I was quite stoked to win a Bamboo Touch from @WacomAustralia the other week, because I have been envious of the touch pad on Macbook Pros and the Touch looked like it would be relevant to my interests. I thought I’d take a few photos and write a little bit about how the last week or so has been since I have gone mouse-free.

I like to document receipt of exciting new toys on my dailybooth!

Here, you can see me debut as a hand model. That rest underneath my hand is a Fellowes gliding wrist support. It is super! It’s meant to work with a mouse, but I’m using it with the Bamboo Touch just fine.

It’s pretty easy just to rely on the Touch for general computer use and web browsing. I really enjoy flicking down and back and forward! I’ve never used a Macbook Pro for long enough to understand the multi-touch gestures, so I’m not sure what I’m missing out on with the Bamboo Touch because it’s limited to only two finger gestures.

In this photograph you can see my demonstration holding the stylus. At my old job I had a Wacom Graphire, and the stylus was built much sturdier, but the Bamboo stylus works fine. I do accidentally hit the side button a bit though.

Here you can see the injury I sustained after angrily washing up a food processor blade a few weeks ago. Treat those things with respect, it hurt a lot!

Err, back to the Bamboo Touch! The nifty light tells you when the stylus is close enough to the surface to disable the Touch sensitivity (around 1cm above the surface). Sometimes I scroll by flicking with my fingers but use the stylus to click around, and it can confuse the device (and me). When I have used the stylus in Photoshop to draw I have noticed a lag but it has been wonderful to use in Illustrator.

The pen holder is awesome and looks cute, but I very rarely remember to put my stylus back in there. I tend to confuse it for my Faber-Castell Pitt pens too!

A couple of annoying things:

Dudes, what is going on with this cord business? The Bamboo Touch really needs to be cordless. In all honesty, I have actually been using it flipped around and on the “left hand” setting so I can trail the cord behind my iMac. Cords hurt my life, boo!

I have had to switch to Safari for my browser, because the scroll always gets stuck in Firefox. This is kind of annoying, but now I only use Firefox if I need to use Firebug or other similar web design extensions. One of my friends has the larger Bamboo Touch and runs it on a PC, and hasn’t had a single issue scrolling in Firefox. I’ve been googling to find out if it’s just me, or if it’s a common issue using the Bamboo Touch with Firefox for Mac.

The surface is no where near as nice and glossy as the MBP touch pad. Sometimes it really irritates me because my finger can’t glide smoothly and I will “drop” files mid-drag. The left side of the device, where all the buttons are, is much glossier – I wish they’d used that surface for the Touch area! It also picks up a lot of lint, which has the potential to confuse the sensors. Sometimes my cursor skips erratically all over the screen and there appears to be nothing interfering with the Touch zone!

Some good things:

My hand feels less pain because I am moving it in different ways, instead of moving it only one specific way over and over. I have been trying to move my arm from the elbow instead of the wrist (the Fellowes gliding wrist support assists with that) so that might be helping too!

Aside from some minor lag in Photoshop, the stylus works perfectly. This small size is more than adequate for my needs, even after using an A4 sized no-name tablet for a couple of years! It’d be nice to have a little more sensitivity too, but if this is your first graphics tablet you probably won’t miss it.

Overall I’m really happy with the Bamboo Touch, and I’ll continue to use it as my main pointing device. I really prefer not to use a mouse at all because it encourages small movements over and over and over in the fingers, wrist and arm which leads to RSI. I enjoy the freedom of movement when using a graphics tablet, even though it takes a bit of practice to develop accurate and quick pointing.

Lastly, the Bamboo Touch being touched!!

Moreover, OSHA’s sound advice to “vary activities” and “take frequent breaks” doesn’t acknowledge the reality that many jobs, such as graphic design, programming, and word processing, require nonstop computer use.
Deborah Quilter

Generally, I just try to work through it, but this typically results in a pretty bad spasm or episode, meaning I am forced to take a day off work to have a break from sitting on my butt all day making tiny and precise gestures with my right hand. Even typing this entry is giving my wrist a break, and I’m always amazed that a sedentary job like graphic design results in such debilitating injury.

At work I use a Wacom Graphire graphics tablet. To be honest, I thought this would be the solution to all of my pointing related problems (sore neck, sore shoulders, burning wrist, restricted movement in my fingers), but after two months of use I can’t say its any better than the optical mouse I had before. I do love using a tablet and stylus, it has sped up my work flow quite a bit, however I can’t feel any benefits in terms of my RSI, which I’m really disappointed about.

So I’ve done a little bit of research and gathered some cool ideas for combating RSI. I’ll pick a few to road-test over the next few months and track their effectiveness.

Workstation Setup

The MIT IS&T ATIC Lab (holy acronyms batman!) recommend you set up your workstation like so:

• Feet rest flat on the floor or on a footrest.
• Thigh is supported by soft chair.
• Lower back is supported .
• Upper arms hang loosely from the shoulder.
• Forearms extend horizontally to the floor towards the keyboard.
• Keyboard is lowered and angled slightly away (negative pitch) so the wrist is in neutral position.
• Mouse is next to the keyboard at the same level.
• Wrists do not lean on any surface (including wrist rests) while typing or mousing.
• You are centered in front of the monitor.
• The monitor screen is at right angles to any windows.
• Eyes are at a comfortable distance from the monitor.
• Eyes look down at the monitor at a 15-20 degree ngle.
• If telephone use is frequent, use a headset instead of a handset.

90 Degree Mousing Action!
Thanks to 456 Berea St earlier this year, I started using my mouse in this seemingly awkward configuration. It really isn’t that weird once you get used to it, and before I got the tablet at work it helped fantastically!

Office Yoga Assistant

by Mipsis Software

This software looks to be pretty cool. It pops up in the lower right hand corner of your screen, and stays on top of everything else on your desktop. Text instructions and videos take you six simple exercises. After just one round of stretches, I felt tension in my arms and neck release! Imagine doing this at regular intervals all day – could I really be pain free at the end of the working day?! I’ll let you know how this treats me!

The program runs in the background, prompting me to take a break and stretch every hour. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be any good to me. I’ve been shown all these exercises before – the problem is remembering to do it! If I am prompted visually on my screen, I can see myself actually doing these stretches regularly.

The best part about this program is that it’s free. Try it for yourself!

Wrist Exercise Tools

The Eggsercizer
This palm-sized egg-shaped ball helps build up muscle strength in the hand and arm, and there are four different resistance levels. To me, this is an overpriced stress ball. We made stress balls at primary school by putting flour inside of a couple of balloons. I’m sure the theory is the same, but there’d have to be some kind of other squishable substance inside for higher resistance.

From Sportstek – the Eggsercizer costs AUD$15.00 + GST and postage.

Theraputty
I LOVE the concept behind this (and the name), because I love tactile things (and puns). I’d just worry that there would be residue that got into my keyboard or tablet stylus!!

From painreliever.com – Theraputty costs USD$7.95 + shipping.

Topical Cream

Tiger Balm
I am a huge fan of Tiger Balm Red and my family has been using this ointment since forever. There are a few different ointments, but this one is ideal for reducing swelling and pain in muscles. The scent is pleasant too – it’s not as stinky as Dencorub!

Sports Ice Joint and Muscle Gel
This comes highly recommended from a friend of mine who suffers from acute pain in her joints, but is allergic to anti-inflammatory drugs.

How do you combat RSI in the workplace? Let me know – there needs to be much more discussion about this condition.