It all started last year when I experienced sharp pains in my hands and wrists. As a Domino developer, I've been coding and clicking pretty much nonstop for almost four years now. Add to that writing almost 30 articles for DominoPower, over 50 tips, and a slew of papers for my MBA classes (not to mention pleasure-clicking), and it all adds up to a lot of stress on my hands, wrists, and forearms. I've seen a couple of people fall victim to moderate-to-severe carpal tunnel syndrome, so I vowed to do everything I could to make sure I didn't fall victim to it as well.

My concern for my physical well being got me to thinking about my career and my future with Domino. There were three questions that kept coming up in my mind, and I'd like to talk about what they were and how I went about answering them. Here are the questions:

• How can I reduce the amount of stress I put on my hands and wrists as a Domino developer?

• What would I do if I could no longer program with Domino?

• What technologies and innovations will change the way that I work with Notes and Domino?

Allow me to address these questions one at a time.

Reducing stress on the hands and wrists
One way I reduce stress on my hands and wrists while doing my job, as I mentioned earlier, is to use IBM ViaVoice (at http://www.ibm.com/ViaVoice) to dictate documents into Microsoft Word. The product has surpassed my expectations as to what I thought possible, and I'm actually able to dictate faster than I type, which is surprising considering I type at least 60 words a minute. It took just one evening to train ViaVoice to the point where it would be a productive tool for me. Each time I use it, I think how it means I'm suffering that much less stress on my hands and wrists.

The only downside to using ViaVoice is that it's best to use it when you're alone. You don't want to let your co-workers see you talk to yourself (more than you already do) or overhear the contents of every document that you dictate. If I just had a soundproof cubicle or an office, I would use it a lot more often.

In terms of development, there are two products that I use every day that help reduce the amount of typing and clicking that I do. When I was but a young Domino developer, I insisted on doing everything by hand, which was one of the ways I was able to learn Domino so thoroughly. When I saw code examples, I wouldn't just copy and paste them. Instead, I would re-type and revise them, trying to figure out exactly how they worked. Today, however, I know how it all works, so I use TeamStudio Configurator (at http://www.teamstudio.com/ivesv2/tsv2.nsf/0/71528230CF5C7439852569930070B659) and TeamStudio Librarian (at http://www.teamstudio.com/ivesv2/tsv2.nsf/0/430E46F5D6372478852569930070E388) to automate a lot of my repetitive tasks.