Wrist pain eliminated with keyboard and massage

About three years ago while working on a crunch project and finishing a document on my laptop on the plane, I experienced such wrist pain that I had to hold one hand by the wrist with my other hand and type one finger at a time. That prompted me to do two things:

1. Start seeing a myofascial massage therapist every 2-4 weeks. This was tremendously beneficial in clearing up the acute pain in my wrists at the time, and has remained beneficial. Every now and then, I just need to get the tension in my arms cleared out completely, and only myofascial massage has been able to do that.
2. On the recommendation of programmer friends, I started using the Kinesis Advantage Pro keyboard. It took about  a week to become really comfortable with it, but I noticed an immediate and lasting difference. I still experience some forearm irritation (mostly itching), but no more wrist pain. A side benefit of the Kinesisis is that I can type faster than ever before, and much prefer the two-handed Ctrl and Alt key combinations to the dangerous single-handled operations like Ctrl+Tab which I commonly used before.

I of course have a proper chair and sturdy under-desk keyboard tray (the 3M AKT100N). To address shoulder issues, I began switching my mouse from my right to left hand years ago, and now switch mouse hands every day. I use a Kensington Expert Mouse trackball, which I find less likely to cause my wrists to become stiff, and I really like the scroll ring. With the 3M keyboard tray, I can easily switch the mouse tray from one side to the other.

But the main benefit early on came from the Kinesis and massage, and I have thankfully never had a repeat of the acute wrist injury I experienced in 2006. A friend with Liferay told me that the company’s founder bought the Kinesis for all of his employees after the keyboard had saved his own coding career. If you don’t yet have wrist / hand issues but think you might be prone, you should definitely check it out.

I am hopeful that I will eventually be able to eliminate the forearm tension / itching, as well. I exercise 5 minutes with the Flextend glove on an almost-daily basis, and am thereby able to extend the length of time between massage visits.

Yours for perpetual coding,

/dmc

Eclipse Keyboard Shortcut of the Week

Just a quickie time-saver here. I hate having to use the mouse to navigate through code (yes, I can still use vi) as it slow and bothered my right shoulder enough over time to force me to mouse with my left hand. If you’re like me, you’ll want to know about:

Ctrl+Shift+T (Open Type) Just type the first few letters of the Java class you’re looking for, and voila, you can use the arrow keys to find exactly the right one. No more clicking on folders in Package Explorer.

Ctrl+Shift+R (Open Resource) Same drill, but works for any resource in the Package Explorer.

You can find a bunch more of my favorite keyboard shortcuts in my Eclipse Google Notebook (linked on left).

/dmc

Coders, save your wrists!

I’ve been waiting for years for voice recognition software to get good enough to take some of the pressure off my increasingly tender wrists and elbows. My wait is over. Dragon NaturallySpeaking Preferred edition, version 8, fills the bill! I haven’t tried coding with it yet, but it is wonderful for answering e-mails, creating documentation, and browsing the Web (referencing APIs, of course). The voice browser, which allows you to navigate simply by saying the first word or two of the hyperlink label, is something I’ve wanted for a very long time, and is actually more productive (and more fun!) than having to move the mouse. There’s also a great choose-by-number system for entering data in text fields, drop boxes, etc., without having to voice tab all over the place.

You can use Dragon to navigate any standard Windows program by voice just by saying the name of a menu item or button label. If you really get stuck, you can always say what key you want to press (“press Ctrl-F7″). You can start any program without having to navigate the Windows start menu: just say “start” and the name of the program as it appears in the Start menu hierarchy, like “Start Microsoft Outlook.” Now add shortcuts to your most commonly used folders in the Start menu, and you’re on to something even easier than Windows Favorites.

The freeform voice recognition is incredible, as are the capabilities for making corrections by voice. “NaturallySpeaking” is no joke. You don’t … have … to …. speak slowly at all. In fact, it works better when you run your words together like usual because it gets more contextual clues that way. The autopunctuation feature is remarkably good at figuring out where to put periods and commas, too.

The package I got came up with a nice headset microphone (analog) that works just fine. I’m hooked! You can even move the mouse with your voice using the ingenious MouseGrid feature. That’s definitely slower than moving your wrist, but when you’re kicked back in the easy chair in a comfortable posture, who wants to reach for the mouse? Most of what you do with the mouse you can now do by voice, anway.

Oh, and it only takes 5 minutes of training up front, and it gets better as you go. Thank you, thank you, Dragon.