Optical track ball finally arrived

[Robert Moskowitz]

Thanks to all.

The kensington Expert Track ball arrived today.  Crazy Michigan 
no-fault...  It had to be ordered via a doctors order for workstation 
modification and then through an approved medical supply house that 
could only order it directly from Kensington...

But it is here and I CAN work with it left-handed.  This keeps my right 
hand on the keyboard with less stress not having to reach for a 
right-hand mouse (I just could not control a regular mouse left-handed).

This is going to make a difference in my work and my recovery.

BTW, I am taking my first steps without a cane and am 'graduating' to 
out-patient PT for the walking.  But the dislocated shoulder has another 
3 weeks to go...

Take care

[Rick Stevens]

On 11/29/18 12:48 PM, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
>  Thanks to all.
>  
>  The kensington Expert Track ball arrived today.  Crazy Michigan
>  no-fault...  It had to be ordered via a doctors order for workstation
>  modification and then through an approved medical supply house that
>  could only order it directly from Kensington...
>  
>  But it is here and I CAN work with it left-handed.  This keeps my right
>  hand on the keyboard with less stress not having to reach for a
>  right-hand mouse (I just could not control a regular mouse left-handed).
>  
>  This is going to make a difference in my work and my recovery.
>  
Glad to hear it, Robert!

>  BTW, I am taking my first steps without a cane and am
> 'graduating' to
>  out-patient PT for the walking.  But the dislocated shoulder has another
>  3 weeks to go...
>  
That's really good news! Having gone through PT several times in my
life, I know it's a pain (both literally and euphemistically) and a
real drudge, but it's necessary and hopefully all will work out.

Keep at the work and keep us posted, buddy!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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----------------------------------------------------------------------

[George N. White III]

On Thu, 29 Nov 2018 at 16:49, Robert Moskowitz <rgm(a)htt-consult.com&gt; wrote:

>  Thanks to all.
>
>  The kensington Expert Track ball arrived today.  Crazy Michigan
>  no-fault...  It had to be ordered via a doctors order for workstation
>  modification and then through an approved medical supply house that
>  could only order it directly from Kensington...
>
>  But it is here and I CAN work with it left-handed.  This keeps my right
>  hand on the keyboard with less stress not havi\ng to reach for a
>  right-hand mouse (I just could not control a regular mouse left-handed).
>  
I'm very "right-handed", but trained myself to use a regular mouse
left-handed
so I could use my right hand to take notes and manipulate documentation.
This
was back in days of X-terminals, so print documents (X11, IDL, Matlab, etc)
ran to 1000's of pages bound in multiple thick "books".

I tried setting a "left-hand" mode, but because terminals were shared among
several users, it was better to train myself to use a right-hand configured
mouse
so other users could just move the mouse to the right side.

Then I broke my left shoulder and had several months with a sling and 9
months
of PT.   As soon as the sling came off I went back to left-hand mousing
because
it helped keep the shoulder moving.   For the first couple years I had to
be diligent
about exercising the shoulder to avoid losing range of motion.   30 years
later
it works as well or better than the one I didn't break.


>  This is going to make a difference in my work and my recovery.
>  
I have helped a number of colleagues work around various injuries.  We
accumulated an  assortment of pointing devices (keyboards with laptop style
touchpads, Wacom Bamboo touchpads, trackballs, etc.) for people to test
drive, but there were problems finding good device drivers for older
devices
on the 3 OS's we used most recently (Windows, linux, macOS).    It would
be nice to have some charitable organization maintain a collection of
current
pointing devices so they could lend then out to people recovering from
injuries
and to help people with long-term issues figure out what works for them.
 The difficulty
most people face in finding suitable devices only slows recovery.


>  BTW, I am taking my first steps without a cane and am
> 'graduating' to
>  out-patient PT for the walking.  But the dislocated shoulder has another
>  3 weeks to go.. 

Hope your recovery continues to progress well.

My broken shoulder had a metal bracket with screws and wires for about 6
months while the bone healed, with PT for a total of 9 months.  The PT was
painful, but I was advised to recover from PT with light exercise (a brisk
20-30 min
 walk) to keep blood circulating and ending at a good coffee shop.   This
was
effective in reducing pain and maintaining gains from PT. In addition to 1
on 1
PT there was a shoulder clinic with group sessions in a heated pool that
was
time well spent (I live in Canada, so all this only cost me the price of
the coffees).


>  Take care
>  
-- 
George N. White III

[Tim]

Allegedly, on or about 30 November 2018, George N. White III sent:
>  I tried setting a "left-hand" mode, but because terminals
> were shared
>  among several users, it was better to train myself to use a right-
>  hand configured mouse so other users could just move the mouse to the
>  right side. 
User-logins should allow individual preferences.

But has anybody seen a mouse with a left-hand/right-hand hardware
switch on it, anymore?  There are times where I've switched hands so I
can still mouse while adjusting other things with my right hand.  You
wouldn't want to tweak configuration for that, but a quick button flick
on the mouse, to swap sides, would be ideal.

-- 
[tim@localhost ~]$ uname -rsvp
Linux 4.16.11-100.fc26.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue May 22 20:02:12 UTC 2018 x86_64

Boilerplate:  All mail to my mailbox is automatically deleted.
There is no point trying to privately email me, I only get to see
the messages posted to the mailing list.

Programmers who can't take criticisms shouldn't release software that invites
it.