
Send, {ALTDOWN}{ALTUP}fd
sleep, 2500
Send, {ENTER}
What this does is press ALT F D on my keyboard, waits 2½ seconds, and then hits Enter. When I’m using Photoshop, I run this script with a keyboard shortcut and it goes to ‘save the image for the web’. Something that you do a LOT, yet takes longer than it should; a good simple example of using Autohotkey.
Another example is when I’m editing PHP that has to be previewed on a live server. That’s a lot of clicking for every edit. Now I just press a button, and Autohotkey saves the file (in dreamweaver), uploads it, waits a tiny bit, then switches to Firefox and hits refresh. So much easier. And I had it set up in now time.
You can also use Autohotkey to autofinish phrases that you type a lot. For example when I type JBA, autohotkey types my name and address and when I type btw, autohotkey types by the way for me. Again you can see that investing a bit of time here, could save a huge amount of time in the future. Word has an inbuilt version of this too, called autocomplete but obviously autohotkey works throughout all applications, so you can use it for webmail, twitter, excel… whatever.
A launcher
The final part in automating your work easily is to have a dedicated launcher for your macros. You can launch Autohotkey macros as you would any other file; by adding a desktop shortcut, or adding an icon to your taskbar, or using a keyboard shortcut but the snazziest method of all is to buy a dedicated programmable keypad. This really ties everything in together nicely. After much research I got an X-keys desktop. It’s got 20 programmable keys. Setting it up couldn’t be easier, it’s got a great interface, you just click a switch on the hardware and the buttons appear onscreen, then you can drag your shortcuts onto the keys and flick the switch again. It’s also got its own Macro software that’s also really easy to use but I mostly use Autohotkey.
X-Keys comes pre-programmed with regular functions like cut, copy, paste and undo, which I’d recommend keeping. It also has shortcuts to launch applications like your browser or email but I think this is a terrible waste of hotkeys. Any application that you open and leave open for most of the day is a waste of a key.
You can save different presets with the x-keys software, so you can have a whole keypad of different shortcuts just for Photoshop, or you can load another full of html code, and another for general use. But as they keys are labelled with stickers, if you change the presets a lot, you have to remember or write down the combinations. I haven’t properly labelled them yet as I’m still changing them a lot. One idea I find useful is to have one key mapped to an autohotkey script called ‘latest’, which will launch whatever macro you’re currently using a lot.
It was very hard to find somewhere I could buy this from Ireland. I eventually got it from Keytools. You can’t use the web form to buy directly from Ireland but you can ask them to fax or email you a form.
I was also going to write about various applications for very specific jobs but this post is already big enough, but just to point you in the right direction, there are applications for everything these days. If you find yourself resizing windows to specific dimensions a lot, then google ‘windows resizer’, if you find yourself taking lots of screen grabs and emailing them to people then download an application to do it for you. Or just have a look around download.com or tucows or lifehacker for some inspiration.
So – I’ll say it again: invest a little and you will get a lot back, stop banging your head against your computer screen, give it a big hug instead!
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