Joining late to this thread:

I switched to Apple Trackpads all around, and I'm very happy with the switch. At work, I cobbled together a mouse pad using a folded t-shirt. This required monkeying around with various settings to allow for double-tap-drag to be a substitute for click-hold-drag, and the logic that distinguishes that double-tap from a standard double-click is sometimes a bit dodgy.

That said, the most important thing in mouse usage isn't to switch your mouse to the other hand but rather to aggressively use all the keyboard shortcuts at your disposal, e.g., scrolling with page-up and page-down. Also, never-ever-ever do menus by click-hold-drag. Instead, you can do click-release-drag. Click-dragging turns out to be all kinds of bad for carpal tunnel issues because, when you've got pressure on your fingers, you get less blood flow, which leads to the very problems you wish to avoid.

Also important is to have your mouse/trackpad/whatever as close to where your right hand normally sits as possible. This is a great reason to get a keyboard without a numeric keypad, or to mouse with your left hand. That said, if your mouse is in some awful position and you over-use it, you'll just injure the other hand as much as you did your primary hand. That's no fun for anybody.


Ideally, you want to be sitting with your upper legs parallel to the floor and your feet straight on the floor. Your back vertical. Your arms hanging straight down with elbows at your side, and your forearms again parallel to the floor. That's where your keyboard belongs. If your desk is too low, then a simple plank of wood will do the job. If your desk is too high, then there are a variety of keyboards trays that can be screwed below your desk. There are some very cheap ($30) fixed height keyboard trays that you can buy, as well as much pricier adjustable ones. I tend to favor the ones that are hung by the sides, so they don't bounce around as much as the ones that articulate from the middle. Also, I favor ones that are flat on top (no built-in wrist rests). If you're at the proper height, with your elbows at your side, then you don't need anything in particular to rest your wrists upon.

Lastly, for what it's worth, I've been a happy Kinesis user/customer for roughly 20 years (eeek!). I like their contoured line. There are some obscure firmware bugs that they haven't bothered hiring somebody to fix (sometimes, key-up events don't happen -- this is rare, but you get in the habit, when things are wonky, of pressing all the shift-control-etc. modifier keys).