Stuck in the Cartoon World

[WheelBrat]

Not altogether true! I suffer from overusing the pen/tablet and end up with severe wrist and bicep pain and irritation. Fortunately I have 3 mouse type input devices plus my Dragon Dictate to use when the pen gets too much and the discomfort a big bother. Sometimes I even switch over to my woodcarving or sculpting projects whenever it gets to be too much of a problem.

Reji

The Wheel "Irritated" Brat

[q]

yes, ambidextrous is the answer for me too, as this computer use/wrist/back pain was a problem that caused me a lot of worry a couple of years back. We here call it OOS. (occupational overuse syndrome) and it can be permanent, and crippling. Give your hand a rest and use the other one for a spell. Its easy for anyone to use the mouse in either hand.

More recently I've also taken up cycling, often 30Kms each night. The scenery around here is great. OK that seems overkill but anything that keeps me away from cigarettes is good. And it strengthens the wrists etc, as any exercise will. Downside is spectacular crashes when you fall off and elephant-man responses from workmates until you heal.. but at least you get noticed.

I work all day on various computers at my town-job at the university (NT, win2K and if I cant avoid it, mcmac G4 -ugh. <font size="1">The person who introduced these Flash-Gordon computers, which look *swell* but pop and fart much like his spaceship.. deserves to be formatted</font>)
And then at home I work on my computers here. All in all a recipe for oos-hell, but no worry. As Gary says, avoid the edge of the desk for your mouse. I prefer to rest my forearm on the table, monitor a good arms reach away, and the wacom tablet for light relief. But clicking the little buttons for menus etc with the wacom is not ergonomic, hurts my fingers, so I keep the mouse handy.

and last but not etc.. Cartooney style a problem?? Whoa! Dont get me started.. cartoons are <font size="+1">great!!</font>

without cartoons, Q would be very unQ..

Q

http://www.Qdesign.co.nz

[Klaus Nordby]

- and furthermore, telling a woman you're ambidextrous always makes a good impression.

:-)


K

[stlewis]

Like Allison I use a Logitech marble - it's marbellous - you just lay your hand on top and roll your thumb. The buttons are just in the right place too. Perhaps if you have a huge hand you would not be so pleased but with my dainties...

www.thelondonhouse.co.uk

[Mark (theKeeper)]

Here's a little something from Microsoft; it comes with all their mouse hardware.

http://www.microsoft.com/hardware/ergo/

PS: i have a logitech optical mouse, always have used Logitech. But, for a moment i strayed into the MS optical mouse terrain... didn't like it there, glad i'm back. [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif[/img]

[Paul Biba]

This is a very serious matter. There are many people at my company who have CTS in various stages. I've recommended a drawing table to them, and those who have taken me up on it have actually seen quick relief. Anecdotal I admit, but it seems to work. If you get a small tablet you can use it instead of a mouse. I do this both at home and at work. I find that if I use the tablet 75% of the time and the mouse 25% of the time don't have any problems at all. It's interesting - one person at work was on constant pain killers and thought she would have to go out on disability. I lent her my tablet and she could use that, instead of a mouse, with minimal pain. Wacom tablets are great because the co-exist beautifully with a mouse.

[Erik Heyninck]

The people that do photographic drawings mostly start from bitmaps. These can either be scanned photographs or scanned sketched you make yourself. When you have a drawing tablet, you not only can draw much more quickly, but you can exercise in sketching with the pen.

When you have your bitmap, jpeg or tiff as you please, you open it in Xara and give it a x% transparancy, where x stands for a number that works well with your eyesight. The intention is that you can barely see the image. Then you open the layer gallery, open a new layer and drag your bitmap layer to the back, locking it against changes.

Then you take the shape editor tool and you put your line width at.25, and simply click straight lines, not too much!!!, but following the outline of your bitmap. Then you zoom in and with the same tool you manipulate the curves as is explained in the movie: dragging the line, the nodes, adding nodes by double clicking and making them angled or round in the toolbar.
Make a shape out of every detail you want and start filling them as is explained in the Xara Gallery.

With your drawing talent, this shouldn't be too difficult or booooringly loooong...

Succes, and: I like your cartoons!

By the way: pain is a blocking of energy (stress in the muscles). Your mind ignores the signals of your body and your body reacts by insisting, and this can cause pain.
As body wants to move, let it!

Bring your shoulders as close as possible to your ears, fill your lungs with air, and while exhaling, let loose and let your shoulders drop whilst sighing. Move your arms like as if there was only rubber in them. And shake your hands like as if they were wet. Thiese tricks help.


For your eyes: go outside, or to an open window with as wide a view as possible. Then bring your uplifted index finger some 25cm, 10 inch before your eyes, look intensely at it, and look then at something in the distance. And back, and back. THis also helps to get your concentration back.

And if you have the time: put on some good funky music and dance as crazily as you can. Let it all out. You'll win energy, concentration AND gumption. Your body is FAR MORE CLEVER than your mind. (just imagine you had to breathe, make your heart pump, digest and control the defense system conciously...)

[img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_cool.gif[/img]

ERIK

[ivan louette]

I have suppressed double click for several years on my systems. All people I know and who follows this line saw their problems disappear! It seems that intensive use of double click is one of the multiple bad things introduced with Windows systems.

I show here my pen configuration. I have checked "assisted double click", which is activated in holding down only one time the below side of the "balance" button.

Kind regards,

ivan

[ivan louette]

attachment

[Gustav]

I've been away during the weekend and got really surprised when I saw the big response =) Thanks everyone for all your advice!

The wierds thing is (Or maybe it isn't) that I have been using computers since I was a little kid (Im 20 now), and _never_ felt like this before. Maybe it takes about 10 years before things fall apart? I dont know. Anyway, I'll try to change my working position, start to take short breaks every 30 min or so, and I will look up a wacom (Are they easy to get used to?). I will probably go see a doctor too, cause I got pretty scared now, this _could_ ruin my future, as this is a pretty lousy start in the computer biz...

oh well. Been away from XaraX all weekend (almost, I forced my friend, whom I was visiting, to download the trial [img]/infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif[/img]

time for a break. again, thanks!

/Gustav