By now almost everybody with internet access must have heard of standing desks - taller-than-usual desks that you work at while standing up. They have been hailed as a route to better health and posture, and plenty of people claim higher productivity since switching to a standing setup.

The only way they could make it sound better is if every standing desk came with an infinite supply of sandwiches and beer.

It's not a new fad either - Ernest Hemingway, Benjamin Disraeli, Winston Churchill, Charles Dickens and Virginia Woolf all worked standing up.

Other more recent converts include Mitch Wagner, Gina Trapani, Dan Benjamin and Buck Woody, who all have their own stories of their transition and their own advice to offer.

So What's it Like?

My first standing desk was a precarious arrangement - a coffee table perched on my regular old desk. It was an interesting experiment, and a good cheap way to find out what all the fuss was about.

The first few days were hard going. I wasn't used to standing up for long periods, and my legs got tired fast. The first day I managed an hour. The second, two hours. Within a week I could do a day, with a break for lunch.

After a few weeks, I had developed some new habits. I was much more alert while working long periods, no longer suffering from tiredness after six or seven hours of work. I found myself wandering away from the screen to think about problems I was working on. I'd even started splitting my work into sections better - a couple of email sprints a day, for which I sometimes took the laptop somewhere more interesting. Even, occasionally, outside.

I discovered the urge while working to hop from foot to foot every dozen minutes or so. I quickly added a box under the desk to act as a footrest. I also bought a (unfortunately rather crappy) bar stool for the rare times when I wanted to switch to sitting. I didn't use it.

(I also started dancing while working. Only when nobody can see me, of course.)

Unfortunately, while the standing-coffee-perch-desk was good, it had its fair share of problems. It was a little too high, for one thing. Only by a couple of inches, but that was enough for my arms to rub on the edge of the desk, which became uncomfortable. It wasn't quite safe enough to be a long term solution either. So I decided I needed a replacement.

What Next?

There are plenty of off-the-shelf options. Dedicated standing desks, DJ tables, and even the self-assembly option with parts from Ikea or similar companies. There's a great roundup of the best standing desks currently available over at The Wire Cutter. All very tempting!

In the end, though, there's nothing quite like the feeling of satisfaction you get from designing and building something yourself. It's a lot like web development, except there are fewer bugs and you can feel the end product.

As a quick aside, a recent thread on reddit's woodworking community seems to indicate that perhaps an enthusiasm for woodwork is fairly common among developers. Is that true?

The Solution: Make My Own

I knew the rough shape I wanted. I hadn't built anything in years, so I wanted to keep it simple. I also wanted to keep the cost down. So, off to the local wood recycling place I went, and picked up plenty of 2x4 and 1.5x3.5 lengths of used pine. I also splashed out on a couple of decent, non-recycled pieces of pine for the top and shelf.

Three weeks later (a few hours a weekend), it was all ready to use. It wasn't all smooth sailing, but it was a lot of fun.

My Standing Desk

There are many like it, but this one is mine. Complete with my vertical mouse, another ergonomic improvement I can't recommend highly enough. My cork board may need some adjustment ...

The final desk has a couple of minor problems so far. First, it's creaky (varnish on varnish doesn't sound nice). It also suffers slightly from racking, though not enough at the moment that I'm losing sleep over it. A couple of strong wires crossed at the back should keep it together at least long enough for me to decide I want to build a better one!

Other than that, so far it's been great. A pleasure to work at, even after a day sitting and working at the office. So far, I've been more productive (though that might just be new toy syndrome), and I find it much more comfortable than my old sitting/slouching/napping setup. Now all that remains is to sort out that infinite supply of sandwiches and beer!

So what does StrokeIt do? I hear you ask. Well, StrokeIt enables you to use your mouse more intelligently and effectively. Essentially, StrokeIt allows you to perform common functions with a gesture of the mouse.

For example, when browsing the web, the average person spends a lot of time going back and forwards. You can click a back button, or press backspace on your keyboard, but using mouse gestures allows you to go back or forward simply by making a left or right gesture with the mouse.

In order to actually perform a gesture, you start by holding down the right button of the mouse. Then, you make your gesture (eg moving the mouse in a straight line to the left to go back). Then release the button and the gesture will be performed. Simple as that.

Opera, the internet browser, was the inspiration for Mouse Gestures, and other browsers now include these by default. StrokeIt, though, allows you to use gestures in each and every application on your Windows PC.

When you first install the program, you will find that it takes a little while to get used to. Check out the options as well, to turn off the coloured lines that gestures produce (you can literally make them and the whole program run invisibly in the background if you wish).

Once you are familiar with the concept of gestures, you can start to configure them for individual applications. While the most common gestures in file managers and web browsers are back, forward and up, other programs like graphics packages or word processors have different requirements and will use different gestures.

I've been using mouse gestures for a year or two now, and they are without a doubt the biggest advance in user computer interaction since the invention of the mouse. They will change how you use your PC and the internet. Go and give them a try!

"Why", you may well ask, "would keyboards be designed to make typing slower?". A good question. Back when Christopher Sholes created the Qwerty layout for his new typewriter in the 1800s, it solved a problem. Economics has kept it in place ever since.

The main problem Sholes faced was that of bars colliding during typing. If two keys near each other were pressed quickly in succession, the bars they controlled sometimes collided or jammed. In order to avoid this problem, Sholes re-arranged his keyboard so that common combinations of letters were hard to type, thus making the keyboard slower and reducing the chance of jamming.

The other reason for the placement of some of the Qwerty keys in certain places was to boost typewriter sales. In order for salesmen to be able to sell typewriters, it was important that they not be seen 'hunting and pecking' during demonstrations. R was moved for this reason, and replaced the period on the left of the T.

That is why, if you look once again at your keyboard, you will see that commonly typed pairs of letters are well spaced out, and that the word "typewriter" can be typed using just the letters on the top row.

Once the Qwerty layout was in place, it was simple economics that kept it there. Typists were trained to use it, which meant that makers of newer typewriters had to use the same layout, otherwise potential customers would need to re-train staff. The same has applied ever since - people make Qwerty keyboards because that is what people are trained to use, not because it is the best layout.

The Qwerty layout

The Dvorak layout

Dvorak is an alternative to Qwerty. It is a keyboard layout designed to minimise movement, and make typing as easy and painless as possible. The idea behind it is to have the most commonly typed keys under the fingers, and make it as easy as possible to type common words and combinations of letters. To give an impressions of just how big a difference this makes, consider that the average Dvorak typist's fingers will travel about one mile in a day of typing. A Qwerty typist's will travel anything from 16 to 20 miles. Try to consider, for a moment, the effect that must have on your fingers.

Dvorak is easy to pick up, taking about half as long as Qwerty. That is little comfort to those who are already familiar with Qwerty, as it means starting over. However, the benefits certainly make it worth spending a couple of weeks learning to type all over again. For many of us, that is actually a benefit, since many computer users never learned to type properly in the first place.

Changing your PC over to Dvorak is actually quite easy. In your Control Panel, in the Keyboard settings, you will see a tab for "Input Locales". If you want to use Dvorak, simply select a Dvorak layout from the drop down on this screen (please note - you may have to re-start running applications for the change to take effect within them).

Changing the keys themselves is actually the trickiest bit of the process. You have a few options though. Before you try and change your keys though, I recommend you learn to use the keyboard. If you wait before changing your keys over, you will avoid hunting and pecking, and your typing will be all the better for it. If you do want to change them, you can use stickers (probably the quickest technique), and some keyboards make it very easy to move keys around. There are also suppliers who offer specific Dvorak keyboards, though these are rare.

Take another look at your keyboard. Are you really happy using something that intentionally slows you down? Something that makes you move your hands and wrists far more than is necessary? Would you not rather use something that was designed to make your life easier?

Update, 4th April 2007: Josue Salazar changed his Macbook to Dvorak - in part, he says, because of this article. Check out the photoset: Dvorak Black Macbook Photo Set.