# Have you ever considered of mousing ambidextrously?

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/have-you-ever-considered-of-mousing-ambidextrously/55379>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [March 20, 2006, 4:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/have-you-ever-considered-of-mousing-ambidextrously/55379 "2006-03-20T16:58:59Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![WangQiang](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/c57346/32.png) [@WangQiang](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/WangQiang)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 4:58pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/have-you-ever-considered-of-mousing-ambidextrously/55379/1 "2006-03-20T16:58:59Z")

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I’m also a programmer, as working in front of computer day and day, my  
right hand is so tired and get some pain. So I tried to mouse in both  
hands. I find that it is really an efficient way to release pains. At  
first I switched the mouse buttons in windows control panel, but it  
taken me several steps to finish it, and I can’t flip the cursor, so I  
made a utility. With it I can switch mouse buttons and flip the cursor  
immediately by pressing a hotkey. I gave it a name: “Ambidexter Mouse”,  
do you want to have a try: [www.ambidexter-mouse.com](http://www.ambidexter-mouse.com)

(Some people asked me, "Why does it take an executable of 1.3 MByte  
to draw two buttons and make one system call? I will say, I used the  
SoftwarePassport [www.siliconrealms.com](http://www.siliconrealms.com) to add a shell for my product)

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**Author:** ![WangQiang](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/c57346/32.png) [@WangQiang](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/WangQiang)\
**Post date:** [March 20, 2006, 7:23pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/have-you-ever-considered-of-mousing-ambidextrously/55379/2 "2006-03-20T19:23:38Z")

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WangQiang wrote:

> right hand is so tired and get some pain. So I tried to mouse in both  
> hands. I find that it is really an efficient way to release pains. At

I switched to mousing with the left hand a few years ago. I forget the  
original reason why, but here are some current reasons:

Assuming your hands are in the home position, the “center” of your  
posture is right between your hands: Between the G and H keys in a  
QWERTY layout. Consider the distance from the center line to the arrow  
keys and ins/del/home keys. Then consider the even further distance  
over to the number pad. Then consider the absolutely astronomical  
distance to your right handed mouse. Lastly, consider the “tools in  
your toolbelt, not in a toolbox, in a closet, upstairs” distance of a  
left-handed mouse.

Unfortunately, keychords like the standard clipboard operations (^C, ^X,  
^V) and alt-tabbing discriminate against left-handed mousers.  
Fortunately, we have chords like Shift-Del and Ctrl-Insert. Dvorak  
users benefit from a right-handed ^C and ^V, too.

I was able to successfully stumble around on the first day of the  
switch, and after about three or four days, I was able to use my left  
hand for mousing just as well as my right.

I’ve never looked back. I see no significant benefit to mousing with  
the right hand, if you are sufficiently capable with your left.

Related: If you suffer from hand or wrist pains due to computer usage,  
consider getting a good wrist rest (for both keyboard and mouse), and  
the Dvorak layout.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![WangQiang](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/c57346/32.png) [@WangQiang](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/WangQiang)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2006, 4:03am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/have-you-ever-considered-of-mousing-ambidextrously/55379/3 "2006-03-21T04:03:53Z")

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