I have a laptop that gets pretty hot. I use a plastic tray table with a padded bottom on it while I'm using the laptop in bed or on the sofa, but the laptop gets hot enough to melt the plastic (it used to have grippy dots on it but they've melted away from the laptop heat). Do you use a tray/table for your laptop? Which one and what do ...
Recently my eyes have been giving me trouble. (Fatigued, Blurriness, Headache) The eye doc said my in good shape. I ditched my CRTs for a pair of LCDs, that helped a lot. The lighting in the office is not great, but I can't change it yet... Have you used computer glasses? Do they really help? UPDATE I have been wearing computer glasses ...
This question on computer glasses reminded me that the next time I need to get a new pair of spectacles I've been thinking of getting photochromic lenses, which darken automatically in sunlight (UV specifically). Been getting sick of having to fiddle with clip-on sunglasses. My only concern is that there may be some drawbacks for those...
Has anyone tried using foot pedals in addition to the traditional keyboard and mouse combo to improve your effectiveness in the editor? Any actual experiences out there? Does it work, or is it just for carpal tunnel relief? I found one blog entry from a programmer who actually tried it: So now I can type using my feet for most of th...
I am 6'6" (2meters) and of course have fairly large hands. I have read through the various mouse and keyboard posts here but none of them suggest hand size as a factor(on the large side). Are there any other LARGE programmers out there and what mouse and keyboard have you found suitable. I have a LogiTech MX 5000 and it has started givi...
I was busy programming and I didn't notice that my room went dark. I switched on the lights. Then it struck to me. People say that while reading light should be in the front. What do you think will be a good position for the light while programming to reduce eye-strain? P.S: Ignore the light coming from the monitor! ...
This question is directed more for the users who have experience in many different work environments. My boss's brother works for a large oil and gas company, and I have heard stories of some weird ergonomic policies that they have in place like having adjustable cubicle desk heights, forcing breaks after a certain amount of time, etc. ...
In a recent blog post, Jeff displayed a pic of Jarrod's lair, and in the pic at the top of the blog post, he's got a really nifty keyboard podium on wheels. Does anyone out there know of some other hardware out there that performs a similar function, or is Jarrod's thing pretty much all there is on the market? EDIT: The issue with my c...
I hate my chair at work, it is just never comfortable, but its a 0.000001% chance that I would get a new one. What is the best way to ask or require them to get me a new one (doctor's note or something) ...
We programmers are at great risk of RSI. After 10 years, I was having shoulder problems and switched to a trackball, which helped, then switched to my left hand which helped even more. I'm looking for a good finger-operated trackball with a scroll wheel. (I do not like the ones where you control the ball w/ your thumb. My thumb isn't as...
The standard setup for programmers really requires three hands: two for the keyboard, and one for the mouse. I'm not blessed with an extra hand, so my hands have to shift from mouse to keyboard to mouse. But plenty of hands-free mice exist: either by moving your head, by speaking, or by using feet. I'm not particularly handicapped, ...
Im gonna use some kind of accordion javascript (you click a button and some content appears), Id like to know from an UI/ergonomic standpoint what's the best orientation of the expanded state? the button moves down as the content becomes visible (UP) the content beside the button (DOWN) side questions: Will the page auto-scroll...
We were having a problem with our Tomcat jvm blowing up and giving us an hs_* dump at random times but always in the same spot, that wasn't very informative other than saying we had an EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION Commenting out various parts of the java that called particular jni functions just made it blow consistently in another spot. ...
For emacs users out there, what are your recommended keyboards? Bonus points for keyboards that: Have no capslock key. Instead, a control key in that position. Alt keys that are closer to the center, and easier to use with meta key combos. I find alt keys too far to the left to be a bit awkward to hit with my thumb in some key combos....
After hunting and pecking for about 35 years, I have decided to learn to type. I am learning QWERTY and have learned about 2/3 of the letters so far. While learning, I have noticed how asymmeterical the keyboard is, which really bothers me. (I will probably switch to a symmetrical keyboard eventually, but for now am trying to do everythi...
Different mouse models has been already discussed. But all these mouse got configurable buttons. Has a programmer, how do you set them? I use The Microsoft Intellimouse Optical. So set the Left side button to "Copy" and the Right side button to "Paste". I did not set the Wheel click to anything. I'm curious to see if there is any bet...
Hi mates, I have not very much experience in creating GUIs. Maybe one of the more experienced programmers/GUI-designers has some tips or references for me how to design ergonomic user interfaces. I've heard, Microsoft has a very big book on this issue for designing GUIs in Access (I assume most ergonomic issues can be used in other plat...
How to change default shortcuts? For example, I want to try Caps+S instead of Ctrl+C. ...
Hello all! I read carefully the good UI practice from the Google Dev Blog; http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/05/twitter-for-android-closer-look-at.html and I found that they are right and twitter is an application that I really love for its User Friendly Interface ( like the Google IO app too) As I spend most of my time deve...
I am just beginning on emacs, and have just completed the tutorial. As a longtime Windows user (I am running emacs on Win7), the shortcuts do feel unintuitive, however I had expected that and was prepared to dedicate time to learning the commands. However, I recently discovered the ErgoEmacs package, and I was wondering whether I should...