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Subject:Re: Carpal Tunnel /RSI From:Philsussmn -at- AOL -dot- COM Date:Sat, 23 Aug 1997 13:29:47 -0400
Hi, TWs,
Re Carpal Tunnel/RSI:
I had some severe hand and shoulder pain caused by repetitive rodent use. It
was excruciating. The pain went away when I stopped all that clicking by
avoiding using the mouse as much as possible.
What works for me is to use keyboard shortcuts whenever possible. For
example, using the standard keyboard shortcuts in Word.
For Win 95 users, there is a little-known feature called Accessibility
Options that allows you to use the keypad instead of the mouse for almost
everything that you would need the mouse for. I use it on a system running
Windows 95 (with the plus pak).
With this feature you can use the keypad to do clicks and double-clicks, move
the mouse, even drag things. It has saved me from a lot of pain. I now use
this memory-resident rodent-avoidance feature along with a combination of
moving the mouse to move the mouse pointer and occassional mouse clicks when
unavoidable.
To install the Accessibility Options on a Windows 95 system:
From the Start menu, select Settings, Control Panel, Add/Remove programs.
Then select the Windows setup tab and choose Accessibility Options. This will
install the Accessibility Options.
If /when the Accessibility Options are installed, you can modify their
settings as follows:
From the Start menu, select Settings, Control Panel, Accessibility Options.
Then select the Mouse tab and select the Use MouseKeys option. I set mine to
Use MouseKeys when NumLock is on and Show MouseKey status on screen. I also
set the option to never time out if not used for five minutes.
You can also install and set up the Accessibility Options through the Win 95
Online Help, by going to the index, selecting accessibility, and then adding
accessibility options. Follow the instructions in the Help topic to
Add/Remove programs.
I’ve found this feature to be a real life-saver. I hope other tech writers
find this info useful.
Phil Sussman
philsussmn -at- aol -dot- com
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