

Ask HN: What steps do you take to prevent RSI? - user24

I work from home as a full time web developer.<p>I've just bought a comfortable chair to help with my back and neck, but the main issue is my fingers.<p>I've been using my work-issued 13 inch macbook pro for about two years now as my main computer and I'm starting to get pain in my fingers from the trackpad.<p>So I'm in the market for a mouse to use that's going to be good for me. Any suggestions?<p>Thanks HNers.
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henrik_w
Regular keyboards and mice are really bad ergonomically, but laptops are even
worse in my mind. Just awful to work on.

At work I have a MacBook Pro, but I'm using it with an external keyboard (a
Goldtouch split keyboard) and an external pen-like mouse called Ullman Penclic
mouse. The keyboard is not a Mac keyboard, so I've remapped a lot of keys
using Keymando (works great).

I had really bad RSI problems several years ago, but managed to get it under
control, and now I can work without problems. The biggest reason I got better
was that I started to use a break program (the keyboard and mouse also
helped). On my MacBook I use RSI Guard.

I've written about how I beat RSI: <http://henrikwarne.com/2012/02/18/how-i-
beat-rsi/> and about Mac OS X break programs:
[http://henrikwarne.com/2012/02/26/mac-os-x-break-programs-
re...](http://henrikwarne.com/2012/02/26/mac-os-x-break-programs-review/)

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lmm
To answer the topic, if not the actual problem: Dvorak. I was in the same
situation as you, starting to get pain in my fingers from typing; tried a few
different keyboards, then tried the Dvorak layout and the pain stopped.

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user24
Thanks, I will consider this. At the very least it will give me an excuse to
buy Das Keyboard and some stick-on lettering.

~~~
lmm
It's not worth doing that; just leave the keys where they are. That'll have
the same effect as far as you're concerned, and mean people who don't know
dvorak can use your keyboard by switching it in software. (When I used a
physically dvorak keyboard, I had at least five friends who claimed they could
touch-type qwerty. None of them actually could.)

