I decided not to wear my wrist supports anymore. It seemed like they were making my hands hurt more. My hands aren't pain-free, but they're kind of "medium" at this point. I'm pretty comfortable using the ReportIt, but I still have a lot of pain in my arms when I write. I think the ReportIt is the way to go, though. It just makes sense that having your arms supported would be better.
I'm still waiting for the Gen O IE. Upgrading cost about half as much as the machine I just bought in May, so I hope it's better somehow. Originally, they hoped to ship them in November, but they haven't even hardened the mold on the pods yet, so who knows when they'll be out.
There was a discussion on depoman about whether you can start a sentence with a conjuction, like "and" or "but" in order to break up ridiculously long sentences. Someone said that we're taught all of these grammar rules that apply to good writing, but we're not writing - we're taking down what someone has said, and you can't always force that to conform to what would be proper writing style. I would occasionally let a sentence start with "and" or "but," but more often than not I would even go so far as to delete a period I had already stroked and add a comma and the conjunction, leading to some truly long sentences.
So, with ease of readability for the consumer in mind, I took that advice into consideration. Now when the speaker seems to have ended their sentence and the next word is a conjuction, I let the period stand. I think it does help with readability, and it even allows me to break things into paragraphs more often. It's good to have discussions about things. It seems like I work in a vacuum a lot of the time, but I can't improve my style if I don't know what other people are doing.
Showing posts with label Infinity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Infinity. Show all posts
Thumb Problems
I feel like I don't have much to report (that would be a pun if I were a court reporter), but I'll probably surprise myself. I'm still soldiering on with the Report-It; it might have caused more problems than it's solved, but for some reason I seem to like using it still. I don't think it hurts any less to write with it, though.
I've developed a weird problem where my right thumb hurts a lot when I stroke the U, like it's having to bend back too far. I had a similar problem with the left thumb, but somehow that fixed itself. Previously if I felt like that with the right thumb I'd just try to straighten the pod out so it was parallel to my body, but that's not working at all anymore. About the time it started, Jason (the owner of The Neutrino Group, which makes the Infinity) suggested I lower the depth of my keys since I mentioned I was having pain in general.
It was an interesting experiment, and after a couple of days, I didn't really mind the depth, but I thought it might be contributing to the thumb problem, so I ratcheted the keys up to an even shorter stroke than I had before. I feel like I have to press down on them too hard to get them to register, which is why I had it set a little deeper than I wanted initially. I had to adjust a ton of key sensitivities, but I'm leaving it where it is for now.
I hope to get the newest version of the IE in November (I got in on the pre-order, so it's just a matter of when it's made and shipped), and I got it with one step lighter springs than the one I have now (it will be 6 grams instead of 8), so hopefully that will decrease the resistance, and maybe I can do an even shorter stroke.
I've developed a weird problem where my right thumb hurts a lot when I stroke the U, like it's having to bend back too far. I had a similar problem with the left thumb, but somehow that fixed itself. Previously if I felt like that with the right thumb I'd just try to straighten the pod out so it was parallel to my body, but that's not working at all anymore. About the time it started, Jason (the owner of The Neutrino Group, which makes the Infinity) suggested I lower the depth of my keys since I mentioned I was having pain in general.
It was an interesting experiment, and after a couple of days, I didn't really mind the depth, but I thought it might be contributing to the thumb problem, so I ratcheted the keys up to an even shorter stroke than I had before. I feel like I have to press down on them too hard to get them to register, which is why I had it set a little deeper than I wanted initially. I had to adjust a ton of key sensitivities, but I'm leaving it where it is for now.
I hope to get the newest version of the IE in November (I got in on the pre-order, so it's just a matter of when it's made and shipped), and I got it with one step lighter springs than the one I have now (it will be 6 grams instead of 8), so hopefully that will decrease the resistance, and maybe I can do an even shorter stroke.
Goldilocks and the Three Keytoppers
I tried some different key tabs on the IE. First I tried it "naked." I liked it at first, being able to freely slide around, but it was a little hard on my fingers. Actually, the reason I put my old leather tabs on it (Stenovations sent them back to me when they took them off the LS to calibrate it, and put the silicone ones on it) was because Jason wasn't responding to me about getting my asterisk closer to my FR, so I thought, "Why don't I just put key tabs on it, and put the tabs on the asterisk closer to the FR?"
So that's what I did, and it worked! I only have a little bit of a problem with them not being close enough now. The number key above the asterisk is still way too far to the left, but key tabs aren't going to be able to solve that. The leather still wasn't soft enough for me, though, so I ordered velcro toppers. I thought those would be really soft. They were, but they kind of gave me "rug burn." I guess I slide my fingers around too much.
The Neutrino Group (the company that makes the IEs) sells "soft rubber" key toppers. I thought maybe they would be like squishy silicone, so I ordered them, but it turns out they're foam. They also sell thick and thin; for some reason I got the thick ones, and they add a crazy amount of height to the keys. I have a problem with not being able to lower the IE enough because it runs into my legs, so having it artificially raised didn't help at all. I also felt too much friction on the foam, so those were out.
I had two sets of the leather Depoman keys, and I felt like my old set wasn't as "grippy" as it could be, so I put the new ones on the left and the old ones on the right. It turns out the new ones aren't any more "grippy," or really any different from the old ones that had already been used for at least a year, so I just left it the way it is. No hope for a softer keyboard for me, I guess. I could take the silicone ones off the LS, but I don't think they'd be any better. They were getting really worn and slippery already, anyway.
So that's what I did, and it worked! I only have a little bit of a problem with them not being close enough now. The number key above the asterisk is still way too far to the left, but key tabs aren't going to be able to solve that. The leather still wasn't soft enough for me, though, so I ordered velcro toppers. I thought those would be really soft. They were, but they kind of gave me "rug burn." I guess I slide my fingers around too much.
The Neutrino Group (the company that makes the IEs) sells "soft rubber" key toppers. I thought maybe they would be like squishy silicone, so I ordered them, but it turns out they're foam. They also sell thick and thin; for some reason I got the thick ones, and they add a crazy amount of height to the keys. I have a problem with not being able to lower the IE enough because it runs into my legs, so having it artificially raised didn't help at all. I also felt too much friction on the foam, so those were out.
I had two sets of the leather Depoman keys, and I felt like my old set wasn't as "grippy" as it could be, so I put the new ones on the left and the old ones on the right. It turns out the new ones aren't any more "grippy," or really any different from the old ones that had already been used for at least a year, so I just left it the way it is. No hope for a softer keyboard for me, I guess. I could take the silicone ones off the LS, but I don't think they'd be any better. They were getting really worn and slippery already, anyway.
Ergonomic Specialist: Part 3
The specialist also
suggested that maybe I find a couple of positions for the machine that
don't hurt to much, instead of just one, and switch between them, maybe
one in the morning and the other at night, so my body doesn't have a
chance to start hurting in the same position. It's an interesting idea,
but I haven't really tried it yet. She said I could even switch between
the IE and the LS. The LS was so painful to write on, though, I don't
even want to try it again.
Supposedly Stenovations is coming out with a QWERTY keyboard that's touch like the LS. That will be really cool. I am interested in one of those to make regular typing less painful. They're coming out with a new more ergonomic/more sensitive LS, too. I'd love to get one, but I think the IE's going to be a better bet for me until they can put the LS on split pods like the IE is.
I certainly didn't get the answers I was hoping for out of the ergonomic specialist visit (and "maybe you just can't be a captioner" is the one I liked the least), but I did get inspired to try a few things. It's always good to get someone else's perspective.
I was really hoping I could tell her, "my hand feels kinked, I have to do this a lot" or, "look, I have to bend my hand weird here" and she would tell me what to do to fix it. Or I was hoping she would say, "try your machine lower, try tilting it this way," etc. But she recognized that I had pretty much already tried everything, and basically she just went with "if you tried it already and it isn't comfortable, don't do it."
She did say she wished she had some better answers for me. She said it looked like my posture was good already, with everything lined up just right. It's frustrating to hear that you're doing everything right and it still hurts, because then there's no solution.
Supposedly Stenovations is coming out with a QWERTY keyboard that's touch like the LS. That will be really cool. I am interested in one of those to make regular typing less painful. They're coming out with a new more ergonomic/more sensitive LS, too. I'd love to get one, but I think the IE's going to be a better bet for me until they can put the LS on split pods like the IE is.
I certainly didn't get the answers I was hoping for out of the ergonomic specialist visit (and "maybe you just can't be a captioner" is the one I liked the least), but I did get inspired to try a few things. It's always good to get someone else's perspective.
I was really hoping I could tell her, "my hand feels kinked, I have to do this a lot" or, "look, I have to bend my hand weird here" and she would tell me what to do to fix it. Or I was hoping she would say, "try your machine lower, try tilting it this way," etc. But she recognized that I had pretty much already tried everything, and basically she just went with "if you tried it already and it isn't comfortable, don't do it."
She did say she wished she had some better answers for me. She said it looked like my posture was good already, with everything lined up just right. It's frustrating to hear that you're doing everything right and it still hurts, because then there's no solution.
Ergonomic Specialist: Part 2
The specialist also suggested I could use voice recognition software to do my job and/or general computing. I'm definitely not open to switching to be a voice writer. I like writing on the machine. My throat always gets sore when I try to talk for extended periods of time, too. I think voice writers can only write for short periods of time because of that. I don't want to learn a whole new thing. Maybe someday if I get really desperate, but I'm not even thinking about it right now.
I don't know how much functionality it has for general computing. I don't like the idea of having to talk to it, like for right now even typing this. Talking and typing are totally different things. And in terms of voice recognition instead of mousing, I doubt that works very well.
It actually wasn't something the specialist said that made me want to try the Report-It again. I was hoping that she wouldn't just give me one of those sheets with the diagrams for proper ergonomic desk setup, but she did. Interestingly, though, it had a suggestion for resting your arms on the arms of the chair, and it said the arms shouldn't touch your elbows or your wrists. The person in the drawing looked really comfortable, and that's what inspired me to try the Report-It again. I'm not sure if it's helping or not.
Now that I've been doing it for about 6 weeks, it seems like it would be impossible to write without it, although I don't really think it's helped in any way. It feels super restrictive when I use it. If I write for even a short period of time without it, I feel so free, but at the same time, like it would very quickly become too painful to write that way. Maybe that's just because of where I have the machine positioned, though.
I think the IE in general has given me pain in my right arm, not so much the Report-It. I definitely feel a deeper, sharper pain in my left arm with the Report-It. It's really bad, but luckily I don't write for extended periods of time; usually an hour and a half at the most. It's hard to hold on for that long, though. It's all a work in progress, and I feel like if I just keep trying I'll eventually find something that doesn't hurt so much.
I don't know how much functionality it has for general computing. I don't like the idea of having to talk to it, like for right now even typing this. Talking and typing are totally different things. And in terms of voice recognition instead of mousing, I doubt that works very well.
It actually wasn't something the specialist said that made me want to try the Report-It again. I was hoping that she wouldn't just give me one of those sheets with the diagrams for proper ergonomic desk setup, but she did. Interestingly, though, it had a suggestion for resting your arms on the arms of the chair, and it said the arms shouldn't touch your elbows or your wrists. The person in the drawing looked really comfortable, and that's what inspired me to try the Report-It again. I'm not sure if it's helping or not.
Now that I've been doing it for about 6 weeks, it seems like it would be impossible to write without it, although I don't really think it's helped in any way. It feels super restrictive when I use it. If I write for even a short period of time without it, I feel so free, but at the same time, like it would very quickly become too painful to write that way. Maybe that's just because of where I have the machine positioned, though.
I think the IE in general has given me pain in my right arm, not so much the Report-It. I definitely feel a deeper, sharper pain in my left arm with the Report-It. It's really bad, but luckily I don't write for extended periods of time; usually an hour and a half at the most. It's hard to hold on for that long, though. It's all a work in progress, and I feel like if I just keep trying I'll eventually find something that doesn't hurt so much.
Ergonomic Specialist: Part 1
So I skipped a month, which is actually not as bad as I thought it was going to be. I have the typical reason - super slammed with work. I haven't made much progress on the pain front. The touchpad didn't help with my right hand pain/numbness at all, but I had an ergonomic specialist come check out my steup, and she suggested "mousing" (weird word, but it makes sense once you get used to it) with my left hand. I actually had both a wired and wireless mouse (and the touchpad) hooked up to my computer when she was here, and she said, "does that mouse work?", referring to the wired one.
So I put the wired one on the left, and kept using the wireless on the right. At first I thought I would need to switch the function of the buttons (right and left click), and I was really disappointed when I couldn't figure out how to set the functions for each mouse individually - if I changed one, it changed both - but now I'm pretty used to just using the buttons the way they are with my left hand. I use the left mouse at least half the time, and it really has helped with my right hand. Mostly it's nice not to have to push through the pain when I use the right mouse; if it's painful, I just switch.
Unfortunately, I have an exciting new problem with my right hand. I saw that a few people write with their machine pods vertical instead of horizontal. I had tried it out when I first got the IE and it didn't seem good at all, but since the ergo specialist was here I've been using the Report-It, so I thought maybe it would be different now. I gave it a good try for about an hour and a half. It was surprisingly not that hard to write that way, but it just wasn't going to be comfortable.
After that I had to put everything back in "normal" position (since the specialist was here I've been trying it with the pods separated all the way), and ever since then there's been something wrong with the right pod, at least for my hand. I can't reach the U without pain, and my right wrist hurts. I've had that problem with the A and the U before, where it kinks up my thumb for some reason, and then eventually after moving it around a bunch for other reasons, I get it in a spot that doesn't hurt my thumb.
My left hand is that way now - I have minimal pain with the A. But the right hand is awful. Previously I've been able to fix it by just trying to line the pod up "straight", like parallel to me, but it's not working this time. I've tried raising/lowering, titling up/down and left/right, physically moving the machine left/right, and nothing seems to fix it. I'm really at a loss. I guess I could try to "reset" everything and start from scratch, but since the left side isn't any worse than usual I'm hesitant to mess with it.
I also got a suggestion from the owner of the IE company, Jason Pardikes. He said maybe I should make my stroke deeper, to about 4-5mm. It was already at 3mm, which I felt like was pretty deep, but I gave it a shot. It's pretty crazy; like writing in quicksand. I'm sort of getting used to it, but I think I changed it while I was already having problems with the right hand, and I'm not sure if it's making it worse or not. I haven't resorted to putting it back to 3mm to see if that fixes it yet, but I probably should.
I ordered one of the new "Gen O" IEs, so we'll see how that goes, hopefully in November, although that's just an early estimate. Supposedly you don't have to use the software to calibrate it after you make physical changes on the machine anymore, so that will remove one barrier to experimenting with different depths.
So I put the wired one on the left, and kept using the wireless on the right. At first I thought I would need to switch the function of the buttons (right and left click), and I was really disappointed when I couldn't figure out how to set the functions for each mouse individually - if I changed one, it changed both - but now I'm pretty used to just using the buttons the way they are with my left hand. I use the left mouse at least half the time, and it really has helped with my right hand. Mostly it's nice not to have to push through the pain when I use the right mouse; if it's painful, I just switch.
Unfortunately, I have an exciting new problem with my right hand. I saw that a few people write with their machine pods vertical instead of horizontal. I had tried it out when I first got the IE and it didn't seem good at all, but since the ergo specialist was here I've been using the Report-It, so I thought maybe it would be different now. I gave it a good try for about an hour and a half. It was surprisingly not that hard to write that way, but it just wasn't going to be comfortable.
After that I had to put everything back in "normal" position (since the specialist was here I've been trying it with the pods separated all the way), and ever since then there's been something wrong with the right pod, at least for my hand. I can't reach the U without pain, and my right wrist hurts. I've had that problem with the A and the U before, where it kinks up my thumb for some reason, and then eventually after moving it around a bunch for other reasons, I get it in a spot that doesn't hurt my thumb.
My left hand is that way now - I have minimal pain with the A. But the right hand is awful. Previously I've been able to fix it by just trying to line the pod up "straight", like parallel to me, but it's not working this time. I've tried raising/lowering, titling up/down and left/right, physically moving the machine left/right, and nothing seems to fix it. I'm really at a loss. I guess I could try to "reset" everything and start from scratch, but since the left side isn't any worse than usual I'm hesitant to mess with it.
I also got a suggestion from the owner of the IE company, Jason Pardikes. He said maybe I should make my stroke deeper, to about 4-5mm. It was already at 3mm, which I felt like was pretty deep, but I gave it a shot. It's pretty crazy; like writing in quicksand. I'm sort of getting used to it, but I think I changed it while I was already having problems with the right hand, and I'm not sure if it's making it worse or not. I haven't resorted to putting it back to 3mm to see if that fixes it yet, but I probably should.
I ordered one of the new "Gen O" IEs, so we'll see how that goes, hopefully in November, although that's just an early estimate. Supposedly you don't have to use the software to calibrate it after you make physical changes on the machine anymore, so that will remove one barrier to experimenting with different depths.
New Ideas
A new month already, and I actually have time to update within the first week! I don't have any interesting updates on anything, so I'll just have to write about some things I never have time to get to.
Steve Kosmata started doing a cool thing where he posts a short video once a week about stuff you can do in Eclipse; that's what inspired me to take a look at my most frequently used three-stroke words, although I had seen the suggestion to do that before. Last week he brought up the old "conflicts for not having to write puncutation" idea, which I'd also seen kicked around, but I just didn't want to get into it.
In the video, he mentioned using it for words that typically have a comma when they start a sentence - therefore, so, oh, etc. I didn't want to get *too* into it, but those seemed like they might work, so I sat down for an hour and a half or so and played around with it. It turned out to be a bigger project than I was expecting. There are so many words like that, and they could come at the beginning, middle, or end of the sentence, so you might need a comma before, after, before and after, or no commas at all.
I experimented with it, and if it didn't seem like it was going to pick correctly 99% of the time, I didn't go all the way with it. A couple of them I was able to do all four choices for; some of them I could only do two; and some of them I wound up tossing out the idea altogether. There are a ton of words I didn't experiment with, so I'm going to tackle one of those a day. Now the hard part is going to be remembering what words I don't have to write commas for, and in what situations I don't have to write the commas. I really haven't picked up on that at all yet, but I only put things in a couple days ago.
I also changed the function keys on my IE to act like S, so hopefully that will cut down on untrans from accidentally hitting them when I mean to hit S. I wanted to use them for speaker IDs, but it's just a project I don't want to start right now. On the LS, I used to occasionally reach my pinky too far and hit plastic instead of a key, so maybe having the function keys in the space where that plastic will be, and functioning just like the S, will actually be helpful.
Steve Kosmata started doing a cool thing where he posts a short video once a week about stuff you can do in Eclipse; that's what inspired me to take a look at my most frequently used three-stroke words, although I had seen the suggestion to do that before. Last week he brought up the old "conflicts for not having to write puncutation" idea, which I'd also seen kicked around, but I just didn't want to get into it.
In the video, he mentioned using it for words that typically have a comma when they start a sentence - therefore, so, oh, etc. I didn't want to get *too* into it, but those seemed like they might work, so I sat down for an hour and a half or so and played around with it. It turned out to be a bigger project than I was expecting. There are so many words like that, and they could come at the beginning, middle, or end of the sentence, so you might need a comma before, after, before and after, or no commas at all.
I experimented with it, and if it didn't seem like it was going to pick correctly 99% of the time, I didn't go all the way with it. A couple of them I was able to do all four choices for; some of them I could only do two; and some of them I wound up tossing out the idea altogether. There are a ton of words I didn't experiment with, so I'm going to tackle one of those a day. Now the hard part is going to be remembering what words I don't have to write commas for, and in what situations I don't have to write the commas. I really haven't picked up on that at all yet, but I only put things in a couple days ago.
I also changed the function keys on my IE to act like S, so hopefully that will cut down on untrans from accidentally hitting them when I mean to hit S. I wanted to use them for speaker IDs, but it's just a project I don't want to start right now. On the LS, I used to occasionally reach my pinky too far and hit plastic instead of a key, so maybe having the function keys in the space where that plastic will be, and functioning just like the S, will actually be helpful.
Briefs and Things
I have a couple things I've been working on, like trying not to repeat consonants. I think my theory is set up to react better, for example, to GAOI/YA/NA than GAOI/YAN/NA. It could be defined either away, but I'm trying to train myself to do it the first way, and I think TM will make better choices that way, too. It's a real problem writing things 50 different ways. Even though they're legitimate outlines, they're not in my dictionary that way yet, and they're not translating.
I've been seeing lots of areas where I can make briefs in things that get repeated frequently. For weather, they say partly cloudy/skies, mostly sunny/skies, pop-up showers, patchy fog, seven-day forecast, and hour-by-hour forecast. I've got briefs now for NBA, NCAA, NFL, and NHL. Even things that aren't specific like "umbrella" and "preliminary" seem to come up a lot.
I also finally sorted my dictionary by strokes and frequency, and I'm trying to learn briefs now for organic, especially, and invitation. Organic is sticking, and I've used it 168 times in the past 10 days.
Mostly I'm just working on getting used to the IE. I still haven't gotten it into a comfortable position. I rarely ever feel like I can just write on it. It seems like I have to really slow down and be super focused about what I'm doing, or everything comes out wrong.
I'm still having problems with the whole "one word, two words, hyphenated" thing, but that's probably something everyone has problems with. I think I'm getting better, though. When in doubt I used to just put an asterisk in the second word and hope it would work out, but I haven't been doing that as much lately. Now my go-to is just to write it as two words, and then when I edit the transcript later I figure out what it should've been and add it to my list of words to practice if it wasn't supposed to be two words. 8 out of 20 words on my list right now are from that category. The worst are the ones I can't use an asterisk to join, like shorthair.
Since the asterisk is farther away (or at least it feels that way) on the IE, I changed "we're" to WAOER. I think I've almost fully learned to do it that way instead of WAO*ER, but I keep trying to do YOUR and YAOUF and WAOEF without asterisks now, too. I guess I could change them all, but I'd really rather have WAOER be the exception.
I haven't had any luck at all learning SKP-P yet. I think I need a different method than just writing it five times a day, because that's not working at all.
I've been seeing lots of areas where I can make briefs in things that get repeated frequently. For weather, they say partly cloudy/skies, mostly sunny/skies, pop-up showers, patchy fog, seven-day forecast, and hour-by-hour forecast. I've got briefs now for NBA, NCAA, NFL, and NHL. Even things that aren't specific like "umbrella" and "preliminary" seem to come up a lot.
I also finally sorted my dictionary by strokes and frequency, and I'm trying to learn briefs now for organic, especially, and invitation. Organic is sticking, and I've used it 168 times in the past 10 days.
Mostly I'm just working on getting used to the IE. I still haven't gotten it into a comfortable position. I rarely ever feel like I can just write on it. It seems like I have to really slow down and be super focused about what I'm doing, or everything comes out wrong.
I'm still having problems with the whole "one word, two words, hyphenated" thing, but that's probably something everyone has problems with. I think I'm getting better, though. When in doubt I used to just put an asterisk in the second word and hope it would work out, but I haven't been doing that as much lately. Now my go-to is just to write it as two words, and then when I edit the transcript later I figure out what it should've been and add it to my list of words to practice if it wasn't supposed to be two words. 8 out of 20 words on my list right now are from that category. The worst are the ones I can't use an asterisk to join, like shorthair.
Since the asterisk is farther away (or at least it feels that way) on the IE, I changed "we're" to WAOER. I think I've almost fully learned to do it that way instead of WAO*ER, but I keep trying to do YOUR and YAOUF and WAOEF without asterisks now, too. I guess I could change them all, but I'd really rather have WAOER be the exception.
I haven't had any luck at all learning SKP-P yet. I think I need a different method than just writing it five times a day, because that's not working at all.
Infinity Ergo Adjustment
I've had my Infinity Ergo for about a month now. It wasn't quite as magical as I was expecting. I had a *lot* of pain in both of my arms before I got it to a good height/position in general. Trying to move the pods apart right away seemed like a good idea, but it wasn't. I wound up needing to have them closer together, and move them gradually. I found out that you can't make a bunch of big changes all at once. You have to start more where you're used to, and change things slowly over time.
I have the pods about 4" apart now. I picked up a couple of wrist braces to see if they would help. I can't write with the left one at all; it makes the pain in my left arm much worse. I don't know if wearing the right one helps or not, but I can write with it, so that's what I've been doing. It makes it feel like it's hard to "reach" keys with my pinky, though, so I have the right pod of the IE titled so the right side is up higher than the left.
I didn't have to do as much adjusting of the "sensors" as I thought I would. I had some intial problems with the software and calibrating things, and as a result of that, I think I wound up setting it to be more sensitive than I should have. I dialed back a few of the keys, but I'm probably still getting dragged keys that I could avoid if I just turned all the keys up higher. Some of them do need to be low though, I think, so I'm leaving it as-is for now.
It was pretty easy to adjust to pressing keys again, but it still feels like it's taking a lot of effort. I can make the stroke shallower than it is now, but I have it set for the least amount of tension, and I felt like when I made it more shallow, it required more tension. So there is a small bit of depth to the stroke.
I wasn't really able to hit -DZ at all on the LS for some reason, and it's much easier on the IE. Some other keys are easier, too, like -PBLG. I'm getting a lot of weird problems with it still, though. And I don't ever feel like I can just write freely; I still have to very closely monitor what I'm doing at all times.
I did mange to do a lot of really weird things with the pod that made my hands hurt a lot. I think they're back to normal now, but it's still uncomfortable to write in general. I think I had better endurance on the LS. It's tough to tell, because I'm doing more captioning now, where I write for 10 minutes, stop, write for 2, stop, as opposed to being stuck in a class for two hours straight.
The asterisk seems really far away and hard to hit. I emailed the owner and asked him if there's anything I or he could do to bring it a little closer, because the T/D and S/Z are super close together, but he never answered me. I had that problem before I bought the IE, too. I sent two or three emails that never got answered before I wound up just calling to order it. I'll try again after the weekend.
It seems like I have to have a really wide stance with the IE, or else my legs get in the way of the machine and I can't bring it close enough. The software isn't quite as useful as the LS'. With the LS, you can import a file you've written into the software, and it will show you exactly how hard you pressed the key, if at all, which is really helpful with adjusting the sensors. With the IE, all you can do is press the key and see the gauge in realtime, but you can't look at something you've already written that didn't come out right and see exactly what went wrong.
My back pain still seems to be getting worse, although it doesn't bother me much when I sleep. I've been experimenting with different pieces of foam and towels strapped to the back of my chair, but they don't seem to be helping.
My right hand really doesn't like using the mouse. I don't think it's steno-related, but it goes numb and stays painful for hours afterward. I'm going to try a touchpad this weekend.
I have the pods about 4" apart now. I picked up a couple of wrist braces to see if they would help. I can't write with the left one at all; it makes the pain in my left arm much worse. I don't know if wearing the right one helps or not, but I can write with it, so that's what I've been doing. It makes it feel like it's hard to "reach" keys with my pinky, though, so I have the right pod of the IE titled so the right side is up higher than the left.
I didn't have to do as much adjusting of the "sensors" as I thought I would. I had some intial problems with the software and calibrating things, and as a result of that, I think I wound up setting it to be more sensitive than I should have. I dialed back a few of the keys, but I'm probably still getting dragged keys that I could avoid if I just turned all the keys up higher. Some of them do need to be low though, I think, so I'm leaving it as-is for now.
It was pretty easy to adjust to pressing keys again, but it still feels like it's taking a lot of effort. I can make the stroke shallower than it is now, but I have it set for the least amount of tension, and I felt like when I made it more shallow, it required more tension. So there is a small bit of depth to the stroke.
I wasn't really able to hit -DZ at all on the LS for some reason, and it's much easier on the IE. Some other keys are easier, too, like -PBLG. I'm getting a lot of weird problems with it still, though. And I don't ever feel like I can just write freely; I still have to very closely monitor what I'm doing at all times.
I did mange to do a lot of really weird things with the pod that made my hands hurt a lot. I think they're back to normal now, but it's still uncomfortable to write in general. I think I had better endurance on the LS. It's tough to tell, because I'm doing more captioning now, where I write for 10 minutes, stop, write for 2, stop, as opposed to being stuck in a class for two hours straight.
The asterisk seems really far away and hard to hit. I emailed the owner and asked him if there's anything I or he could do to bring it a little closer, because the T/D and S/Z are super close together, but he never answered me. I had that problem before I bought the IE, too. I sent two or three emails that never got answered before I wound up just calling to order it. I'll try again after the weekend.
It seems like I have to have a really wide stance with the IE, or else my legs get in the way of the machine and I can't bring it close enough. The software isn't quite as useful as the LS'. With the LS, you can import a file you've written into the software, and it will show you exactly how hard you pressed the key, if at all, which is really helpful with adjusting the sensors. With the IE, all you can do is press the key and see the gauge in realtime, but you can't look at something you've already written that didn't come out right and see exactly what went wrong.
My back pain still seems to be getting worse, although it doesn't bother me much when I sleep. I've been experimenting with different pieces of foam and towels strapped to the back of my chair, but they don't seem to be helping.
My right hand really doesn't like using the mouse. I don't think it's steno-related, but it goes numb and stays painful for hours afterward. I'm going to try a touchpad this weekend.
Infinity Ergo Time
I'm trying to commit to updating the blog at least once a month. It's only been a month and four days since my last update, so I'd say that's pretty good.
I decided it was time to buy the Infinity Ergo. I think it'll help with the pain in my hands if nothing else. I started by finding someone in my area who was willing to let me try hers out. I got to go to her house and write on it for as long as I wanted to, which was about 45 minutes. It was really nice being able to position the pods any way I wanted to. You can tilt them right to left, forward and back, and move them farther away from each other. I was surprised that it actually wasn't comfortable to move them apart, but I think being able to tilt them will help a lot.
So I ordered one, and the owner of the company, Jason, said that it would take about three weeks to get here. That was almost a month ago to the day. I emailed him on Monday to see what was up, and he said it was going to ship this week. He thought it would be shipping today. I didn't hear anything about that happening, so I'm guessing it didn't. I'll have to check back again next Monday.
The numbness in my right hand is really painful and annoying. I think it's probably more related to the mouse than anything else. It hurts to type on a keyboard, though, so I'm writing this on my steno machine. I've come a long way in my writing since the last time I tried to do this. It used to be frustrating to try to write anything, but it's pretty fluid now.
I decided to hold off on the nerve numbing thing for now. Nobody from that office ever called me to let me know it was approved by insurance, anyway. I want to see if the pain will go away once I get the IE.
I'm still experiencing pretty terrible back pain. I took the mattress topper off my bed. The pain started right when I put it on. It's really soft and nice, but I couldn't ignore the correlation. I've had it off for over three weeks now, and my back pain hasn't really improved. I tried tilting the seat pan of my chair forward a little, and then I also unlocked it so I could rock back in it, and then when I went to go back to normal from a tilted-back position, it got stuck.
So now the seat pan is stuck tilted back even farther than I had it originally. It's been kind of a mess. I think the pain has leveled off again, though; it doesn't seem to be getting any worse at this point. Maybe it'll turn around and start getting better.
It's pretty uncomfortable trying to sleep. I can't stand for any period of time without it hurting. But at least it's not too bad when I'm sitting, for now.
I decided it was time to buy the Infinity Ergo. I think it'll help with the pain in my hands if nothing else. I started by finding someone in my area who was willing to let me try hers out. I got to go to her house and write on it for as long as I wanted to, which was about 45 minutes. It was really nice being able to position the pods any way I wanted to. You can tilt them right to left, forward and back, and move them farther away from each other. I was surprised that it actually wasn't comfortable to move them apart, but I think being able to tilt them will help a lot.
So I ordered one, and the owner of the company, Jason, said that it would take about three weeks to get here. That was almost a month ago to the day. I emailed him on Monday to see what was up, and he said it was going to ship this week. He thought it would be shipping today. I didn't hear anything about that happening, so I'm guessing it didn't. I'll have to check back again next Monday.
The numbness in my right hand is really painful and annoying. I think it's probably more related to the mouse than anything else. It hurts to type on a keyboard, though, so I'm writing this on my steno machine. I've come a long way in my writing since the last time I tried to do this. It used to be frustrating to try to write anything, but it's pretty fluid now.
I decided to hold off on the nerve numbing thing for now. Nobody from that office ever called me to let me know it was approved by insurance, anyway. I want to see if the pain will go away once I get the IE.
I'm still experiencing pretty terrible back pain. I took the mattress topper off my bed. The pain started right when I put it on. It's really soft and nice, but I couldn't ignore the correlation. I've had it off for over three weeks now, and my back pain hasn't really improved. I tried tilting the seat pan of my chair forward a little, and then I also unlocked it so I could rock back in it, and then when I went to go back to normal from a tilted-back position, it got stuck.
So now the seat pan is stuck tilted back even farther than I had it originally. It's been kind of a mess. I think the pain has leveled off again, though; it doesn't seem to be getting any worse at this point. Maybe it'll turn around and start getting better.
It's pretty uncomfortable trying to sleep. I can't stand for any period of time without it hurting. But at least it's not too bad when I'm sitting, for now.
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