I’ve used almost every kind of mouse, or alternative mouse out there. I’ve used a large touchpad, a trackball, a joystick, a graphical tablet. I have a finger mouse, and a thumb ball. I may expand on these items in another post but the only ones I have used for any length of time are the touchpad (Cirque easy cat) and a Wacom graphics tablet. I never use the Cirque touchpad anymore.  It feels horrible to use now because I overused it for months. I still use the graphics tablet on and off quite often. Not just for graphical work but as a mouse. It’s good to swap around as much as possible.  Holding a pen for eight hours a day is no more natural than holding a mouse. So I swap around input devices as much as possible to get my hand out of the same position. And obviously the graphcis tablet is more suited to certain work.

At the moment my main mouse is an Evoluent vertical mouse. I’ve wanted a vertical mouse for a while now. It makes perfect sense. A handshake position is a much more neutral position for your arm/hand to be in.  Look at your arm in a handshake position, then twist it into the position for holding a regular mouse and watch all your nerves and muscles twist across your arm near the elbow. Doing that for a whole day is not good.  I originally  wanted a zero tension mouse but had major trouble buying one from Ireland (like many ergonomic products) and eventually gave up on it.

I don’t actually find the vertical mouse that odd; it’s just like a regular mouse on its side. I had a sigh of relief when I first started using it. It does feel more natural. Of course there are quirks to get used to, as with most alternative mice. You can’t pick it up and move it as easily as a regular mouse which isn’t a big deal, but more importantly, you have to be very careful that you get the angle of your arm right by adjusting your chair height (or desk). Otherwise you force your wrist into an unnatural angle. Other than that it’s exactly like a regular mouse. I highly recommend one. Along with everything else I’ve been doing lately, the horrible pains have mostly gone from my biceps. I still have stiffness and aches and pains but the agonising muscle pains have subsided.

The Evoluent Vertical mouse also has a third button pre-programmed to double-click which is invaluable. I really miss it when I’m using another mouse/computer. I know a third button is not unique to this device but it’s still worth mentioning.

• I bought mine from PC world business for €90.00
• Keytools.co.uk are doing a pack which includes the goldtouch split keyboard,  the Evoluent mouse and other bits and pieces for £275 (€343)
• Amazon are doing a similar bundle with goldtouch keyboard and evoluent mouse for £174.00 (€217) but don’t deliver hardware to Ireland

I only discovered this keyboard while writing my general keyboards post. I always thought a split keyboard without a numerical pad would be fairly ideal, so you have much less distance to reach to one side for your mouse.  And I also think adjust-ability is our best friend. The Goldtouch has both of these covered. It can be flattened right down to a flat keyboard or split and tented up to the degree that suits you. You can just open the lever type lock adjust the height and angle and re-lock it. This is great because I find that a different setup suits different activities better. If I’m using Photoshop, I’d be mousing with my right hand and hitting lots of shortcuts with my left.  A flat keyboard feels much better for this. Whereas if I’m doing lots of writing, I want it pitched right up like a tent.

The keys are also nice and light. I still can’t believe how loud and heavy the Microsoft Ergonomic keyboard is. I have that at home now (though I try not to use the computer at home too much these days).

Cons

It’s not perfect.  Somethings gotta give when making a compact keyboard. The hardest difference to adapt to that I found was that the delete key was moved to the left.  Doing Ctrl alt and delete is an awkward move, as is regular deleting just because your right hand automatically veers to the right. And shift and enter and keys like that aren’t as easy to find. with your fingers. But I’ve been getting very used to all that after a few weeks.

Bye bye keypad

I also miss my keypad (not as much as I am glad it is gone however). I used with Mousekeys a lot. Mostly for hitting the number 5 when I needed to click the mouse in multiple succession. (If you don’t know about Mousekeys, see my post on Windows Accessibility options). However I plan to buy a separate keypad to make up for this. The main point is that having an unmovable keypad takes up extra desk space making you stretch over to one side for your mouse. Whereas you can put a seperate keypad whereever you want.

Summary

I’m very happy with it. And I’ve experimented with a lot of keyboards. I think it’s probably the best one out there for us folk. I can’t stress how important adjust-ability is for beating RSI. And I’ve definitely started getting better recently. But I also have a new vertical mouse (review to come). And I’ve been very diligent with my daily routine and everything else, so it’s a combination of many things.

• I got my Goldtouch keyboard at PC World business for €172.58
• More reviews at amazon
• Manufacturer site www.keyovation.com

I was browsing through Maplins at the weekend and saw a very cheap  mini keyboard that I decided to experiment with. (€16 / 10UKP)

I’ve already mentioned on my keyboards post that I want a keyboard with no keypad so this was a cheap and easy option. It’s actually being marketed as a Mini Desk-Saver Keyboard and the only reason I bought it was to save desk space, or to be more precise have a keyboard and mouse that I don’t need to reach to the side for. It seemed good at first (though I knew it couldn’t be long term) as I didn’t have to reach to either side for anything and I could actually fit a graphics tablet, keyboard and mouse comfortably in front of me.

But the size of the keyboard forced my hands really close together which put my wrists into a very unnatural angle. I didn’t realise just how much this would happen. This is called Ulnar Deviation and it’s precisely what split keyboards are designed to avoid. That’s why laptop keyboards and mini keyboards like this are terribly unergonomic. I thought I might end up with sore wrists but it was much more far-reaching than that. I was in bits for the whole evening yesterday, specially in the upper-back and shoulders and I had an ice pack on my muscles, well a bag of frozen spinach. So experiment over - avoid mini keyboards!

Other negatives

To save space, they also grouped several keys with other keys that could be accessed with the Fn key. But this was done with two keys that I use a lot; Home and End. And other keys were moved slightly; it just seems wrong to have Page Up and Page Down side-by-side rather than over-and-under.

Also, like a lot of keyboards, you can tilt the keyboard up towards you by putting little feet up at the back. This is wrong. Badly researched design that’s copied from one product to the other. So many manufacturers do this. The keyboard should tilt back away from you. Otherwise its forcing your wrist up at an angle.

I dread to think what mini laptops are going to do to a generation. I just had a quick look at the website for the Eee PC and even the image they are using is screaming No No No. If that kid keeps up that hunched posture and bent wrists he’ll be a cripple before he has acne.