Linked by Thom Holwerda on Tue 24th Jun 2008 23:04 UTC
One button, two buttons, three buttons, ten million buttons. Beige, black, white, red with polka dots. Glow-in-the-dark, see through. Right-handed, left-handed, both. Vertical for RSI patients, trackballs for weirdoes like myself, Apple's puck mouse for sado-masochists. The ubiquitous mouse comes in all possible shapes, forms, sizes, and colours, but according to our friend The Analyst, the glorious age of the mouse is coming to and end. Do we believe The Analyst?
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Member since:2007-02-11
I wished it could be that simple, but yes, variety helps, but does not solve the problem sometimes. In fact, I have both a trackball and a mouse that I can use with both hands, combined with a split keyboard and pedals. I never investigated trackpoints mostly because I cannot find a vendor that produces a split keyboard with an integrated one (or should I say two). Considering my primary input device is the keyboard, I'm not willing to switch for an inferior model under any circumstance.
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Member since:
2007-01-27
Even though you've tried quite a lot of options and been disappointed at their effectiveness, I'd say that you shouldn't bet on the one input device that will make your problems go away for the time being.
I have used mice, trackballs and touchpads too over the years, while I haven't tried eye tracking and foot mouses (mice?), and can relate to the problems you've encountered with each of them (to the point of beginning to feel some strains sometimes, that's when I call it quits for the sake of my health).
The best thing to do as I see it is to divide your time between the several input devices so you don't put too much strain on just one part of a hand or arm. I try to switch between left and right hands for mice (even though I'm right-handed) just to keep myself from injuring one or both.
I only have a right-handed trackball and I would like to have a left handed one for the same reason. A mirrored keyboard with backspace and enter keys switched around would help a lot too, since I spend a lot of time at the keyboard daily.
Some time away from the computer, keyboard and input devices is another good way to give your arms and hands the time to recover. Taking some time off for holidays without any computing devices near yourself at all doesn't sound like that bad an idea after all, otherwise just minimise your exposure to them for some period.