Nik found a great tool to help with his RSI..


Hey, Chris. I am writing in order to accept full responsibility 
for not submitting productivity tips. As a CoderQA member, I should have known better :D

First things first, though, several weeks ago I wrote with virtualization question, thanks for answering.

Now, about to the tip. It is more about ergonomics, but pain will ruin your productivity anyway, so I believe it is relevant. I have RSI, my wrists can be an issue. I have a nice chair, standing desk and I have spent way too much money on mice, but i still have flare ups. The one thing that I tried recently and has helped tremendously, to the point of completely eliminating any kind of pain, while using it, is using a Wacom drawing tablet instead of a mouse. 

A friend of mine, who is in the VFX industry shared his positive experience with Wacoms and RSI and the rest is history as they say. I needed 2-3 days to get used to the tablet, but it wasn't as big of an issue as I expected. I assume that the benefits of using a drawing tablet are due to you being forced to move the stylus with your shoulder, which means that your wrists are not moving most of the time and they are mostly vertical, which is better, according to what I have read. 

Also you kind of have to assume better posture when using the tablet as slouching in the chair and pointing with the stylus is not very comfortable.

I am not sure if everybody will benefit as much as I do, but those tablets are pretty cheap(you don't need the fancy models with screens and buttons) and have good Linux support, so people with RSI issues can give it a go.

Regards,
Nik