faq typing injuries software monitoring tools monthly posting archive name typing injury faq software version th december this faq is actually maintained by richard donkin richardd hoskyns co uk i post it along with the other faq stuff if you have questions you want to send mail to richard not me dan software tools to help with rsi this file describes tools primarily software to help prevent or manage rsi this version now includes information on such diverse tools as calendar programs and digital watches please let me know if you know any other tools or if you have information or opinions on these ones and i will update this faq i am especially interested in getting reviews of these products from people who have evaluated them or are using them richard donkin internet mail richardd hoskyns co uk tel direct fax changes in this version added information on stressfree another typing management tool for windows typing management tools these aim to help you manage your keyboard use by warning you to take a break every so often the better ones also include advice on exercises posture and workstation setup some use sound hardware to warn of a break others use beeps or screen messages often rsi appears only after many years of typing and the pain has a delayed action in the short term too frequently you can be typing all day with little problem and the pain gets worse in the evening these tools act as an early warning system by listening to their warnings and taking breaks with exercises you don t have to wait for your body to give you a more serious and painful warning that is getting rsi tool at your service commercial software available from bright star tel platforms mac system windows description provides calendar keyboard watch email watch and system info warns when to take a break configurable has a few recommendations on posture and exercises sound oriented will probably work best with sound card pc or with microphone mac should be possible to record your own messages to warn of break tool audioport sound card and software available from media vision tel platforms pc description a sound card to plug into your pc parallel port includes at your service tool computer health break commercial software available from escape ergonomics inc w el camino real suite mailstop sunnyvale ca tel platforms dos description aimed at preventing rsi this program warns you to take breaks after a configurable interval based on clock time or after a set number of keystrokes whichever is earlier it gives you exercises to do each time randomly selected from a set of exercises are apparently tuned to the type of work you do data entry word processing information processing exercises are illustrated and include quite a lot of text on how to do the exercise and on what exactly the exercise does chb includes hypertext information on rsi that you can use to learn more about rsi and how to prevent it other information on non rsi topics can be plugged into this hypertext viewer a full glossary of medical terms and jargon is included chb can be run in a dos box under windows but does not then warn you when to take a break it does not therefore appear useful when used with windows cost quantity discounts site licenses comments the keystroke counting approach looks good it seems better to measure the activity that is causing you problems than to measure clock time or even typing time the marketing stuff is very good and includes some summaries of research papers as well as lots of arguments you can use to get your company to pay up for rsi management tools tool eyercise commercial software available from ran enterprises one woodland park dr haverhill ma us tel us only platforms windows os pm not dos description aimed at preventing rsi and eye strain this program warns you to take breaks after a configurable interval or at fixed times optionally displays descriptions and pictures of exercises pictures are animated and program beeps you to help you do exercises at the correct rate includes stretches and visual training exercises can configure which are included and how many repetitions you do breaks last from to minutes also includes online help on workplace ergonomics quote from their literature eyercise is a windows program that breaks up your day with periodic sets of stretches and visual training exercises the stretches work all parts of your body relieving tension and helping to prevent repetitive strain injury the visual training exercises will improve your peripheral vision and help to relieve eye strain together these help you to become more relaxed and productive the package includes the book computers visual stress by edward c godnig o d and john s hacunda which describes the ergonomic setup for a computer workstation and provides procedures and exercises to promote healthy and efficient computer use cost including shipping and handling quantity discounts for resellers free demo outside us comments i have a copy of this and it works as advertised i would say it is better for rsi prevention than rsi management because it does not allow breaks at periods less than minutes also it interrupts you based on clock time rather than typing time which is not so helpful unless you use the keyboard all day worked ok on windows though it did occasionally crash with a uae not sure why also refused to work with the space bar on one pc and has one window without window controls very usable though and does not require any sound hardware tool lifeguard commercial software available from visionary software p o box portland or us tel platforms mac dos windows version underway description aimed at preventing rsi warns you to take a break with dialog box and sound includes a list of exercises to do during breaks and information on configuring your workstation in an ergonomic manner price quantity discounts and site licenses the dos product is bought in from another company apparently not sure how equivalent this is to the mac version the mac version got a good review in desktop publisher magazine feb good marketing stuff with useful page summaries of rsi problems and solutions with references tool stressfree commercial software free usable demo available from lifetime software p o box houston texas us tel us only fax mail compuserve com demo working program but reduced functions available from compuserve windows advanced forum new uploads section or health and fitness forum issues at work section anon ftp ftp cica indiana edu and mirroring sites platforms windows mac and dos versions underway description aimed at preventing rsi this program warns you to take breaks after a configurable interval or at fixed times displays descriptions and pictures of exercises pictures are animated and program paces you to help you do exercises at the correct rate quite a few exercises can configure which ones are included to some extent online help version is out soon mac and dos versions will be based on this cost if support via compuserve or internet otherwise site license for or more copies is each note prices may have gone up for v comments i have had a play with this and it works ok its user interface design is much better in though still a bit unusual expensive tool around and it does the job it is also the only tool with a redistributable demo so if you do get the demo post it on your local bulletin boards ftp servers and bitnet servers does not include general info on rsi and ergonomics but it does have the ability to step backward in the exercise sequence which is good for repeating the most helpful exercises tool typewatch freeware version october available from email to richardd hoskyns co uk anonymous ftp soda berkeley edu pub typing injury typewatch shar platforms unix tested on sco sunos mach character and x window mode description this is a shell script that runs in the background and warns you to stop typing based on how long you have been continuously typing it does not provide exercises but it does check that you really do take a break and tells you when you can start typing again typewatch now tells you how many minutes you have been typing today each time it warns you which is useful so you know how much you really type it also logs information to a file that you can analyse or simply print out the warning message appears on your screen in character mode in a pop up window for x windows or as a zephyr message for those with athena stuff tim freeman tsf cs cmu edu has put in a lot of bug fixes extra features and support for x zephyr and mach not formally supported but email richardd hoskyns co uk for sco sunos character mode or tsf cs cmu edu for mach x window mode zephyr if you have problems or want to give feedback tool various calendar batch queue programs available from various sources platforms various description any calendar reminder program that warns you of an upcoming appointment can be turned into an ad hoc rsi management tool or any batch queue submission program that lets you submit a program to run at a specific time to display a message to the screen using windows as an example create a calendar file and include this filename in your win ini s load line so you get it on every startup of windows suppose you want to have breaks every minutes starting from am press f special time to enter an appointment enter hit enter and type some text in saying what the break is for then press f to set an alarm on this entry and repeat for the next appointment by using windows recorder you can record the keystrokes that set up breaks throughout a day in a rec file put this file on your run line as above and you will then with a single keypress be able to set up your daily appointments with rsi exercises the above method should be adaptable to most calendar programs an example using batch jobs would be to submit a simple job that runs at am and warns you to take a break this will depend a lot on your operating system while these approaches are not ideal they are a good way of forcing yourself to take a break if you can t get hold of a suitable rsi management tool if you are techie enough you might want to write a version of typewatch see above for your operating system using batch jobs or whatever fits best tool digital watches with count down timers available from various sources e g casio bp description many digital watches have timers that count down from a settable number of minutes they usually reset easily to that number either manually or automatically while these are a very basic tool they are very useful if you are writing reading driving or doing anything away from a computer which can still cause or aggravate rsi the great advantage is that they remind you to break from whatever you are doing comments my own experience was that cutting down a lot on my typing led to my writing a lot more and still reading as much as ever which actually aggravated the rsi in my right arm though the left arm improved getting a count down timer watch has been very useful on some occasions where i write a lot in a day i have tried an old fashioned hour glass type egg timer but these are not much good because they do not give an audible warning of the end of the time period keyboard remapping tools these enable you to change your keyboard mapping so you can type one handedly or with a different two handed layout one handed typing tools may help but be very careful about how you use them if you keep the same overall typing workload you are simply doubling your hand use for the hand that you use for typing and may therefore make matters worse tool hsh public domain available from anonymous ftp soda berkeley edu pub typing injury hsh shar platforms unix don t know which ones description allows one handed typing and other general keyboard remappings only works through tty s so you can use it with a terminal or an xterm but not most x programs tool dvorak keyboard tools various available from anonymous ftp soda berkeley edu pub typing injury xdvorak c also built into windows x description the dvorak keyboard apparently uses a more rational layout that involves more balanced hand use it may help prevent rsi a bit but you can also use it if you have rsi since it will slow down your typing a lot dan wallach one of the most attractive features of a connection dwallach cs berkeley edu machine is the array of blinking lights on the faces office of its cabinet cm paris ref manual v p
