Carpal Tunnel Syndrome – The iPod Touch and Air Mouse Pro to the rescue?

Early on in my career, a number of colleagues had complained about sharp pains in their wrist, most noticeable when using their computer mouse. Years later and I have now succumb to the same affliction. The ergonomics-inclined here at Productive Smartphone has identified this to be none other than Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS). For those of you who are unfamiliar, this is essentially a medical condition caused by repetitive pinching of the median nerve (at your wrist). Many of us that constantly work with a computer may have at least a mild form of this. The primary causes are use the mouse repetitively and applying unnecessary pressure on your wrist when using the keyboard. I am ashamed to even admit having this problem as I am well versed in the study of ergonomics. Once again, the glaring difference between knowledge practice rears it’s ugly head.

This condition has been progressively getting worse, and I have since tried to compensate for my bad habits by buying new tools to help me navigate around my computer.

Try, try, try again…

In the last year, I have used the following input devices to try and take pressure off of my wrist:

• Ergonomic Mouse developed by Microsoft (Microsoft Natural Wireless Laser Mouse 6000). This is a lumpy, lopsided mouse, with the basic principle being that it tilts your hand and relieves the direct pressure on your wrist by diverting it to the side of your hand (think more perpendicular).

Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Mouse 6000

• Graphing Tablet. Some of you may know the more popular and respected Bamboo branded tablets, but there are a number of cheaper options also available. The pen is used to “write” your way around the screen. It is a bit slower than navigating with a mouse as the movements are more finicky, and requires you to put down the pen to type. This is an impediment to productivity, and for this site, a no go.

• Finger Mouse. As it sounds, this is a mouse worn on your index finger with the left and right mouse buttons positioned nicely to be pressed by your thumb. This has actually fared rather well, so has become the recommended tool for a travel mouse for on the go (it’s surprisingly light weight). Unfortunately, it presents the same problem as the graphing tablet in that it required you to take it off and put it down before you can effectively use the keyboard. It looks something like this:

USB Finger Mouse

Needless to say, bad habits are hard to break and I found myself going back to a standard mouse that I use on whatever surface is nearby. But a true solution may be at hand: look no further than the iPod Touch!

Air Mouse Pro

I’m sure a number of you iPhone users are laughing that it took me so long to discover this, but the Air Mouse Pro application is a godsend for those of us that want to control our laptops and computers from our iPods. There are two forms of input – as a regular touchpad or using the accelerometer. But why try and explain when the website does a mighty good job of that already?

****

From http://www.mobileairmouse.com/:

Instantly transform your iPhone or iPod touch into an air mouse, trackpad, and wireless remote for your computer! Sit back and surf the web, browse your photo library or control your music player from the comfort of your couch. Our air mouse uses the built in accelerometer to translate your hand motions into mouse movements on your screen. It can also operate as a trackpad, allowing you to control your computer with a single finger. Suddenly your iPhone has become an essential part of any home theater PC and a presenter’s best friend. Using an innovative application notification system, the iPhone will always know what applications are running at any time and show the appropriate keys for that program, providing you with a single screen for controlling ALL your media and web applications.

Features:

- Accelerometer based air mouse
- Trackpad (full screen vertical and landscape modes)
- Media keys & Web keys
- Application notifications – Remote keyboard with function and arrow keys
- Programable hotkeys (can be set to run a program or keyboard combination)
- Scroll pad
- Multitouch gestures (scroll & right click)
- Modifier Keys
- On screen typing
- Password protection
- Custom sensitivity settings
- Foreign language keyboards
- Supports Bonjour or static IP
- No screen size limitation. Works with multiple monitors.
- And much, much more.

*****

Here’s a direct screen capture from the iPod Touch. Notice the nice controls for browsing the web:

Air Mouse Pro for iPhone and iPod Touch

I’ve only been using this for a few hours, but it’s absolutely mind blowing how great it is. In a pinch, I can even use the iPod keyboard to type up an email. My home laptop has become a CPU and a monitor for 80% of the time now. The web navigation is great, and the music controls are an absolute must if your laptop doubles as your stereo. The $5.99 I paid to download this is 50% cheaper than the cheapest mouse I have ever purchased, so I would say it’s a pretty damn good deal. There are a few other competing applications in the app store, so definitely do some research before committing. I picked Air Mouse Pro simply because it was the most well known in my brief Google foray for reviews. There are other competitors out there, so if you try a different one, I’d like to hear about it…

*Edit: This application is now on sale at the AppStore for $1.99 – considering the comments made above, I wouldn’t hesitate to pick this up and give it a try…

PSp

The iPod Touch or A Netbook? Ultimate Productivity on the Go…

About 6 months ago, I received my brand new 32GB Ipod Touch. It completely revolutionized my life in terms of the productivity capabilities built into such a small device. More specifically, there wasn’t anything overwhelmingly new in terms of what the iPod (or iPhone) could deliver, but instead, it was the implementation, accessibility, and connectivity of it all. The things that could be found in the app store was an eye-opener for myself and scores of others out there, and it lead to the seeking out of further enhancement of my other devices.

Fast forward and I’m now clearly looking for more. There are still a number of limitations of the iPod Touch that are capping my mobile productivity potential. Attempts have been made to fill this gap with the Blackberry (see here – link to Blackberry as laptop replacement) but it hasn’t been overly successful to date. With that in mind, I recently purchased my first netbook: An Acer Aspire One (AAO150) 8.9″ Intel Atom based netbook.

Aspire One AAO150

Acer Aspire One

The netbook uses a traditional 160GB harddrive and has the now standard 1GB of RAM, USB ports, VGA output and an upgraded 6-cell battery (the thing lasts for 5 1/2 hours based on early tests!). It comes with a pre-installed version of XP and I’ve added a USB boot disk for xPud, a stripped down linux OS for quick access to internet and a few basics on the go. There’s not much more to get into here as, aside from the diminuitive size, it essentially resembles a typical laptop in terms of use and functionality. Oh but the size is phenomenal! Easy to carry, the psychology of using this is much different from your standard 14″ – 17″ laptop as there’s a convenience in size and weight that brings it closer to the appeal of the smartphone than a computer. With that said, it got me thinking about the similarities and differences between this and the Touch, and had me asking whether or not the benefits make it worthwhile adding yet another device into the rotation.

The Comparison

Size: Clearly, the Touch wins out based on it being fully pocketable. There’s also no additional action required to get it to use versus having to pop open the screen on the netbook. This does limit usage in certain situations like on a crowded subway, standing and waiting at a bus stop and so on. Nothing new here. As for the netbook, the 8.9″ screen takes some getting used to, and some of you may prefer the 800 x 600 resolution over the higher 1024 x 600 standard to make the font size bigger.

Keyboard: The keyboard will be another thing to consider. I tested out the Asus Eee PC 900HA and compared to that one, this keyboard is large and spacious. However, you’ll still have to make an adjustment when coming from a regular sized on larger laptops and stand alone keyboards. The biggest issues I’ve been having so far are with the peripheral keys like the shorter SHIFT key and the more narrow ENTER key. Of course, there are far bigger fish to fry when comparing to the iPod. There’s actually no comparison as I’m fairly error-prone with it even in landscape mode. On top of that, running music in the background will slow things down enough that a tiny lag is created and can cause keys to be missed. I definitely have to run all text through a spell check before making it final. Even with a hard keyboard like the one found on the HTC Touch Pro, it’s a different action with the thumb presses. It’s just not as efficient no matter how nice the keypad is. One day we’ll test this theory against the Blackberry Bold, which is said to have one of the best keypads out there.

Function: Wow, this is slowly becoming a comparison of the obvious, but the netbook wins out for it’s fully functioning Windows XP OS. You can do anything with it – photo-editing, office documents, torrents if you were so inclined, etc. This is a significant area of weakness with the Touch. It can do all of these things, but with severe limitations. Partly due to device memory, and partly due to ergonomics. So what are the specific processes that can’t be substituted effectively?

1. Text editing. I’m about to download Documents to Go for the Touch, but in reviews that I have read so far, there are some memory lags that make the application slow. This will change with the new supped up iPhone 3GS, but at the moment, is a main concern. Your thoughts are about flow, and if there’s a break to that, you won’t be nearly as effective. Conversely, I’m just thinking typing right now on the netbook, and haven’t felt limited by the technology. Instead, things are as it should be, with the biggest restriction being the formulation of thought to paper.
2. Evernote. Yes, the Ipod Touch evernote application is the absolute best one out there, but it suffers from the same issues with text editing above, and also flexibility that the desktop app allows for. I use this for everything, including blog drafts and so am served well by having the best tool out there.
3. Web Browsing. As we wait for embedded flash for the Touch, the browsing experiencing will still always be limited. The text can be hard to read on the small screen and the wifi has actually throttled down with the new 3.0 OS. I can’t tell you how annoying that spinning load icon is – everything just takes longer. Again, will the 3GS be better? Full control of the wireless card power makes the connection with the netbook absolutely brilliant. No complaints with browsing either, as I use Firefox and F11 to give me full screen viewing on the 8.9″ screen. I’m sure this will be subjective to others, so you should try it instore first to see if it’s tolerable for you.
4. File Storage. Not talking about internally, but the ability to move files in and out of the device and even use a USB thumb drive for backup and making things portable. The iPod of course connects to iTunes and can be backed up there, and application such as Air Sharing and others can help you set it up for file transfers. But nothing beats the ease of use of having standard USB ports, of which there are 3 on this particular netbook. It also has a storage expansion slot for using an SD card as a separate solid state drive.
5. Multi-tasking. Can’t do it properly on the Touch. ‘Nuff said.

Netbook and iPod Touch...on the kitchen counter...

Conclusion

As I wrap this up, I’m noticing a minor twinge in my left index finger near the knuckle. I would suspect it’s my hand getting used to the smaller sized keyboard. It’s definitely not perfect, but a reasonable compromise between size and function, and puts it ahead of the iPod Touch as the ultimate productivity travel companion. A couple more iterations of the iPhone/Touch and we could have a proper battle on our hands, but that won’t happen unless we get: 1) bluetooth or wired external keyboard expansion, 2) more memory (yes, probably even more than what’s on the 3GS), and further enhancements to the OS. So basically, until Apple makes a “Transformer” version of their iPod, there will always be room for a netbook in your gadget bag.

I would be interested to hear your thoughts – maybe a differing opinion – as I’m sure this is a topic of conversation of a lot of interest for people right now (if you don’t believe me, google it…).

PSp

Smartphone Devices for Productivity

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So let’s start with the devices that we’re currently using to increase our productivity. Mind you, there’s a limit to how many devices you can use at the same time before you start to lose productivity. (There’s an article in that thought for the future I think.)

A brief primer

There are 6 competitive smartphone operating systems to choose from:

• Windows Mobile (Standard non-touchscreen or Professional PPC touchscreen)
• Symbian (predominantly Nokia phones)
• Blackberry OS
• iPhone OS
• Palm OS (also known as Garnet OS)
• Andriod (Google’s new OS, currently out on the HTC Dream)

There are scores of information out there on each and it would take weeks to review them at length. I will leave that to the professionals, so you can check out comparisons of the first four here.

Each OS has it’s own strengths and limitations. Personally, I’ve always been inclined to go for Windows Mobile as I like the flexibility it provides as well as the seamless integration with MS Exchange server which my company uses to host email. The platform isn’t without fault, and I’ve had moments where I was just about ready to take a sledgehammer to one or more of my WM phones. All in all though, it seems to work (with the right amount of finessing). I”m sure there are many waiting in the wings to debate this point…

The Devices

So enough jabbering – here are the devices currently in use:

Smartphone devices

From left to right, we have: HTC Touch, Samsung Jack (or Blackjack 2), Blackberry Pearl 8120, and an iPod Touch for good measure. I know, the iPod isn’t technically a smartphone, but it has all of the same capabilities minus the (non-wifi) network connectivity, camera and a mic so am including it in our discussion.

This gives us a fairly solid breadth of experience among three different platforms. I’m eager to get my hands on a Symbian phone, but am paralyzed by the often discussed slow syncing of emails. So for the time-being, I remain out of the market for a Nokia phone (although the E71-2 has subtly caught my attention).

Unfortunately, the idea of carrying around 4 different devices is absurd enough to not do it more than once or twice, so what do I keep with me day-to-day? My primary workhorse is the Samsung Jack, backed up by the uber-revolutionizing iPod. I don’t think I could live without one or the other. The Ipod is essential for ease of note-taking (app: Evernote) and list making (app: ShopShop). I use Evernote as well on my Jack, but it expectedly cannot hold a candle to the usability of the iPod version. And of course, the defacto WM email syncing keeps me forever bound to the Jack. The HTC Touch is impressive for it’s time, but is a bit dated and can frustrate you to no end with the lack of hard buttons (notice that this is NOT a drawback on the iPod).

I have opened a few different doors and will be walking through each of these in due time. For now, I will leave you with these thoughts when it comes to picking the hardware to meet your needs:

Things to look for in a smartphone

The Operating System. See above and choose the one you like. Keep in mind that more mature systems (e.g. Windows Mobile, Symbian) have more 3rd party applications to choose from. The caveat is that both RIM and Apple now have appstores to make it easy for you to download what you want. And don’t forget about email integration. This will be the last time I mention it in this post, but the most powerful integration solution comes with Windows or BB BES. Everything is else is second place.

Keyboard. The most noticeable distinction between phones outside of the actual OS is the presence of a hard keyboard. How often to you plan on typing with your device? How stubby or slim are your fingers? I don’t actually have a strong preference one way or the other as I am just as quick to type on the Touch as I am the Jack, but my general recommendation is to go with a hard keyboard. In addition to providing tactile feedback, the keys make great shortcuts to different applications that can save you time with menu-intensive operating systems.

Physical Phone Size. How do you want to carry your phone? If you have a purse/murse, problem solved. If not, deciding whether or not to wear a holster can be a tough choice. The leather blackberry holsters can seem professional, and the more people that wear them the more natural it looks, but there are still some holdouts that find the “clipped to my belt/pant pocket/waistband” look ridiculously silly, especially in more casual attire. Here’s an example:

Holstered phone. Slick.

Horsepower. If you want to be productive, you need speed (cpu speed, not the drug which also eerily fits this sentence). Phone’s tend to lag when you try to do too much, which is one of the reasons why the iPhone doesn’t allow you to multitask aside from their music player. The CPU speed isn’t always indicative of how fast the device is; the make and model as well as the OS play a big part. Read some reviews, google some performance tests or actually try the thing first if you can.

Resale value. It may not be as important to you if you’re still carrying a Palm Treo 650 or if you’re with a CDMA (Sprint, Bell etc) carrier where the phones aren’t as easily interchangeable. But if you’re on GSM, you might be inclined to upgrade more often than your contract subsidizes for, which means grey market (craigslist anyone?).

What else do you look for in a phone?

Once we get into the tools, it will be easier to make a decision as what you get out of it should be driven by how you intend to use it to enhance your productivity.

PSp