In 2005, programmer Henrik Warne developed RSI—repetitive stress injury. Over the course of six months, the condition progressed so severely that he considered a career change. Fortunately, through a combination of actions, he managed to get rid of the pain and fully recover.

Early in 2005 the muscles in my forearms started to hurt. In the beginning it was only a slight irritation, but over the course of six months it gradually got worse, until it was so bad I actually thought I would have to switch careers and stop programming altogether. I realized fairly quickly that I had RSI—Repetitive Stress Injury.

After about a month of pain I went to see a doctor. He thought my joints were inflamed, and gave me anti-inflammatory pills (which did not help). A little later I went to see a specialist, and after some tests he concluded that there was nothing wrong with the nerves in my arm. However, he could not answer how I could get rid of the pain.

I also went to a number of physical therapists, and tried many different exercises (e.g. weight training), as well as acupunture and heat treatment. Nothing helped. It was also pretty clear to me that my problem was something they had not previously encountered.

So I started doing my own research on the web, and tried different things. I read the book “It’s Not Carpal Tunnel Syndrome! RSI Theory & Therapy for computer Professionals” by Jack Bellis and Suparna Damany, which I thought was pretty good.

I also experimented with many different kinds of mice and keyboards. I found that theGoldtouch split keyboard and a gel-filled wrist rest works well for me. The split (and angled) keyboard allows my hands to stay at a more natural angle when typing. The mouse I use is anUllman Penclic Mouse. You hold it like a pen and move it like you move a normal mouse. Since I hold it like I hold a normal pen, I don’t have to turn my hand like I have to when gripping a regular mouse, and this helps a lot.

I also did 10 sessions of rolfing (yes, that’s rolfing, not golfing), which I feel also helped in relieving my muscle pains.

But the biggest part of the solution for me was starting to use a break program that forced me to take regular breaks from typing—before I would program for hours without breaks. At the time I was using Linux, and it was not easy to find a program that worked for Linux. Eventually I found a really great one called WorkPace. I set it up to force me to take micro-pauses for ten seconds every five minutes, and longer breaks (with exercises) every 45 minutes.

A few years ago, when changing jobs, I switched from Linux to Windows, but I kept usingWorkPace. Recently (without changing jobs) I switched to using a Mac, and unfortunately WorkPace is not available for Macs. After some testing I switched to using RSI Guard instead, which is comparable to WorkPace.

I believe that the break-program together with the ergonomic keyboard and mouse really saved me. Over a period of about six months, my problems gradually disappeared, and I can now work without problems.

In the hindsight, it feels pretty obvious that you should treat the cause and not the symptom (just like when fixing bugs). However, none of the doctors and physical therapists I saw realized this. Instead, they were all in one way or another treating the symptoms. This was six and a half years ago, so there may be more awareness today about RSI and computer-related injuries, but you never know.

So my advice is that if you feel any pain when typing, do something about it right away. Don’t ignore it and hope that it will go away by itself, because it most probably won’t. Most people have no problems, and therefore do not pay much attention to ergonomics (why should they—they have no problems). But I was programming for more than ten years without problems, and then it started to happen. It’s called Repetitive Stress Injury for good reason—it is the many repetitions of the same movement over many years that cause the problems.

In my case, the combination of a break program, an ergonomic keyboard and mouse made all the difference—without that, I would probably not be programming today.

Soundfreaq’s $100 SFQ-04 sound Kick is a decent portable Bluetooth speaker. Its sound, looks, and features all strike me as acceptable, if unremarkable.

the Sound Kick weighs just 1.6 pounds, and it measures 10.5 inches wide, 4.2 inches tall, and 1.6 inches deep when collapsed. Collapsed? One of the defining features of the unit is that, for portability purposes, it can fold in on itself to that 1.6-inch depth. When you want to listen, you exert some force on the rear of the unit to pull out the back. Once you do that, the Sound Kick sits about 2.5 inches deep. Soundfreaq refers to this extendable section as the XKICK Speaker Chamber.

This extension also acts as a stand for tilting the Sound Kick back for a better listening angle, although the position is a bit precarious—bump the Sound Kick, and it usually returns to the upright position.

The Sound Kick’s body is made of black plastic with a metal grill. On the top sit eight identically-shaped, round, touch-sensitive buttons: previous, play/pause, next, pair, UG3, volume down, volume up, and power. The Pair button, unsurprisingly enough, puts the Sound Kick in Bluetooth-pairing mode; pairing the system was effortless when I tested it with my iPad, iPhone, and Mac.

The UG3 button triggers a proprietary audio mode of the same name. Soundfreaq says it’s meant to “enhance audio separation.” The effect, though artificial, does indeed widen the stereo image noticeably. However, it can also lead to some distortion, especially at louder volumes.

On the rear of the Sound Kick, ports sit at the left and right ends. On the right sits a 1/8-inch (3.5mm) auxiliary-audio input. On the left, there’s the power-adapter connection, a USB port, and a light that reflects the status of the internal rechargeable battery. This indicator isn’t as useful as it ought to be: It glows green when fully charged, red while charging, and blinks when you’re nearly out of juice. A line of lights indicating the amount of remaining charge would be more helpful. Soundfreaq says to expect about seven hours of battery power at moderate volume; I got six with the Sound Kick dialed up fairly loud.

The USB port isn’t for playback. Rather, it’s there to let you charge other devices via USB, even when the Sound Kick is running off its own battery. Of course, charging another device reduces the Sound Kick’s playback time, but it also limits the system’s maximum volume.

A thin status light glows from behind the speaker grill when the Sound Kick is powered on or is in pairing mode. Annoyingly, you also need to rely on that light to determine the status of UG3 mode, since the UG3 button itself doesn’t offer an indication of the current setting—the light flashes once when you turn on UG3 and twice when you turn it off. (It’s possible I got that backwards, which is exactly why it’s a poor indicator.)

Macworld’s buying advice

The Sound Kick’s audio quality isn’t bad, but that’s the highest praise I can offer it. Although the system’s dual 2.3-inch drivers offer decent performance and can get plenty loud, bass presence is negligible. I found that music too often tended to sound a bit thin, lacking the oomph and clarity you’d hear from the $150 (and larger) Logitech Wireless Boombox (). The Sound Kick can certainly get louder than the tinier Jawbone Jambox (), but I prefer the smaller speaker’s audio quality. And the Big Jambox () bests the Sound Kick in both volume and quality. Of course, all these systems are also more expensive than the Sound Kick—in the case of the Big Jambox, three times as pricey—but sometimes you get what you pay for.

Gina Trapani — A few years back you dropped significant cash to switch over from the virus-laden world of Windows to a shiny new Mac, but over time it’s gotten slow and crufty. Let’s clean it up.

Before you get started uninstalling this and deleting that, do yourself a favor: hook up an external drive to your Mac and back everything up with Time Machine or any other free alternative. The last thing you want is for your “clean up” to turn into “holy crap where did all my Documents go.”

Ready? Let’s get started. (PC user? You want this article.)

Find the CPU and Memory Hogs in the Activity Monitor

first things first. If your Mac is acting like a petulant three-year-old, dragging its feet, crossing its arms, and refusing to do what you ask in any reasonable amount of time, it’s time to fire up the Activity Monitor (in Applications > Utilities). Here you’ll see a list of running applications and processes. Sort the columns shown in the screenshot to find out what Apps are hogging the most CPU time (Firefox, in this case), what apps are for Intel or PowerPC (it’s a good idea to use Intel-only apps on Intel Macs), and what apps are running at all. If there are processes running for software you don’t need, note them down. Also, if an app is a runaway CPU and memory hog, quit it and restart for immediate relief.

Clean Up Your Startup

Whether or not the Activity Monitor is showing processes you don’t recognize, it’s a good idea to audit what programs start up automatically when you log onto your Mac. In System Preferences, Accounts (I know, unintuitive placement), click on the Login Items tab. From there, make sure each and every app listed is something you need and use. If it isn’t? Just select it and click the minus (-) sign. (Rule of thumb: Generally you want to keep things called “SomethingHelper” where Something is an app you use, like iTunes or Growl, as shown.)

Uninstall Unneeded Apps (and Related Files)

Just like your Login Items, you want to cruise through your Applications folder and trash anything you don’t need or use any more. To be clear, this won’t speed up your Mac, but it will reclaim hard drive space.

Before you get to dragging and dropping unneeded applications to the trash, though, it’s a good idea to install a, well, uninstaller program. Strangely Apple still hasn’t shipped a proper uninstaller with Mac OS X, but a few free and pay-for apps will clear out related files when you send an application to the Trash. While the irony of having to install something in order to uninstall something isn’t lost on us, keep in mind: your Mac will be fine if an extra plist file gets left behind by an app you once used.

But, in case you’re a neat freak, you want to check out the likes of AppTrap (free, our review), AppDelete (used to be free, now requires a minimum payment of $5 after a few uses, our review), or AppZapper ($13, our review).

Personally I prefer Hazel, which will set you back $22 for a license—however, in addition to clearing away application files on uninstall, Hazel can make your Mac self-cleaning, too, which makes it worth the cost.

Do Some Maintenance

Now it’s time to make sure your disks are in tip-top shape, and luckily, you can do this without any extra software. Simply run Disk Utility (in Applications > Utilities) to verify and repair disk permissions (which determine what apps can do what with what files on your Mac) and verify and repair the disk itself. These operations take some time, and you can’t do them while other applications are running, so set ‘em in motion before you head out to lunch or to grab coffee. 

To run some more hardcore and detailed maintenance tasks, download the free OnyX (our review). While OnyX does lots of fun Mac customization (see the Parameters tab for that stuff), you want the Maintenance and Cleaning tabs. There you can do things like manually run your Mac’s daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance scripts (which don’t on their own if you shut down your Mac at night), and clear out log files and system caches. You can also fix system application-specific issues, by rebuilding Spotlight’s or Mail’s index, if those apps are acting particularly wonky.

Reclaim hard drive Space

While you’re on a cleaning spree, figure out exactly what’s taking up all that space on your Mac with a visual tool that maps what’s what. Disk Inventory X (free, our review), is your best bet in this area: it creates what’s called a “tree map” of your hard drive usage that will unearth things like 10 gigabytes of video files you just don’t need any more.To get down to the unneeded-megabyte level, Macworld has some detailed advice for where to find redundant system files and Dashboard widgets. You can also reclaim space taken up by unneeded language files using the free Monolingual (our review).

Care for and Troubleshoot Your battery and Memory

If you’ve got a Mac notebook and you’re having trouble with your battery, a few troubleshooting techniques might help. First, to get the longest life out of your battery, calibrate it to make sure your life-o-meter is giving you the right readings.

If your Mac’s battery is cutting out before issuing the “You’re running out of power” warning, you want to reset the SMC or PMU, which cleared up that very problem on my MacBook.

Finally, some problems can be resolved by resetting your Mac’s PRAM and NVRAM—but this is generally a last-resort just-short-of-the-Genius-Bar troubleshooting technique for that inexplicable problem your Mac’s having.

Beef Up Your Memory and Get the Latest System Updates

This should go without saying, but the more memory your Mac has, the snappier it will be. If you’re thinking about an upgrade and you’ve got a MacBook, check out Adam’s guide to adding RAM to your Mac.

Also, it’s generally a good idea to stay up-to-date with OS X patches and versions—and normally Software update runs on its own and does just that. (Note: Yesterday the 10.5.7 update came out, and while I had no problems with it, Gizmodo reports that some people are having issues. As always, back up your stuff continuously to avoid disaster.)

Got any tales of victory or defeat when it comes to cleaning up and speeding up your Mac? Tell ‘em in the comments.

Gina Trapani, Lifehacker’s founding editor, has a MacBook pro that’s a bit snappier today than it was yesterday. Her weekly feature, Smarterware, appears every Wednesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Smarterware tag feed to get new installments in your newsreader.